Abstract
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has attracted widespread international attention and condemnation, especially from Western countries. While Ukraine has received waves of assistance, Russia has been sanctioned and isolated by Western countries and their allies. Nevertheless, most countries in Africa have neither supported nor condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine. A growing number of literatures has explained the drivers of this and other related behaviours by African countries, but such attempts remain inadequate and incoherent. This article examines the influence of Russia in Africa within the analytical framework of soft power and employs some enduring historical bounds and contemporary dynamics to explain the dispositions of many African states towards Russia, sometimes against Western pressure on the Ukraine War, especially at the United Nations (UN). Embedded in these complex historical and emerging relationships are variables that qualify as ingredients of soft power, which keeps Russia attractive to some African countries, thereby influencing their positions on issues concerning the country in the international arena.
Introduction
The Russian invasion or Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine since February 24 2022 is a watershed for the post-Cold War international order. Aside from the challenges it poses to the global dominance of the West, the invasion and the responses from the United States (U.S.), European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have affected Russia’s international image both positively and negatively, depending on the perspectives. Champion (2022) observed that the war has demystified Russia’s supposed hyper-military capacity and revealed how much impact the disruption of supplies from Russia could have on the global economy. Consequently, Russia remains an important player in the international system, despite the challenging efficacy and mixed perception of its conventional military power.
While Russian status and power could be measured based on its economic and military might, the influence it possesses in Africa and other regions remains underexplored in extant literature. However, the Ukraine War and the attendant geopolitics tend to have reshaped perceptions of Africans on Russia. In the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), 26 of the 54 African countries either objected or abstained from the Resolution that sought to condemn Russia’s Ukraine war (Tawat, 2022). Over 30 African countries objected or abstained from the Resolution that sought to suspend Russia at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UN Affairs, 2022). To the disappointment of the West, many African states have not condemned the SMO (Thurston et al., 2022), prompting ‘Washington’s modern Cold War against Africa’ (Azikiwe, 2022).
Many scholarly attempts have been made to explain the dispositions and behaviours of many African states toward Russia. Tawat (2022) adopted the democratic-authoritarian dichotomy to explain voting behaviours for and against Russia at the UNGA. However, this position failed to explain why leading democracies in Africa, such as South Africa, Namibia and Senegal abstained from voting on UNGA Resolutions against Russia. The growing influence of Russia in Africa is also associated with Moscow’s African policy aimed at restoring the Soviet–Africa historical friendship and placing the continent within its sphere of influence (Klomegah, 2022; Neethling, 2019). Russia’s renewed power politics in the Sahel (Bagnetto, 2022), ‘sharp power’ (Akinola and Ogunnubi, 2021) and political, economic and strategic considerations (Ajala, 2022) also explain its influence in the continent. Perhaps until recently, however, Russia’s escapades in Africa yielded little results (Klomegah, 2021). In this case, this article examines the influence of Russia in Africa as a product of historical and emerging dynamics of Russo-African relations within the framework of soft power. The article also examines how the war in Ukraine reflects Russia’s soft power in Africa, and it impacts on Moscow’s power of attraction on the continent. This article is further divided into six sections: conceptual clarification, Russia’s soft power capabilities, origin of its soft power resources in Africa, the resurgence of Russian soft power in Africa, reflection on Africa approach on the Ukraine War and the conclusion.
The concept of soft power
The concept of soft power is deeply rooted in the scholarly work of Hans J. Morgenthau, Klaus Knorr and Ray S. Cline. However, the idea was popularised by American Political Scientist, Joseph S. Nye Jr., who is widely called the ‘father of soft power’ (Ogunnubi and Isike, 2018; Ohnesorge, 2020; Shambaugh, 2015). According to Nye (2004), soft power is the ‘ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments’. Unlike conventional hard power that has to do with a state employing ‘carrot and stick’ to shape the behaviour of other state actors (Bloor, 2022; Ogunnubi and Amao 2016; Ogunnubi and Oyewole, 2020), soft power exploits what others find appealing about a state to (re)shape their perception of it and more importantly make them do what is in its national interest.
Measuring soft power capabilities in IR is challenging. Although several attempts and methodologies have been advanced, issues of validity, reliability and standardisation of methods persist (Seong-Hun, 2018). Soft power, whether in the arrays of culture, political values or foreign policy (Nye, 2004), possesses ethnographic ingredients that make it hard to measure or quantify (Seymour, 2020). Unlike the variables of hard power such as military might, size of the economy, population and so on, soft power variables such as values and culture are not easily quantifiable. Hence, measuring the performance, capabilities or effectiveness of soft power may be a difficult task (Seymour, 2020). Furthermore, attempts at measuring soft power are limited by factors such as biases in operationalising the concept, selection of samples, choice of indicators and the ideological orientation of the researcher (Trunkos, 2013). However, soft power capacity could be measured by public opinion, soft power resources and public policy changes (Hicks, 2021; Zhang and Wu, 2019).
