The third Russia–Africa Summit, held in Moscow on October 28–29, 2026, will go down in history not so much for the number of agreements signed as for defining and advancing its ideology.
Photo: Kirill Kazachkov
The Economic Foundation: BRICS Overtakes the G7
The central thesis that the Russian side promoted at the summit rests on statistics. According to Vladimir Putin, the BRICS countries have produced more than 40% of global GDP over the past five years, while the G7 accounted for only 29%. This figure became a key argument in favor of the claim that the architecture of global governance, frozen in postwar proportions, no longer reflects the real distribution of economic power.
For Africa, this argument has a double significance. On the one hand, the growth of BRICS is seen as proof that the world is ceasing to be unipolar and that developing countries are gaining an alternative venue for decision-making. On the other hand, the continent itself, according to UN data, will by 2050 be home to a quarter of the planet’s population, which makes it central to the future of the world economy and international security. However, this demographic and economic weight has still not been converted into institutional influence.
The African Demand: “Not a Privilege but Justice”
The most emotionally charged part of the summit was the African leaders’ reaction to the topic of UN Security Council reform. Their position had been formulated long before the Moscow meeting, at the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York, and at the summit it merely received an additional platform for articulation.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said that reform of the institution must begin with the reconstitution of the Security Council, “for the world of 2026 cannot remain a prisoner of the 1945 distribution of power.” He stressed: “Africa cannot continue to fill the Council’s agenda while remaining absent from its permanent membership.” Nigeria demands at least two permanent seats for Africa “with all the rights and responsibilities of permanent membership, including the veto power, as long as it exists, and five non-permanent seats.”
Liberian President Joseph Boakai called the absence of a permanent seat for a continent of 1.5 billion people a “historical injustice” and noted that 80% of the Council’s mandates concern peace and security in Africa, which nonetheless “remains without a single permanent seat in the body responsible for global peace.” His formula is extremely blunt: “Eighty years of patience is enough. The time for structural reform has come now.” He also stated directly that “correcting this imbalance is not a favor to Africa” but a necessary condition for restoring trust, credibility, and the legitimacy of the UN.
Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama formulated the same idea through the prism of the organization’s survival: reform of the Council is “not a favor to Africa but an imperative for the legitimacy, credibility, and survival of the United Nations.”
The position of the African Union, based on the 2005 Ezulwini Consensus, remains unchanged: at least two permanent seats with full veto power (if it is retained) and five non-permanent seats for the continent.
Russia’s Position: “Natural Allies” Against “Dictate”
At the summit’s plenary session, Vladimir Putin outlined the ideology that was supposed to link African demands with Russia’s foreign policy agenda. “We are natural allies in building a multipolar, genuinely democratic world order… free from dictate and double standards, based on respect for the norms of international law and the basic principles of the UN Charter,” he said. In a more detailed version delivered at the plenary session, Putin added that the formation of a multipolar world “is proceeding with difficulty and encountering resistance from countries that are not ready to accept this reality, accustomed to thinking in terms of the colonial past and to ‘enriching themselves fabulously at others’ expense.’”
On the economic track, this rhetoric was reinforced by specific accusations against the West: Putin spoke of attempts to plunge African peoples into “debt slavery” through financial resources on predatory terms, which, according to him, hampers the continent’s long-term development. Russia, for its part, offered itself as a partner ready to share technology, including digital technology, and to support the localization of production rather than simply buying up raw materials. He also confirmed support for “strengthening Africa’s role in governance and key decision-making within multilateral development institutions, above all the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.”
This framework of “the colonial West versus an equal Russia” became the ideological core of the summit. However, it has an obvious vulnerable point: Western critics accuse Moscow of using Africa’s colonial past for its own interests rather than for the genuine emancipation of the continent. From this point of view, Russia’s support for Security Council reform looks instrumental—as a way to strengthen an anti-Western coalition rather than as a consistent institutional strategy.
The Western Response: Between Recognition and Resistance
The Western reaction to the summit and to the demand for Security Council reform was not uniform. On the one hand, a number of Western leaders and institutions de facto acknowledged the injustice of the current situation. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the absence of permanent representation for Africa “unfair and indefensible” in the 21st century. French President Emmanuel Macron, at the “Africa Forward” summit in Nairobi in May 2026, stated that France “is defending this agenda—Africa present in the UN Security Council.”
On the other hand, Western governments perceive Russian activity in Africa primarily as geopolitical competition. Analysts note that Moscow’s support for Africa’s bid for two permanent seats was formulated on terms that “quietly protect the Russian veto”: Russia approves a reform model that either extends the veto to new African members or preserves the veto overall—an outcome that the United States, the United Kingdom, and France have already rejected. As Model Diplomat notes, “Lavrov supported the African position most likely to preserve the current P5 architecture.” For Moscow, this is “insurance”: support for a reform that it can stop at any moment, since any change to the UN Charter requires the consent of all permanent members.
This is precisely where the key contradiction arises. Russia supports more African seats on the Security Council but does not call into question its own status as a permanent member with veto power. African leaders, for their part, demand not simply “representation” but full-fledged participation, including the veto, if that instrument is retained. A coincidence of interests at the level of rhetoric about multipolarity does not necessarily mean a coincidence at the level of institutional design.
Multipolarity as a Process, Not a Result
The 2026 Russia–Africa Summit showed that the demand for UN Security Council reform has ceased to be a marginal topic. It rests on a real demographic and economic shift, on the consolidated position of the African Union, and on the growing weight of BRICS, which already produces more than 40% of global GDP. However, the transition from demand to institutional change remains extremely difficult: reform of the UN Charter requires the consent of two-thirds of member states and all permanent members of the Council, each of which can block the process.
In this context, “multipolarity in action” is not so much an accomplished fact as an ongoing process in which Russia and Africa act as situational allies. Their interests coincide in criticizing Western dominance and in seeking a more distributed decision-making system. But they diverge on the question of what that system should look like and who in it will receive veto power. The real test of multipolarity will begin not at summits but in the negotiating rooms of New York, where the fate of the UN Charter is decided—and where the rhetoric of “natural allies” will collide with the hard reality of institutional compromises.
Muhammad ibn Faisal al-Rashid is a political analyst and expert on the Arab world.
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