Saint Petersburg, (SONNA) – Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country and the African leaders attending a summit\u00a0in St Petersburg have agreed to promote a multipolar world order and fight \u201cneocolonialism\u201d as he offered debt write-offs and grain to woo allies.<\/p>\n
\u201cRussia\u2019s attention to Africa is steadily growing,\u201d Putin said on Friday at the end of the two-day summit. The meeting was seen as a test of Moscow\u2019s support in Africa, where Russia retains backing despite international isolation sparked by its war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the Russian leader promised free grain to six African nations and assured them that Moscow was\u00a0trying to avert a global food crisis\u00a0nearly a week after withdrawing from an agreement that allowed Ukraine, one of the world\u2019s largest grain producers, to export its farm products across the Black Sea.<\/p>\n
The Russian leader also mentioned the \u201cjoint determination to counter neocolonialism, the practice of applying illegitimate sanctions and attempts to undermine traditional moral values\u201d.<\/p>\n
Representatives of 49 countries, including 17 heads of state, attended the summit in the Russian city.<\/p>\n
Participants signed a joint declaration that called for \u201cthe establishment of a more just, balanced and stable multipolar world order, firmly opposing all types of international confrontation in the African continent\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018New initiative towards Africa\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Al Jazeera\u2019s Ali Hashem, reporting from St Petersburg, said the declaration is Russia\u2019s \u201cnew initiative towards Africa\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a Russian plan for Africa,\u201d he said, adding that there are \u201cvery ambitious initiatives\u201d from Putin.<\/p>\n \u201cRussia wants to gain Africa allies. This is why it\u2019s initiating more and more towards Africa \u2013 to the extent that President Putin wants to \u2026 revive the Soviet era investments in Africa,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n According to Hashem, Russia plans on building plants and factories and increasing diplomatic missions on the continent.<\/p>\n Putin is also promising to maintain grain supplies to Africa after he withdrew from the Black Sea grain deal. He is blaming the West for higher food prices and inflation and said the global economic system is going through significant change.<\/p>\n Africa is the \u201cnew centre of power. Its political and economic role is growing exponentially. \u2026 Everyone will have to take this reality into account,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n For several years, the Kremlin has openly engaged in diplomatic and economic offensives on the continent and offered security services in the form of the Wagner mercenary army to African governments fending off armed group.<\/p>\n But in recent months, Russia has had to speed up its quest for alternatives to European partners.<\/p>\n Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has toured Africa twice since January, seeking to draw it into Moscow\u2019s camp and presenting Russia as a bulwark against Western \u201cimperialism\u201d and \u201cneocolonialism\u201d.<\/p>\n Source: Al Jazeera<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saint Petersburg, (SONNA) – Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country and the African leaders attending a summit\u00a0in St Petersburg have agreed to promote a multipolar world order and fight \u201cneocolonialism\u201d as he offered debt write-offs and grain to woo allies. \u201cRussia\u2019s attention to Africa is steadily growing,\u201d Putin said on Friday at the end […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":419216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-419215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":419217,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419215\/revisions\/419217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}