Russia’s soft power capabilities
Russia is arguably a re/emerging great power. It was once described as ‘a new energy superpower’ that is discovering its soft power (Hill, 2006). While the influence of Russia from the era of Kievan Rus was not without foreign admiration, the origin of its post-Cold War soft power can be traced to the rise of Vladimir Putin and his commitment to reconstruct the global image of Russia and make it an attractive country internationally that is open to cooperation, while boosting its competitiveness (Sergunin and Karabeshkin, 2015). Hence, Russia’s soft power is still ‘under construction’ (Shakirov, 2013). However, Russia has attracted international admiration through several factors. Russia’s geography, climate and sites have attracted people across the globe as a tourism destination. It attracted 24.6 million tourists in 2020 and 62.2 million in 2018 (OECD, 2020). Tourists spent over $10 billion annually between 2007 and 2020, although it dropped from $17 billion to $4 billion due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Macrotrends, 2024). The Ukraine War has also affected Russian tourism, as Western tourists are avoiding the country.
Russia’s admiration also benefited from hosting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, FIFA World Cup in 2018 and other global events. The Russian system of administration and President Putin leadership style also appeals to authoritarian leaders globally. It is not surprising, therefore, that Putin is a role model or closely drawn to the leadership of Belarus, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and the Sahel states. Surprisingly, however, democratic leaders, such as Hungarian Viktor Orbán and American Donald Trump also admire President Putin. Trump has once described Putin and his leadership style as ‘smart’ and ‘genius’ (Cillizza, 2022). In one instance, Trump admitted that ‘he’s doing a great job in rebuilding the image of Russia and also rebuilding Russia’ (Diamond, 2016). Russia’s military culture, anti-Western and ‘anti-imperial’ postures provide radical analysts and actors with alternatives to the liberal and neo-liberal or rules-based international order. Its investment in education, medicine, science, technology, communication and information, and engagements in the international arena have received publicity with admiration (Ambrosetti, 2022a, 2022b; El-Badawy et al., 2022). However, Russian international publicity has been greatly affected by Western sanction due to the Ukraine War.
As evident in Table 1, Russia’s soft power capabilities relative to other countries are provided according to Brand Finance (2024), The Soft Power 30 (2019), and Ernst & Young and Skolkovo (2012). In 2024, Brand Finance (BraFi) ranked Russia 16th with 57.7 points out of 120 countries. This falls behind the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, China, Japan, Canada and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Russia also performed marginally higher than Saudi Arabia with 1.7 points. With the same point, Russia ranks 9th in Europe, behind the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Switzerland and others. BraFi’s disaggregated data shows that Russia’s soft power capacity lies more in its global ‘influence’ and contributions to ‘education and science’. Russia’s soft power also manifests through ‘international relations’, ‘culture and heritage’, ‘mass communication’ and ‘governance’. On the other hand, The Soft Power 30 (SP30) ranks Russia 30th in its 2019 report with a total score of 48.64. This places Russia behind France, the UK, Germany, Sweden, the U.S., Turkiye and so on. Although SP30’s methodology is problematic (Seong-Hun, 2018), its identification of ‘engagement’, ‘digital education’ and ‘culture’ as the main sources of Russia’s soft power is similar to Brand Finance’s (2024).
Soft power ranking of Russia and selected countries.
BraFi = Brand Finance; SP30 = Soft Power 30; EYS (EM) = Ernst & Young and Skolkovo (Emerging Markets); EYS (G7) = Ernst & Young and Skolkovo (The Group of Seven).
Using 13 soft power indices organised into the categories of global image, global integration and global integrity, Ernst & Young and Skolkovo’s (2012) rating draws from UN, Freedom House, IOC, Times Higher Education, WTO, UNCATD, World Bank among other sources. It separated the developed nations (G7) from the emerging markets (EM), where it placed Russia, which was ranked 3rd in 2010 with a total of 18 points. Here, the soft power strength of Russia is tied to ‘immigration’, ‘tourism’, ‘voter turnout’, ‘rule of law’ and less emission of carbon monoxide. However, Ernst & Young and Skolkovo report is dated, and its economic-based categorisation of states tends to give Russia an advantage. However, the fact that China and India, Russia’s major competitors in the African geopolitical theatre, perform significantly better makes it important for our evaluation of Russian soft power.
