The three-year-long Ukraine-Russia war that continues to have adverse consequences for Africa, took a surprising turn this week when superpowers whose interests reign supreme, discussed new terms with Kyiv noticeably absent.
The United States of America and Russia reaffirm the imperial policy of reminding weaker states that if you’re not at the table as a diner guest, you’re on the proverbial menu. This hardline, callous and unflinching stance recently took center stage in Riyadh when Ukraine suffered the indignity of not being invited to the ceasefire negotiations of a war ravaging its territory, killing its fighters and civilians, destroying its infrastructure and livelihoods.
Inevitably gathering to share the spoils of war, carve out mineral rich parts, and dictate the country’s future, these powers demonstrate how most wars are curated in the first place by first world interests, laugh the loudest when only rubble remains.
Ukraine currently finds itself at the mercurial mercy of the United States’ returnee leader, while Moscow’s cold breath continues to blow uncomfortably down its neck. Many African countries also feel the spectre of the US’ isolationist policies, against an exposed jugular with staunch old friend Russia, caught with too many missiles in the air and having to let go of some prized territories like Syria.
But while Ukraine is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea with limited and dwindling options, African countries, especially in southern Africa, always on the ruinous end of their powerful friends’ whims, must look closer to home for solutions. There hasn’t been a better moment than now, particularly with Trump raising fears about further investment in the continent.
Lessons from the invasion are insightful and should give those in the global south indications of the rehabilitation and therefore the costs required to rebuild the country. Infrastructure damage to Ukraine is estimated in the hundreds of billions, with hundreds of thousands of residential properties as well as transport, farming and energy infrastructure having been irreparably
damaged.
In 2021, Ukraine supplied 15% of all corn in the global market and 10% of all wheat. But crop output plummeted since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Ukraine’s wheat production was expected to reach a maximum of 23 million tonnes in the 2024–25 season, still significantly lower than the 33 million tonnes per year produced before the war began.
In spite of the glaring impact, and naively so, the global community continues to cast these nuclear superpowers as cartoon characters. Opposing villains: right or left, East vs West, while the only enduring sentiment is that wars will be fought on our turf, permanently disenfranchising nations at the mercy of beastly global geopolitics.
But with the advent of Trump 2.0, the global south should stand up to the clumsy belligerence that is Washington today, dousing its influence network in fuel and setting alight bridges it actively still depends on.
And while the continent’s memory culture continues to romanticise its Cold War ally, Africans can hardly rely on their equally ungovernable but more tried and trusted friend, Russia.
Often, the South has looked to Russia, and more recently China, as an antidote to whatever shade of white supremacy the US has baked into both its global and domestic policies and exported to these shores through aid for decades.
While we watch in astonishment daily how the US is pulling off the mask of its own meddling in the world, Russia, and its supporters, would do well with much needed soul searching and remember Moscow’s many failures throughout the continent where it enjoys vast influence through diplomatic routes or its glorified mercenary network.
The Wagner Group may no longer operate under that name following a daring rebellion led by its head Yevgeny Prigozhin, yet the Russian state-funded mercenary group remains highly active on various hotspots around the continent.
Prigozhin’s story is itself a cautionary tale of how the powerful deal with their minions who become too big for their boots, outgrowing their usefulness, just as Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is currently finding out on the other end of this war.
Once a convict in the Soviet Union, Prigozhin headed various businesses fused with Russia’s military and funded by the state. His Wagner Group started out in order to foil Ukraine unrest in 2014.
Having survived sanctions from both the US and the European Union, the mercenary boss met his demise in August 2023, exactly two months after staging a failed rebellion. Prigozhin and nine other people were killed when a plane he was travelling in crashed north of Moscow.
Before his death, he had openly accused the Russian defence ministry of corruption and mishandling the war against Ukraine. In the event, political history misleads Africans to believe they are indispensable, Ukraine, Zelensky and Prigozhin all confirm too eerily, that expiry dates with superpowers is guaranteed.
With ignition of both historic and fresh tensions all over the continent and the well-trodden path of war as a tool to access resources, the group remains employed in peacekeeping missions and surreptitious political operations alike. Such is their entrenchment on that continent that both ruling and opposing sides in African governments procure the rogue and ruthless group’s services.
Russia is also making inroads in economic avenues, albeit laced with all too familiar dangers. In Namibia, Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation Rosatom has stepped up public relations and lobbying efforts to counter opposition in southern Namibia, where farmers and communities have raised concerns about the potential impact of uranium mining on a sensitive aquifer that forms the backbone of the country’s small stock farming sector.
