“We intend to expand our engagement with African countries across the board, focusing above all on the economy and investment,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said on 9 June. In recent months Moscow has multiplied investment pledges. Rosatom has lined up agreements with African governments to build nuclear plants and is eyeing Nigerien uranium; an oil-pipeline project is on the cards in Congo; Russian wheat is flooding the continent; and ‘ghost fleets’ deliver fuel despite sanctions.

The economic push dates back roughly a decade.

“In 2012, Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency and reoriented diplomacy towards non-Western regions”, notably Africa, says Igor Delanoë, an associate researcher at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs. To rebuild Russia as a great power and weaken the West, the Kremlin has used every lever – political, military, media and commercial.

Russia’s ties with Africa go back much further.

For decades the Soviet Union armed independence movements, trained elites in its universities and built infrastructure. The collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1991, followed by a deep slump, brought that to a halt.

By 2010 the economy had recovered after a decade of growth, giving companies the means to match, and sometimes outpace, the Kremlin’s ambitions.

Extraction and exports

Russia returned to Africa through the sectors it knows best: hydrocarbons and mining. Those industries are controlled by state firms or oligarchs close to power.

Lukoil invested in oil and gas fields in Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria and later Congo-Brazzaville. Rosneft Oil Company signed up to Mozambique’s gas. Rostec and Vi Holding moved into platinum in Zimbabwe.

Firms already on the ground deepened their bets. Alrosa increased its stake in Angola’s Catoca diamond mine. Nordgold, after Guinea, bought a second gold project in Burkina Faso in 2016. Rusal finally restarted the Fria alumina refinery in Guinea, first acquired in 2003.

Trade has also meant Russian exports to Africa – arms, wheat, fertilisers, hydrocarbons and machinery. Tech has joined in. In 2018, ride-hailing group Yango, part of Yandex, launched in Côte d’Ivoire before spreading to about a dozen more markets.

The first Russia-Africa summit, held in Sochi in 2019, was billed as a turning point and the start of a broad push across the continent. All 54 African states were represented. Ninety-two agreements were signed, worth ?1,004bn (about $12.8bn).

Putin said trade with Africa had almost doubled in five years and would double again within the next five. That target has not been met. In 2024 trade reached $24.5bn, of which $21.2bn were Russian exports. Most of it is with three countries: Egypt, Algeria and South Africa.

Sanctions against Russia bite

Western sanctions since the Russia-Ukraine war help explain why. In a report on the ‘contradictory effects of Western sanctions on Russia–Africa economic relations’, Thierry Vircoulon of the French Institute of International Relations writes that sanctions have curbed Russian expansion in extractives.

Russia promises a lot, but what can it actually deliver?

Starved of finance, companies have retrenched employees. Partners have also walked away, since doing business with Russian firms has become more complex and more costly. Alrosa, for instance, had to quit the Catoca mine in Angola.

Exports have continued nonetheless. Despite wartime needs, weapons are still sent to Africa. Cut-price hydrocarbons now reach more countries. Moscow is also practising “grain diplomacy“, selling wheat at competitive prices – and at times giving it away – to win market share from Western and Ukrainian suppliers and to build influence.

Yet Russian companies remain keen on a continent that wants to diversify partners.

“Russia is trying to open logistics corridors to sub-Saharan Africa,” says Igor Delanoë. A7 Holding has launched a new sea route from Novorossiysk to Lagos via Dakar. He also points to Dodo Pizza’s entry into Morocco and Nigeria, the presence of cybersecurity firm Kaspersky and Yango’s success.

Russia needs Africa, says Ebenezer Obadare, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations – mainly for gold and diamonds. Gold, extracted in part by Wagner mercenaries in the Central African Republic, supports Russia’s revenues and currency. In parallel, Moscow is recruiting Africans to work in its drone factories.

Political giant, economic dwarf

For all the noise, Russia remains small economically. In 2024 Africa’s trade with Russia was $24.5bn; with the United States it was $104.9bn; with China, $295.6bn; and with the European Union, $355bn.

“Russia is a political giant without economic capacity. It promises a lot, but what can it actually deliver?” asks Obadare.

With limited finances, squeezed further by the war, Russia and its firms cannot always fund the projects they announce. Much of its economic presence is for show. It negotiates and signs deals to project the image of a major economic power that can export its know-how and help poorer nations suffering under the so-called “collective West”, argues Vircoulon.

The goal, above all, is geopolitical stature.