Kremlin Attempts To Buy Votes Of African Countries At UN.
An independent Russian channel posting on Telegram, “Mozhem Obyasnit”, reported on Saturday that Russia attempts to buy votes of African countries, members of the United Nations, by offering preferential conditions for investments, food exports or delivery of military equipment.
The independent channel listed several examples of alleged bribing attempts, including military equipment contracts for Eritrea, in exchange for abstaining from the vote on condemning Russia’s operations. Angola was also purportedly asked for neutrality in the vote, in exchange for industrial and atomic energy projects, and development of cultural centers.
Eswatini (formerly Suazi), on the other hand, was offered grain exports, while the Democratic Republic of Congo was bribed with prospects of various imports from Russia, while Kinshasa promised to raise a statue of a Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin in exchange.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited in January several African countries, including the Ivory Coast, Angola, Eritrea, and Eswatini. Russian state media reported widely on renewed close relations between Moscow and the African nations, however, according to independent media, Russian influence there is owed to Moscowe’s lucrative investments rather than respect for the Russian Federation.
Only last year, Russia’s grain exports to Africa amounted to USD 2.5 bn and military equipment worth tens of billions of dollars, according to “Mozhem Obyasnit”.
When in 2009, the UN voted on the resolution condemning Russia for the aggression on Georgia, Moscow was supported by 18 countries, and 78 abstained from the vote. In October 2022, during the debate concerning the annexation of the occupied territories of Ukraine, 4 countries supported Russia and 35 abstained.
African countries began to shift their alliances with respect to the Russian invasion on Ukraine once the Kremlin blocked grain exports via the Black Sea, according to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Source: PAP