The sentiment against in-situ mining in Namibia is slowly changing. Deep-rooted poverty and the worst drought in 100 years that caused malnutrition deaths in Namibia’s Omaheke region had political leaders there considering the jobs and business opportunities uranium mining could bring to the region despite warnings of its potential apocalyptic consequences.
Furthermore, Russian billionaire Rashid Sardarov has acquired a 99-year lease of four farms in Namibia from the government through Comsar Properties SA, registered in Switzerland.
The farms, spanning over 17 000 hectares, are subject to a court review to set aside the Namibian government’s decision to lease the farms to Comsar Properties.
COMRADES IN ARMS
Southern Africa’s relationship with Russia runs deep. Countries such as Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Angola are Frontline States that largely gained independence through the barrel of a gun, mostly armed and assisted by Russia. The relationships forged between Russia and various liberation struggle movements would deepen as these organisations gained and remained in power throughout the region and still actively enjoyed Russian financial, political and military support.
“South Africa’s vocal support of Russia stems from Russia’s historical instrumental support for frontline states during their armed struggle,” says the University of Johannesburg’s associate professor in communications, Admire Mare.
In 2023, speaking at the Russia-Africa summit, president Vladimir Putin reiterated Russia would always take the position of “African solutions for African problems,” and again in 2024, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov offered Russia’s “total support” to his African counterparts, reading a speech on his president’s behalf.
As young democracies attempt to navigate former colonial rule, dealing with a global pandemic, struggling with historic debilitating debts, and dealing with the detrimental impacts of global warming as a low-lying, generally water-scarce region, southern Africa has also dealt with the recent global alienation of such an important benefactor.
The successive economic shocks to the region have further driven states to rely on injections of foreign investments to keep these floundering economies from drowning.
South Africa, having been the most vocal in their support for Russia, has similarly been singled out within the region by US president Donald Trump, who cited South Africa’s recent land expropriation law as a reason for cutting aid to South Africa, with Washington said to be upset with South Africa for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against Israel’s genocide in Palestine.
Trump further cited the land policy as a reason for offering refugee status to white Afrikaans farmers who, according to him, constitute a “class” of people who are “treated very badly” in South Africa.
In the latest gambit, the US shunned the G20 meetings in South Africa. Exacerbating, even driving the continent’s biggest economy deeper into the arms of her eastern friends, China and Russia.
As standard as Russian influence is on the continent, it’s no wonder there’s been a lack of pro-Ukrainian sentiment. In fact, in response to the racism experienced by African immigrants attempting to flee Ukraine, individuals from various African countries would volunteer in Russia’s ranks on the front lines.
Across the Sahel, the Russian flag is seen as a symbol of resistance, an anti-capitalist, anti-American symbol of Africa’s struggle for self-determination. Ahead of the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that “any peaceful settlement must respect the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine. This is amid the US scaling back its support for Ukraine, refusing to co-sponsor a
resolution backing Ukraine’s territory, and demanding Russia withdraw. As the UN demands any solution ensures “a lasting peace,” the Trump administration has moved to completely cut out the middlemen in the UN and the EU.
Reopening the lines of communication between Moscow and Washington while withdrawing from global security efforts as a hapless surrogate lies prone.
OUR DAILY BREAD
Bread-and-butter issues are both the fuel and the outcome of a global order built on the exploitation of resources. We, as southern Africa, are a resource and so is our suffering.
The exorbitant price of bread currently cannot singularly be blamed on this war. Pre-war and pre-Covid prices were already sky-high, but as of late, the inflationary pressures of several looming trade wars have made day-to-day life unaffordable for the average person globally, but especially throughout the Southern African region. The sorry state of consumer protection against price gouging has seen household budgets stretched thinner than ever before. The proverbial seven lean years may now stretch to decades long recessions with no relief in sight.
According to StatsSA, South African consumers spend the majority of their pay cheque monthly on necessities such as housing and utilities, food and non-alcoholic beverages, transport, insurance and financial services. In January 2025, the Namibian Statistics Agency revealed that again, the main drivers of annual inflation were food and non-alcoholic beverages, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels. With fuel reaching its highest prices ever in recent years, the knock-on effect in every sector ensures further suffering for the already impoverished.
Prof Mare also highlighted how sanctions by the EU and US, as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have impacted fuel prices, which has a knock-on effect on all commodities.
