AFRICAN PERSPECTIVES ON THE UKRAINE WAR / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

African Perspectives on the Ukraine War

The West needs an understanding of the continent’s views on the conflict to gain support in its fight against Russia.

By: Antonia Colibasanu

On a recent trip to Prague, where I was working as a visiting professor at Charles University, some of the most interesting conversations I had were about the effects of the war in Ukraine on Africa and the repercussions it could have for European security. 

Located in the heart of Europe and sharing a border with Germany, the Continent’s biggest economy, the Czech Republic has a unique view on Europe’s challenges, including the Ukraine conflict. 

It hosts the largest Ukrainian community of any EU member state, with more than 130,000 Ukrainians living in the country before the war started, accounting for about 30 percent of its foreign population. 

Though it has accepted more than 300,000 Ukrainian refugees since the Russian invasion began, it was also one of the most vocal opponents of the EU’s migration reforms, which were introduced after the refugee crisis in 2015-16 and aimed at redistributing migrants within the bloc with mandatory quotas. 

It’s clear that the Czech Republic has handled Ukrainian refugees differently from those who arrived in Europe from the Middle East and Africa.

In my conversations with others in Prague, the biggest fear was that the Ukraine conflict would set off a new refugee crisis that Europe couldn’t manage and that this would make the bloc more vulnerable to security risks and intensify its disintegration. 

The trip thus forced me to think about the way Europe understands Africa – and the way Africa looks at Europe.

Current Challenges

In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on May 24, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union and Egypt would work closely to address the impact of the Ukraine war on food security. 

During an African Union summit a few days later, she reiterated that the bloc was committed to helping the continent deal with the issue. 

The commission’s stated goal in working with African states on the emerging food crisis is to end “unhealthy dependencies.” 

But European leaders are also hoping to gain support within Africa for the sanctions imposed on Russia in order to isolate the Russian economy as much as possible.

For African nations, however, the priority is food supplies. 

Africa’s biggest suppliers of wheat are Russia and Ukraine. 

Ukrainian grain is especially critical for North Africa, as well as for the Middle East. 

Most countries in these regions have already seen a decline in wheat supplies. 

The war – and specifically the resulting increases in prices for energy and raw materials – has also affected other sectors of African economies at a time when production and supply chains were already strained because of the pandemic. 

Similar issues are being experienced nearly everywhere, what makes Africa and its numerous underdeveloped countries – many of which are prone to internal conflict – different is that its populations are particularly fragile and vulnerable to price fluctuations.

In North Africa, states are struggling with internal security challenges due to high unemployment rates and weak governance. 

Countries in the Sahel and Central Africa are experiencing a number of problems stemming political and economic instability. 

Here, military coups are common, and fighting between national armies, jihadist forces and other militias (including Russian paramilitary forces) often define the security environment. 

The Horn of Africa, meanwhile, is still troubled by ongoing conflicts in Sudan and Somalia and by worsening food insecurity.

South Africa is struggling to maintain its stability as it faces not only high inflation caused by soaring energy prices but also power shortages and natural disasters like flooding in KwaZulu-Natal. 

The country is the most important destination for migrants from other African countries. 

The number of migrants coming to South Africa increased from around 2 million in 2010 to over 4 million in 2019. 

Though the figure dropped during the pandemic, it was expected to rise again as the pandemic subsided. 

But considering the country’s current economic problems, it’s unlikely South Africa will be as attractive a destination for African migrants as it once was.

Thus, Africa has generally weakened as the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have unfolded. 

Since African countries are generally young states with weak governments and economies dependent on external assistance, their foreign policies are generally unassertive and heavily influenced by their donors. 

The current global circumstances, however, offer African states an opportunity to make themselves heard by choosing a side in the conflict between Russia and the West – in exchange for economic support.

African Perspectives

The West – specifically, the United States and the European Union – is pressing African nations to support its agenda. 

Brussels can certainly invoke Africa’s various dependencies on Europe to motivate these countries to back its position. 

But Europe is not as significant a partner for African countries as it once was, while other players are taking on a bigger role. 

China is funding infrastructure and various other projects. 

Russia is promising new investments – its foreign minister recently traveled to Algeria to discuss a pipeline project – while Russian paramilitary organizations are increasingly active on the continent. Turkey is expanding its role here too.

African nations on the whole have been less than eager to support the West’s position on Ukraine. 

Many have a unique perspective on the war that differs from those of other nations around the world. 

