Keep those arms sales coming
NAIROBI, Kenya — Since the days of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s leaders have rejected American criticism of their friendships with autocrats like Fidel Castro of Cuba and Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya, whose countries backed them during the most desperate moments of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Now South Africans are defending their loyalty to another autocrat — Vladimir V. Putin — and sitting out the global outcry over his invasion of Ukraine.
At the United Nations on Wednesday, South Africa was among 24 African countries that declined to join the resounding vote denouncing Russian aggression: 16 African countries abstained, seven didn’t vote at all and one — Eritrea — voted against it, keeping company only with Russia, Belarus, Syria and North Korea.
The striking tally reflected the ambiguous attitude across much of the continent where, with a handful of exceptions, the Ukraine war has been greeted with conspicuous silence — a sharp contrast with Western countries that are expanding sanctions, seizing oligarchs’ yachts, pressing for war crimes investigations, and even openly threatening to collapse the Russian economy.
“Russia is our friend through and through,” Lindiwe Zulu, South Africa’s minister of social development, who studied in Moscow during the apartheid years, said in an interview. “We are not about to denounce that relationship that we have always had.”
Many African countries have a longstanding affinity with Russia stretching back to the Cold War: some political and military leaders studied there, and trade links have grown. And in recent years a growing number of countries have contracted with Russian mercenaries and bought ever-greater quantities of Russian weapons.
A few African countries have condemned Russian aggression as an attack on the international order, notably Kenya and Ghana. Some 25 African nations voted for the U.N. resolution that denounced Mr. Putin’s actions on Wednesday. But deep divisions in the continent’s response were apparent from the start.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Since the days of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s leaders have rejected American criticism of their friendships with autocrats like Fidel Castro of Cuba and Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya, whose countries backed them during the most desperate moments of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Now South Africans are defending their loyalty to another autocrat — Vladimir V. Putin — and sitting out the global outcry over his invasion of Ukraine.
At the United Nations on Wednesday, South Africa was among 24 African countries that declined to join the resounding vote denouncing Russian aggression: 16 African countries abstained, seven didn’t vote at all and one — Eritrea — voted against it, keeping company only with Russia, Belarus, Syria and North Korea.
The striking tally reflected the ambiguous attitude across much of the continent where, with a handful of exceptions, the Ukraine war has been greeted with conspicuous silence — a sharp contrast with Western countries that are expanding sanctions, seizing oligarchs’ yachts, pressing for war crimes investigations, and even openly threatening to collapse the Russian economy.
“Russia is our friend through and through,” Lindiwe Zulu, South Africa’s minister of social development, who studied in Moscow during the apartheid years, said in an interview. “We are not about to denounce that relationship that we have always had.”
Many African countries have a longstanding affinity with Russia stretching back to the Cold War: some political and military leaders studied there, and trade links have grown. And in recent years a growing number of countries have contracted with Russian mercenaries and bought ever-greater quantities of Russian weapons.
A few African countries have condemned Russian aggression as an attack on the international order, notably Kenya and Ghana. Some 25 African nations voted for the U.N. resolution that denounced Mr. Putin’s actions on Wednesday. But deep divisions in the continent’s response were apparent from the start.
But Mr. Putin has also divided African opinion thanks to his own efforts to expand Russian influence across the continent through an unusual combination of diplomacy, guns and mercenaries.
In an effort to regain some of the influence that Moscow lost in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Putin hosted a glitzy summit in the southern Russian city of Sochi in 2019 that was attended by 43 African heads of state. A second Russia-Africa summit is scheduled for this fall.
But as Russia’s economy strained under Western sanctions imposed following the annexation of the Crimea in 2014, it could not afford the expensive enticements offered by other powers in Africa, like China’s cheap loans or Western development aid
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So it has offered no-questions weapons sales and the services of Russian mercenaries, many employed by the Wagner Group, a company linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Mr. Putin who is known as “Putin’s cook.”
In recent years, Wagner mercenaries have fought in civil wars in Libya and Mozambique, and are currently guarding the president of the Central African Republic, where they helped repel a rebel assault on the capital last year.
In January, Wagner fighters appeared in Mali, as part of a deal to combat Islamist insurgents that infuriated France, the former colonial power, which last month declared it was pulling its own soldiers out of Mali.
The military junta ruling Mali denies inviting Wagner into the country, but U.S. military officials say as many as 1,000 Russian mercenaries are already operating there.
Russia’s influence also stems from weapons sales. Russia accounts for nearly half of all arms imports into Africa, according to Russia’s arms export agency and organizations that monitor weapons transfers.
One of Mr. Putin’s staunchest defenders in the past week was a powerful figure in Uganda, a major customer for Russian weapons. Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, said in a Tweet:
“The majority of mankind (that are non-white) support Russia’s stand in Ukraine.”
He added, “When the USSR parked nuclear armed missiles in Cuba in 1962, the West was ready to blow up the world over it. Now when NATO does the same they expect Russia to do differently.”
That reference highlighted a jarring contradiction in Mr. Putin’s new embrace of Africa, said Maxim Matusevich, a history professor at Seton Hall University, in New Jersey, who studies Russia’s relationships in Africa.
“During the Cold War, the Soviets were trying to sell socialism to African nations while criticizing Western colonialism and imperialism,” he said. Now, Russia is engaged in a fresh bid for influence in Africa, but driven by right-wing nationalism.
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NAIROBI, Kenya — Since the days of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s leaders have rejected American criticism of their friendships with autocrats like Fidel Castro of Cuba and Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya, whose countries backed them during the most desperate moments of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Now South Africans are defending their loyalty to another autocrat — Vladimir V. Putin — and sitting out the global outcry over his invasion of Ukraine.