“It made it very difficult for some countries to access cheaper fuel because some of the pipelines have been affected. So the movement of ships and the movement of transport in that particular area also created a situation where fuel prices have significantly gone up,” said professor Mare.
In December 2021, the Namibia Ministry of Mines and Energy raised the petrol price by N$0.70, with consumers paying N$15.58 at the pump. As of 5 February 2025, Namibians pay N$20.67 at the pump per litre of petrol with various spikes up to N$23 throughout that period. Accounting for the historic upward trajectory, fuel prices have provided parallel reactions to the happenings of the war, with prices seemingly rising and falling at random.
Interrupted access and the opportunistic rise of middleman industries have seen the volatile price of oil be more consistently passed on to the consumer even in the furthest corner from this war.
Elvis Mboya, the president of the Namibia-Kenya Chamber of Commerce, said the war has had significant effects on businesses in East Africa’s largest economy, mainly through economic disruptions. Kenya imports wheat and maize from Ukraine and Russia. The war has caused shortages, impacting food security and raising costs for food-related businesses.
“Fuel and food prices have surged due to disrupted supply chains, increasing transportation and production costs, which particularly affect small businesses. Higher fuel and raw material costs have led to inflation, reducing consumer spending and affecting business sales. European tourists, a key market for Kenya’s tourism industry, have been impacted by economic downturns and travel concerns. Kenya is increasing intra-African trade to mitigate losses, but long-term benefits will take time.”
LOOKING INWARD
With one of anti-apartheid South Africa’s most beloved sons at the helm, it is no wonder the region, dominated by Africa’s biggest economy, has been on the receiving end of the Trump/Musk administration’s most fickle policies.
The stop-start, random nature of orders has seen several of them actioned and reversed within days. Overwhelming in their numbers and lacking in their sense, the omnipresent feeling is that it’s Trump’s country now, to do with as he pleases, and he seems to want to please one specific oligarch very much.
Once more the region’s political class holds its breath as it regains prominence on a global stage seemingly set by two forever intertwined writhing leviathans. A gilded opportunity for the same power- and money-hungry neo-colonial lapdog opportunists to sell their people for dual SIM iPhones.
The continent’s reliance on foreign aid is exemplified by the paralysis and pandemonium brought about by the abrupt end of USAID.
Even perpetual interests do not constitute perpetual friendships when more expedient routes make themselves available. State capture allegations proliferate regimes both within a stone’s throw of the land of the brave and as far-flung as Russia and the United States of America. Conspiratorial links stretch from the winelands of the Western Cape, through the interned West Bank, and right into the Oval Office.
However, curiously, Moscow and Pretoria seem set to encounter vastly different relationships with Washington.
STANDING UP
Speaking at the State of the Nation address on Thursday, 6 February, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said, “We are, as South Africans, a resilient people, and we will not be bullied.”
Now more than ever, it is necessary for the Global South to once again come together and find internal solutions to food and medical insecurity. As was proven by the Covid-19 vaccine inequity.
BRICS has time and again been touted as an alternative to the current global order, a majority rule. In the shifting sands of a collapsing globalisation project, BRICS could find itself at the precipice of multipolarity. However, for all the talk of representing the majority of the world’s economy, BRICS is not a new solution, nor is it coming to the fore with actionable solutions to the eye-watering price of cooking oil or electricity.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) aims to create a single market for goods and services across Africa. While the barriers that keep AfCFTA from being a silver bullet remain, it is a guideline for accessing greater trade across the region.
Progressive countries like Namibia and Botswana have taken actionable steps in reducing barriers between neighbouring countries by allowing hassle-free travel. These simple, easy-to-implement steps are what will boost intra-Africa trade as we discover favourable suppliers and markets closer to home.
Russia is not the lesser evil.
But as the continent moves to make sense of Trump 2.0 irrationality and its peculiar tryst with Russia, caution should prevail around over reliance on Putin’s Africa policy. For it may find, like Ukraine, that there’s a new deal on the table behind closed doors within which antagonistic conclusions could be reached bereft of Africa’s input, interest or agency.
There is no saviour, no silver bullet but only the stark realisation that every system is as flawed and fallible as the people who operate it. And in a world driven by permanent interest, there is only the perpetual need of those who have, and their persisting friendship only endures as long as it is the most efficient way to service their interest.
*Johnathan Beukes is an independent Namibian journalist.