Europe has not seen a military conflict on this scale since the end of World War II. 

But Africa has experienced several large-scale and bloody conflicts in that time. 

The conflict in Ukraine, and the toll it’s taken on civilian lives, simply isn’t as shocking in Africa as it is for those living in the West (even the massacre in Bucha didn’t seem to garner the same attention in Africa as it did in Europe and North America). 

In addition, looking at the way Europe has reacted to the events in Ukraine, some in Africa may accuse Europe and the West of hypocrisy considering their minimal responses to more violent conflicts in African countries.

There are also historical considerations. African states tend to associate Western European countries with their colonial pasts, while Russia is usually associated with the Soviet Union. 

During the Cold War, the Soviets supported many African independence movements. 

Ukraine is known to Africans as part of the former Soviet Union, and in that sense, the conflict there is seen as an unresolved matter stemming from the Cold War.

After the end of the Cold War, Russia wasn’t a significant player in Africa as Moscow didn’t specifically seek investment or closer trade ties with the continent. 

But over the past decade, it has started bolstering ties with countries that were disillusioned with Western powers and generally plagued by internal violence. 

Russia is a leading supplier of weapons to the region, selling both to governments and to nongovernmental groups, while Russian private military contractors like the Wagner Group continue to expand their presence.

On the Ukraine issue, Russia’s message to Africa (and others) is that it had to protect its interests against Western incursions into its buffer zone. 

This argument is consistent with African perceptions that the conflict is a remnant from the Cold War era. 

And in many ways, there remain unsettled matters from the Cold War in Africa as well. 

Some Cold War-era leaders remain in power, while others have been replaced by like-minded leadership. 

The West’s message on Ukraine, meanwhile, doesn’t resonate with a continent that perceives the West as the aggressor against the weak. 

Moreover, the discrimination faced by Africans who were living in Ukraine at the time of the invasion didn’t help sell the Western or Ukrainian case.

As for the sanctions imposed on Moscow, Africa generally sees sanctions as a tool that the West uses selectively, and not necessarily effectively, against states that don’t toe the Western line. 

Sanctions imposed on African countries are perceived as punitive measures against weak and poor nations that have struggled to develop. 

They haven’t been effective at inspiring real change within African nations and has served only to push them further away from the West. 

All these arguments have made African countries more sympathetic toward Moscow – though not necessarily pro-Russian.

Western Commitment

Meanwhile, the states that have condemned the war, such as Kenya, which has close ties to both the U.S. and the U.K., are doing so not in support of the West but in support of the international rule of law and the principle of non-aggression between states. 

There’s room for the West, and for Europe in particular, to establish serious policies to back up its commitment to Africa and remove widely held suspicions that the West is courting the continent only because of its need for allies against Russia and is otherwise uninterested in Africa’s development. 

These policies could include assistance on urgent matters like the food crisis and the supply of raw materials, as well as helping African states develop their economies, improve their governance systems and increase their overall stability by assisting in the fight against terrorism.

The first step, however, is to understand where Africa is coming from and why many on the continent sympathize with the Russians. 

It was not today’s Russia that backed the liberation of African states during the Cold War but the Soviet Union, of which Ukraine was a part. 

It’s essential therefore that Ukraine and Europe find the right way to communicate their message to African leadership with this in mind.

It’s also essential to show unity. Many European countries are facing internal problems of their own, and some EU member states have adopted different approaches from their bloc allies to Ukraine and Africa. 

African leaders know that the Europeans will be hard to work with so long as these divides exist. But they also know that if the West is united and committed to a strategic goal, it will deliver.

So far, African states have accepted whatever help the West was willing to provide – on health care, education, building institutions, etc. – while also working with others such as China on infrastructure. 

They will try to get as much as they can from all players interested in working with the continent. 

However, if the West is looking to influence Africa, it will need to build durable ties. 

Brussels will likely need to stop prioritizing the views of Western European states – the former colonial rulers of many African countries – as it works to establish a strategy for Africa. 

Emphasizing instead the perspectives of post-communist Eastern European states, which have some shared experiences with African nations, could become the foundation of lasting ties between Europe and Africa.

This is another reason it makes sense to think about Africa while in the Czech Republic. 

As a post-communist country in the heart of Europe, it understands the weaknesses of both Russia and the West, and could provide insight on the future challenges that the continent faces, even if they are far away and deep into the African continent.