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Africa Supports Russia’s Operation in Ukraine and Advocates a Revival of the Non-Aligned Movement

Vladimir Danilov, March 21, 2022

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The events in Ukraine and Russia’s actions there are perceived differently around the world. While some countries, under Washington’s onslaught, impose sanctions against Russia overits operation in Ukraine, others are strengthening relations with Moscow, or at least maintaining the status quo. While the Western world, influenced by the Russophobic policies of Washington and its allies, has stepped up the misinformation efforts aimed at its population, making Moscow look like a guilty party, there is also a significant number of states that are objective in their assessment of the events.

And a significant number of those who have supported Moscow’s position are countries of the African continent, whose citizens have considerable combat experience and were among the first to declare their willingness to join Russia’s special operation. It is Africans who have personally confronted terrorists supported by the collective West for years that recognize the EU and NATO fingerprints in the conflict in Ukraine. The Cameroonian fighters, for example, expressed their strong opposition to Nazism, believing that it had no place in the modern world. They know firsthand about racial neglect, as many of their loved ones were victims of abuse from white colonizers who did not consider them human for hundreds of years.

The citizens of the CAR also well remember the assistance of the collective West to the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), a conglomerate of groups that plunged the country into years of armed conflict. They therefore also express their support for Russia in Ukraine and stress that they are prepared to personally participate in the denazification of Ukraine, if necessary.

For the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Vladimir Putin and his courageous policies are also a model of his willingness to defend world peace, and they have shown a readiness to stand shoulder to shoulder with him in preventing Nazism in Ukraine.

North African countries such as Algeria and Libya have not stood idly by either. Libyans, for example, recalled that before the criminal intervention by the US, their homeland was a prosperous state. That is why the Libyan military is ready to help Russia fight back against the collective West, which is destabilizing the world through Ukraine.

Similar assessments have been made by Sudanese, South Africans and several other African states, stressing that the Ukrainian Nazis are one of the cruelest tools the EU and NATO could ever create. They also stressed that the collective West has once again shown how indifferent it is to the fate of civilians, whom it is prepared to sacrifice to satisfy its predatory interests.

This reaction of support for Russia from Africa is not surprising. Africa and Russia have always had a warm relationship. Any Russian on the African continent is not associated by the population with a white colonizer, but with a true friend who is strict about his commitments. After all, it was Moscow that showed the people of Africa that it was ready to develop equal mutually beneficial relations with them, develop their economy, build economic facilities on favorable terms and, even in difficult times for itself, write off multibillion debts of African states. African citizens therefore understand that the Russian special operation has an important purpose. They are well aware of the dangers of Nazism, what it can lead to and why it must be combated by all available means.

A number of African countries abstained in the vote on a UN resolution condemning Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, Frankfurter Allgemeine noted. As the outlet notes, the reasons are different and may include, for example, their historical relations with the USSR, which supported liberation movements in Algeria, Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Morocco, South Africa and many other states. Most of the elite of the African continent studied in the USSR. They are doctors, engineers, scientists, pilots in Africa. For this and many other reasons, Africans are deeply grateful to the Russians. However, Moscow’s noticeable expansion of its presence on the continent since 2014 also plays a role. Moreover, many African countries see Russia and China as important allies within the UN.

As South African President Cyril Ramaphosa pointed out during his last speech to parliament, the conflict in Ukraine could have been avoided if NATO had heeded Moscow’s warnings not to expand eastwards. The South African president stressed that if NATO had listened to the warnings of its own leaders and other officials, who have stressed for years that eastward expansion would provoke greater instability in the region, this would not have happened.

The South African president also noted that in recent days there has been increased pressure on the African country, given its international weight, its business contacts with Russia, including within BRICS, to adopt a more “hostile stance.” Nevertheless, the state’s approach seeks to achieve a “lasting solution to the conflict.”

Cooperation between Russia and South Africa within the BRICS and G20 frameworks does contribute to creating a multipolar world and strengthens Russia’s position on the world stage. It also helps to make the multipolar system of international relations more legitimate. The BRICS, meanwhile, is an important intermediate negotiating platform between individual country interests and the G20.

As for South Africa itself, it is the largest economy on the African continent, accounting for a third of sub-Saharan Africa’s combined GDP. South Africa has a well-developed infrastructure, one of the most developed financial markets in the world, and is also a leader in institutional development. In addition, the African continent has the largest reserves of natural resources. There is therefore no doubt that many countries are very interested in cooperating with South Africa, just as Pretoria itself is interested in playing an increasingly important role in world politics.

It is therefore not surprising that South Africa is among the countries that have already offered to be involved in the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. The country’s leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, called Vladimir Putin on March 10 about Ukraine and cooperation within the BRICS framework. The Russian president briefed on the reasons and objectives of the special military operation to protect Donbas, as well as on the situation in negotiations with representatives of the Ukrainian authorities. For his part, the South African leader “expressed support for the ongoing political and diplomatic efforts.”

South Africa’s particular interest in resolving the Ukrainian conflict is also due to the fact that the authorities are concerned about the treatment of its citizens in Ukraine. In particular, the South African government has expressed concern about the Kiev regime’s brutal treatment of Africans trying to leave Ukraine because of the widespread racist attitude towards them. They have to make detours from cities such as Kiev and Kharkov to get to Lvov, but in the end they are not allowed to cross the Ukrainian-Polish border because priority is given to white people. At the same time, organizations controlled by the Kiev regime are trying to recruit African nationals, including in South Africa, to be used in their military operations. Argus reports, in particular, that African mercenaries are recruited through Ukrainian diplomatic channels. Social media speak of several Africans who have come to Ukraine as such mercenaries, and even that after one of them got into an altercation with fighters from the nazi battalion, they shot him dead.

In light of the conflict in Ukraine, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called for a revival of the Non-Aligned Movement and also spoke of the weakness of the UN in the current situation. It should be recalled that the Non-Aligned Movement was an international organization, founded in 1961 during the Cold War, which brought together states in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe that adhered to the principle of non-alignment with any military bloc. Speaking to South Africa’s parliament, President Ramaphosa said: “We must work to revive the Non-Aligned Movement so that those countries that are not in a rivalry for hegemony between the major powers can work together to build world peace.” At the same time, he pointed out that while South Africa was in solidarity with the UN position calling for an end to military action in Ukraine, the entire situation demonstrated “the weakness of the structure and practical actions” of this organization. There is a need for a multilateral approach to peace and security issues, he said.

Vladimir Danilov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.