For the past 5 centuries, European countries have virtually taken on the self-granted mandate over the management and development of Africa, shaping the continent with the colonial legacies that still define many of the observable dynamics nowadays. Recent years, however, have seen the rise of new global players who have made it their task to challenge the existing order by making use of modern strategies to exert influence internationally, in most cases more subtly than through direct invasion. Countries such as the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation have increasingly been expanding their geopolitical influence across the globe, seeking to increase their influence in the manoeuvring of global events through not only moral and political endorsements, but most relevantly through the undertaking of relatively low-cost economic and strategic endeavours.
With features comparable to the complex dynamics of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the Kremlin and its associated private groups have adopted a set of hybrid strategies to secure their foothold into the continent. On one hand, openly negotiated trade ties between African countries and Russia are clearly on the rise, growing between 2015 and 2021 with an average growth of 15% and reaching bilateral volumes of US$20 billion. Rapidly growing African nations, in fact, represent promising opportunities for Russian investors, as underlined in the statements of the Russia-Africa Summit by both sides of the conference. The 2019 African Continental Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA), which since 2021 eliminates intracontinental tariffs on 90% of traded products, further enhances such enticing market and favours the establishment of economic relations. Simultaneously, African governing elites maintain a growing interest in choosing to welcome Russian (or Chinese) projects and investment into their domestic market, as these tend to be free of the characteristic requirements for transparency or compliance with determined international standards on a broad range of socio-political issues imposed by traditional financial institutions, international organisations, and most Western countries.
Furthermore, the construction of economic relations is complemented through the progressive farming of strategic influence through the deployment of mercenary forces in conflict areas. The exemplary Wagner Group, for instance, constitutes one of the vanguards of Russia’s actions in Africa, as an ambiguous combination of mining companies, political leverage operations, and military or paramilitary squads taking action in crisis situations that present the Kremlin with valuable opportunities for the gain of strategic advantages. While official ties between the government and the Group have been consistently denied by Putin and his closest operatives, its actions under the guidance of oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin are seen internationally as the de facto translation into practice of the equally unrecognised hybrid warfare doctrine of Russian general Gerasimov. The different chapters of the Group, which has ceased to exist as a coherent unit to increase plausible deniability, have engaged in social disinformation campaigns, military operations in conflict zones such as Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, the Central African Republic, and more, provided ammunitions, but also led diamond and gold mining operations.
The troops deployed under the guise of aiding the favoured side of the conflict, or with the mission of countering Islamist groups, have largely been accused of human rights violations carried out under the inattentive eye of authoritarian leaders affiliated with the Kremlin. Their presence in the countries serves a double rationale: on one side, it secures and facilitates economic exploitation and dependence of the African States, rich in valuable resources ranging from gold to oil to so-called conflict minerals. On the other hand, the establishment of such trade connections, backed by the display of military might, helps build a state of subordinative influence: much like Beijing, Moscow thus enjoys the benefits of pre-emptive obedience from many of the African regimes that host Russian businesses and mercenaries, particularly in context where the lack of action by Western countries has left a confidence vacuum.
These accelerating trends are – and should increasingly be – cause for concern for European and NATO leaders, whose security might be at stake as tensions with Russia continue to rise. The Kremlin’s chokehold on many African states grants Russia the ability of shaping and instrumentalising social trends, not only on the ideological level but, relevantly, through the practical manipulation of migratory flows. In fact, instances of such tactic have recently been witnessed with the crisis of autumn of 2021 caused by thousands of Middle Eastern individuals attempting to cross the Belarus-Poland border, thus entering the European Union. The migrants were allegedly directed by Russian authorities towards the EU, in an attempt to simultaneously retaliate against European sanctions on the oligarchic circles and destabilise the internal cohesion and external security of the Union, which found itself forced to consider the possibility of military escalation months before the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine. Indeed, both Putin and Belarus deny any involvement in the crisis, pushing instead a strategically convenient anti-Western narrative which shifts the focus to the root causes of the need for these people to leave their countries, such as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such rationale made the crisis a multi-faceted threat to the European Union, which was ideologically undermined by Putin’s accusations, caught in hypocrisy in their reluctance to welcome refugees, externally probed and internally divided by the emergency situation. As theorised by UK Secretary of Defence Ben Wallace, “If [Russia] can use migrant flows as a weapon at one end of Europe”, what’s to stop the Kremlin form doing the same from the other side of Europe’s neighbourhood, leading to a re-ignited migrant crisis on the southern borders of the continent?
The instrumentalization of human movements is not only favoured by the elucidated multilateral hybrid strategies for progressive control, but also favoured by the worsening conditions caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine which, in the interconnected global supply chains, have led to dramatic repercussions in large regions of Africa. East African nations, in particular, which were already suffering from the worst drought in 40 years, have seen their stream of wheat cut off as the conflict progressed. Ukraine, in fact, in not casually called the “breadbasket of the world”: as it supplies 90% of the wheat in the region, the inability of shipments to leave the silos or ports due to the ongoing war has led to disproportionate increase in prices which, in turn, have had disastrous consequences on the already impoverished populations. With costs for bread and cooking oil quickly rising, 23 million people are currently victims of extreme hunger only in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya, as reported by Oxfam and Save the Children. Such conditions will first-hand favour migration and, at the same time, destabilise the interior social texture of the countries, favouring the development of clashes and conflict which will further fuel the displacement of peoples. With the aid of their Wagner Group militants on the ground, it appears hardly unachievable for Russia to direct migratory waves towards the weaker Southern countries of the European Union, leveraging the human pressure on the Western bloc to gain strategic advantages.
Furthermore, the reaction of the Union to an eventual new crisis from Africa will pose an opportunity for the EU to either prove wrong those who underlined the difference between treatment of the Caucasian Ukrainian refugees and that reserved to Middle Eastern and African ones. The European Union, already under strain in their efforts to manage the influx of people displaced directly by the war in Ukraine, will thus find itself having to coordinate a response and plan of action with NATO forces and under the scrutinous eye of the international public opinion.
While the June 2022 Madrid NATO summit might encourage new forms of collaboration between the Transatlantic organisation and EU agencies such as Frontex to tackle the border insecurity that might ensue as a result of concurrent global events – among which, pressures from Russia – it must be taken into account that effective action should aim to tackle the root causes of the possible crisis, rather than its visible consequences.
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By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