At the United Nations on Wednesday, South Africa was among 24 African countries that declined to join the resounding vote denouncing Russian aggression: 16 African countries abstained, seven didn’t vote at all and one — Eritrea — voted against it, keeping company only with Russia, Belarus, Syria and North Korea.
The striking tally reflected the ambiguous attitude across much of the continent where, with a handful of exceptions, the Ukraine war has been greeted with conspicuous silence — a sharp contrast with Western countries that are expanding sanctions, seizing oligarchs’ yachts, pressing for war crimes investigations, and even openly threatening to collapse the Russian economy.
“Russia is our friend through and through,” Lindiwe Zulu, South Africa’s minister of social development, who studied in Moscow during the apartheid years, said in an interview. “We are not about to denounce that relationship that we have always had.”
Many African countries have a longstanding affinity with Russia stretching back to the Cold War: some political and military leaders studied there, and trade links have grown. And in recent years a growing number of countries have contracted with Russian mercenaries and bought ever-greater quantities of Russian weapons.
A few African countries have condemned Russian aggression as an attack on the international order, notably Kenya and Ghana. Some 25 African nations voted for the U.N. resolution that denounced Mr. Putin’s actions on Wednesday. But deep divisions in the continent’s response were apparent from the start.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Since the days of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s leaders have rejected American criticism of their friendships with autocrats like Fidel Castro of Cuba and Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya, whose countries backed them during the most desperate moments of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Now South Africans are defending their loyalty to another autocrat — Vladimir V. Putin — and sitting out the global outcry over his invasion of Ukraine.
At the United Nations on Wednesday, South Africa was among 24 African countries that declined to join the resounding vote denouncing Russian aggression: 16 African countries abstained, seven didn’t vote at all and one — Eritrea — voted against it, keeping company only with Russia, Belarus, Syria and North Korea.
The striking tally reflected the ambiguous attitude across much of the continent where, with a handful of exceptions, the Ukraine war has been greeted with conspicuous silence — a sharp contrast with Western countries that are expanding sanctions, seizing oligarchs’ yachts, pressing for war crimes investigations, and even openly threatening to collapse the Russian economy.
“Russia is our friend through and through,” Lindiwe Zulu, South Africa’s minister of social development, who studied in Moscow during the apartheid years, said in an interview. “We are not about to denounce that relationship that we have always had.”
Many African countries have a longstanding affinity with Russia stretching back to the Cold War: some political and military leaders studied there, and trade links have grown. And in recent years a growing number of countries have contracted with Russian mercenaries and bought ever-greater quantities of Russian weapons.
A few African countries have condemned Russian aggression as an attack on the international order, notably Kenya and Ghana. Some 25 African nations voted for the U.N. resolution that denounced Mr. Putin’s actions on Wednesday. But deep divisions in the continent’s response were apparent from the start.
But Mr. Putin has also divided African opinion thanks to his own efforts to expand Russian influence across the continent through an unusual combination of diplomacy, guns and mercenaries.
In an effort to regain some of the influence that Moscow lost in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Putin hosted a glitzy summit in the southern Russian city of Sochi in 2019 that was attended by 43 African heads of state. A second Russia-Africa summit is scheduled for this fall.
But as Russia’s economy strained under Western sanctions imposed following the annexation of the Crimea in 2014, it could not afford the expensive enticements offered by other powers in Africa, like China’s cheap loans or Western development aid
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/...1181&surface=home-featured&variant=0_identity
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...1181&surface=home-featured&variant=0_identity
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/...1181&surface=home-featured&variant=0_identity
So it has offered no-questions weapons sales and the services of Russian mercenaries, many employed by the Wagner Group, a company linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Mr. Putin who is known as “Putin’s cook.”
In recent years, Wagner mercenaries have fought in civil wars in Libya and Mozambique, and are currently guarding the president of the Central African Republic, where they helped repel a rebel assault on the capital last year.
In January, Wagner fighters appeared in Mali, as part of a deal to combat Islamist insurgents that infuriated France, the former colonial power, which last month declared it was pulling its own soldiers out of Mali.
The military junta ruling Mali denies inviting Wagner into the country, but U.S. military officials say as many as 1,000 Russian mercenaries are already operating there.
Russia’s influence also stems from weapons sales. Russia accounts for nearly half of all arms imports into Africa, according to Russia’s arms export agency and organizations that monitor weapons transfers.
One of Mr. Putin’s staunchest defenders in the past week was a powerful figure in Uganda, a major customer for Russian weapons. Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, said in a Tweet:
“The majority of mankind (that are non-white) support Russia’s stand in Ukraine.”
He added, “When the USSR parked nuclear armed missiles in Cuba in 1962, the West was ready to blow up the world over it. Now when NATO does the same they expect Russia to do differently.”
That reference highlighted a jarring contradiction in Mr. Putin’s new embrace of Africa, said Maxim Matusevich, a history professor at Seton Hall University, in New Jersey, who studies Russia’s relationships in Africa.
“During the Cold War, the Soviets were trying to sell socialism to African nations while criticizing Western colonialism and imperialism,” he said. Now, Russia is engaged in a fresh bid for influence in Africa, but driven by right-wing nationalism.
Shunned by Others, Russia Finds Friends in Africa (Published 2022)
Africa’s largest arms dealer, Russia has ties to the continent that stretch back to the Cold War and helped Mr. Putin win rare support over the invasion of Ukraine.
