Sergei Lavrov has had a busy month. In recent weeks, the Russian foreign minister has zig-zagged across Africa, with stops in South Africa, Mali, Mauritania, and Sudan.
During his trip, Lavrov took every opportunity to rail against the West and harken back to its colonial history.
“We see the reaction of the Western states on the evolution of [Russo-Malian] relations, and we see with regret that it is again negative, a negative attitude of the West to the principles of parity and mutual respect,” he said during a joint press conference with Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop.
“We are not going to continue to justify our choice of partners,” Diop said, a response to accusations that Russian mercenaries have committed human rights abuses in Mali. “This decision is a decision of the Malians and a decision that is taken with full responsibility. And Mali wants to work with Russia.”
Lavrov’s warm welcome on the continent, in part the result of years of diplomatic and military efforts by Moscow, highlights the uphill battle that Western powers face in courting African support for Ukraine. Though African leaders are sensitive to violations of international law by great powers, they are also wary of Western double standards around when it may be legitimate to break the rules. And it’s hard to ignore the fact that the secondary effects of the war — including inflated food prices related to grain shortages — have disproportionately impacted poorer countries.
As Aude Darnal of the Stimson Center recently told RS, leaders across the Global South “are now really vocal about protecting their interests and their policy independence.”
“We have many African states saying ‘we do not want to sign on with one power or the other, we want to be able to have partnerships with the different countries involved,’” Darnal said.
This helps explain why, despite a series of recent U.S. efforts to court support in Africa, none of the continent’s 54 countries has joined Western sanctions against Russia. But it also reveals an opportunity for the United States to change its approach to the Global South.
Instead of castigating countries for dealing with Moscow, Washington could take advantage of their neutrality and encourage them to serve as mediators for talks aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine, or at least mitigating its worst effects. Many countries have already offered their services in this regard, including South Africa, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, and the UAE.
Some diplomatic efforts from countries in the Global South have already borne fruit. Just last Saturday, Russia and Ukraine swapped nearly 200 prisoners of war following negotiations brokered by the UAE.
In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:
— Fighting has intensified in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv says Moscow is preparing for a new offensive in the region, according to the Guardian. Ukrainian officials predict that the offensive will target the Luhansk region of the Donbas.
— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the United Kingdom for its support and pushed London to send fighter jets to Kyiv in his second foreign visit since Russia’s invasion, according to AP News. Zelensky also made stops in Paris and Brussels, where he emphasized themes of European unity against Russia. "Free Europe cannot be imagined without free Ukraine," he said. "Europe is free, Europe will be free, and Europe is united."
— UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that, with dim prospects for peace, the conflict risks entering into an escalatory spiral that will draw in other states, according to the Hill. “The prospects for peace keep diminishing. The chances of further escalation and bloodshed keep growing,” Guterres said. “I fear the world is not sleepwalking into a wider war. I fear it is doing so with its eyes wide open.”
— The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that China has assisted Russia’s war effort by selling “navigation equipment, jamming technology and jet-fighter parts to sanctioned Russian government-owned defense companies.” If true, the accusation would bely Beijing’s claim that it is a neutral actor in the conflict.
— Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett claimed in a self-published interview that he attempted to mediate between Russia and Ukraine in the early months of the war, but the U.S., Germany, and France stepped in and "stopped" the discussions. Bennett clarified in a subsequent tweet that, while there was no deal on the table at the time, he "gave it roughly a 50% chance" of succeeding. He also cited alleged Russian atrocities in Bucha as a reason for the talks' falling apart. It remains unclear if this peace initiative is related to the one that Boris Johnson allegedly pushed Ukraine to abandon in April of last year.
— In the New York Times, conservative columnist Ross Douthat argues that the United States should push for difficult compromises in Ukraine given that a long war would have significant humanitarian and strategic consequences. “All this is easier said than done, especially given the moral asymmetry in the war, where any settlement short of Russian surrender will necessarily concede something to a wicked aggressor,” Douthat writes. “But if the next phase of war suggests that such a compromise is required for peace, better to seek it sooner than after many more seasons of suffering and death.”
U.S. State Department news:
In a Monday press conference, State Department spokesperson Ned Price criticized China over reports that Beijing has supplied Moscow with military equipment used in Ukraine. “Our message to the PRC has been very simple: we’re watching very closely,” Price said. “There are and would be costs and consequences if we were to see a systematic effort to help Russia bypass the sanctions that dozens of countries around the world have enacted against the Kremlin.”
