In the same way that the war against Iran is gradually diverting the Gulf away from Washington, Lavrov’s tour is, in turn, gradually diverting Africa away from the West.
A joint photo of the foreign ministers of Russia, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. / Yuri Kogalov/RG
This article looks back at the final stages of the tour and demonstrates how it influenced major events that subsequently occurred on the continent.
Maputo, the card that Paris never knew how to play
In Maputo on July 9, Lavrov wasn’t there as a diplomatic tourist. He first met with his counterpart, the Mozambican Foreign Minister, Maria Manuela Lucas, and then with Mozambican President Daniel Chapo. The two countries formalized the modernization of their trade relations. Mozambique, rich in gas, graphite, and rare earth elements, is becoming a strategic anchor in the energy architecture that Moscow is weaving from the Gulf of Guinea to the Indian Ocean. Here, there’s no post-colonial sentimentality, no moralizing rhetoric, especially since Moscow isn’t looking for opportunistic allies. It’s building supply chains, patiently. A partnership of equals; and that’s precisely what the West, as a whole, has never been able to offer, neither to Africa, nor to Asia, nor to Latin America, and even less so to the Caribbean.
Bujumbura, loyalty that defies expectations
The final stage took place on July 10 in Bujumbura. President Évariste Ndayishimiye personally received the Russian foreign minister. Burundi, holding the rotating presidency of the African Union, was not a random choice. Lavrov had already visited the country in May 2023. In December 2025, in Cairo, the two diplomatic corps reaffirmed their commitment to deepening cooperation. A joint Russian-Burundian health monitoring center has been operational since the St. Petersburg summit. This is not opportunistic pandering. It is an alliance that thinks in terms of decades, while others think in terms of electoral cycles. Trust cannot be decreed overnight. It is built, year after year.
A long-term diplomacy, not a media stunt
Since 2022, Lavrov has been methodically crisscrossing the continent: Congo (July 25, 2022), Uganda (July 26, 2022), Ethiopia (July 27, 2022), then South Africa (January 23, 2023), Angola (January 25, 2023), Eritrea (January 26, 2023), then Mali (February 7, 2023), Mauritania (February 8, 2023), Sudan (February 9, 2023), then Guinea (June 3, 2024), Burkina Faso (June 4, 2024), and Chad (June 5, 2024). It is precisely this routine that worries the West, not the posturing. This new tour paves the way for the third Russia-Africa summit, in Moscow on October 28 and 29, already confirmed by more than thirty African states. The global chessboard is being reshaped before our eyes. Africa chose its place on it, rather than accepting the one assigned to it; and from now on, categorically refuses to have its place dictated to it.
The tempo that fools no one
Two days after Lavrov’s tour ended in Bujumbura on July 12, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, landed in Bamako, the first visit by an AU leader to Mali since the chilly years of the suspension. General Assimi Goïta received him at Koulouba, the presidential palace. He also met with Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop. This visit focused on assessing the security and humanitarian challenges and maintaining a structured channel of dialogue between the AU and the Sahel authorities to facilitate a return to democratic order. However, does Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, a native of Djibouti, a country ruled by Ismaïl Omar Guelleh since May 1999, have the legitimacy to demand a return to democratic order in Mali?
On July 14, Youssouf was in Ouagadougou. On July 15, he met with Karamoko Jean Marie Traoré, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Burkina Faso. He also spoke with the Prime Minister of the transitional government, Appollinaire Joachim Kyélem de Tambèla. Discussions focused on bilateral cooperation between Burkina Faso and the continental body. The message was reiterated: engage in dialogue with the ESA, stop snubbing it. The Sahel Confederation is no longer an anomaly to be excluded. It is a continental reality to be negotiated with the respect due to an emerging power.
Following Youssouf’s visit to the region, three days later, on July 19, ECOWAS held its 69th summit in Lungi, Sierra Leone. Twelve member states were now represented, after the resounding departure of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Bassirou Diomaye Faye became the new chairman; General Briame Diop, also from Senegal, was appointed head of the commission. Guinea, long suspended, regained its full membership, and Mamadi Doumbouya participated fully in the summit’s activities. The organization, founded in 1975 for integration, was reinventing itself under the pressure of the Sahelian fait accompli. A coincidence of timing? No serious expert believes so. Lavrov, Youssouf, ECOWAS: three sequences, a single dynamic, that of a continent reshaping its hierarchies in the wake of Russian diplomacy, which was the first to open the floodgates.
The trial that Paris refuses to hear
For decades, Paris has administered a portion of Africa behind the scenes. Opaque defense agreements, pegged currencies, military bases justified by a flexible counterterrorism strategy, and heads of state more often handpicked than elected. This architecture has been collapsing in the Sahel since 2020, and Paris is finding it hard to accept.
Dates never lie. Bamako expelled the French ambassador in January 2022. French troops left Mali in August 2022, after nine years of Operation Barkhane with disastrous results. Ouagadougou, in turn, demanded their departure in January 2023, before later severing diplomatic relations with Paris on June 26, 2026. Niamey denounced the military agreements with Paris after July 2023, and the last French soldiers packed up in December of the same year, then declared Ambassador Sylvain Ité persona non grata. Three capitals, three breaks, in less than two years. This is more of a continental repudiation of an entire system than a regional coincidence.
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has revealed that Ukrainian and French experts are preparing destabilization operations in Africa. Moscow states this unequivocally. Similar to the repeated terrorist attacks at Niamey airport, a French drone was recently neutralized by the Malian army in Bamako, according to local sources. SVR believes Kyiv is gathering intelligence and training groups hostile to the regimes of the ASS, in the wake of its war against Russia. The statement made by the Ukrainian ambassador to Senegal following the battle of Tinzaouatène confirms this. Paris and Kyiv deny these accusations. However, Western silence regarding the murky aspects of Françafrique (secret agreements, electoral interference, hidden funding) fuels doubt more than it dispels it. A lie by omission remains a lie.
What Moscow is changing for good
An Africa that diversifies its partnerships is no longer an Africa under guardianship. The October summit in Moscow will mark this shift. Military training, energy, grains, health, digital technology: the projects are piling up, concrete and measurable. The ASS is advancing its unified force, supported by the Africa Corps of the Russian armed forces. It is considering a common currency and is negotiating its mining and mining operations without consulting anyone. By 2025, its three economies had grown by 5.5%, according to the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development itself. The figure speaks louder than any moralizing posturing.
Tomorrow, other capitals will follow: Conakry, Dakar, perhaps Libreville. Emancipation cannot be decreed from Brussels or Washington. It is built, stone by stone, from Bamako, Niamey, and Bujumbura.
Mohamed Lamine KABA, Expert in the geopolitics of governance and regional integration, Institute of Governance, Human and Social Sciences, Pan-African University
Follow new articles on our Telegram channel