The three ratings demonstrated that Russia’s soft power is less comparable to other major powers. Since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia’s soft power has declined in the 2023 and 2024 rankings, compared with 2022. Russia’s BraFi ranking reduced from 9th with 56.1 points in 2022 to 13th with 54.8 points in 2023 (Brand Finance, 2023). It further declined to the 16th position, although its point rose to 57.7 in 2024 (Brand Finance, 2024). Based on the global indexes, therefore, the admiration of Russia in Africa remains a complex subject. However, an understanding of the history of Russo-African relations and the value of such for some states in the region could offer a better perspective. Yet, these rankings highlighted critical areas where Russia’s influence is felt globally. Hence, the soft power indexes influence our analysis of the trajectories of Russia’s soft power in Africa.
Origin of Russia’s soft power in Africa
Most studies on Russia–Africa relations tend to amplify Russia’s Cold War engagements in Africa. However, Moscow’s ambition to establish political, diplomatic, military and trade relations with Africa preceded colonial conquest. In the 18th century, Russia nurtured the ambition to establish strategic naval bases that could bridge its Eastern and Western territories, challenging the British dominance of the Suez Canal, and strengthening the relations between the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia and Russia (Besenyő, 2019a; Filatova, 2000). Moscow’s earliest humanitarian engagements in Africa included medical assistance sent to Ethiopia in 1896 and South Africa in 1900 (Filatova, 2000). Although Russia earlier failed to penetrate Africa, it laid the foundation of its earliest diplomatic relations with Ethiopia and South Africa.
In the 18th century, Russia established consulates in Cairo and Alexandria. By 1898, Russia established diplomatic relations with Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and the Transvaal Republic (a constituent of modern-day South Africa) and sent weapons and hundreds of Russian troops to support Ethiopia’s war against Italy and the Boers against the British forces (Besenyő, 2019a; Filatova, 2015). Although Russia’s interest in Africa declined after the 1917 Revolution, it was revived during the Cold War, which was characterised by ideological competition, collective security, arms race, unprecedented intelligence gathering, scramble for spheres of influence, proxy wars, and outer space contest of the superpowers – the U.S. and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) between late 1940s and early 1990s (Ogunnoiki et al., 2024). During this period, the Soviet Union invested in several sectors that made it attractive to the African continent.
Higher education proved to be a major soft power resource of the Soviet Union in Africa. There are documented cases of ‘several. . .Ethiopians who studied in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century’ (Filatova, 2000: 346). There was a strong admiration of the Russian intellectual system by the Ethiopians and others in Africa. This explains the Soviet assistance in establishing the Bashir Dar Institute of Technology in Ethiopia and the Conakry Institute of Technology in Guinea in the 1960s (Katsakioris, 2019a). Over 50,000 young Africans were admitted into universities, technical and medical schools in the Soviet Union and its satellite states: Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia (Katsakioris, 2021a, 2021b; Shubin, 2004: 102). Moreover, about 200,000 Africans were trained in their aboriginal countries with Russian support (Besenyő, 2019a: 134). Between 1960 and 1991, about 200,000 African personnel were trained by the Soviet military (Gerőcs, 2019: 3). Katsakioris (2017) reveals that Africans trained in Russia skyrocketed between 1960 and 1990, with 4841 Ethiopians, 4102 Congolese, 3606 Nigerians and 2559 Malians trained. Between 1985 and 1986, 527 Beninese, 241 Burkinabe, 234 Burundians, 136 Mosotho, 353 Mauritanians, 452 Mozambicans, 475 Sierra Leonean, 391 Togolese, 183 Zambians, 353 Zimbabweans, 475 Ugandans and many other Africans were also trained (see Table 2). Some of these Soviet-trained Africans later became influential political leaders, technocrats, medical practitioners, engineers and academics among others across the continent (El-Badawi et al., 2022; Tchoubar, 2020).
Graduates of Soviet universities and professional–technical institutes in selected countries.
Source: Katsakioris (2021b: 7).
In 1960, the USSR under Nikita Khrushchev founded a university in Moscow for students from Third World countries. The same year, the university welcomed a total of 652 foreign students – 231 Asian, 182 Latin American, 179 African and 60 from the Middle East. Thereafter, the university was renamed Patrice Lumumba University (after the late Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)) in February 1961 (Katsakioris, 2017). A few well-known graduates of the university are the former president of Namibia, Hifikepunye Pohamba, former prime minister of Chad, Youssouf Saleh Abbas, and the Central African Republic’s (CAR) former president and rebel leader Michel Djotodia (see Stronski, 2019). Prominent African leaders to have received military training or bagged a degree in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc include José Eduardo dos Santos and João Lourenço of Angola, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Raila Odinga of Kenya.
Renamed the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN) in February 1992, Patrice Lumumba University was a flagship of Soviet internationalism (Katsakioris, 2019b). Though the USSR was altruistic to have established this university to train Africans and their counterparts from the Third World, its ulterior motive of spreading Marxism–Leninism and grooming revolutionists and sympathisers is not hidden.
The Marxist–Leninist ideology falls under Nye’s second source of soft power: political values. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union wielded soft power through its brand of socialism which was appealing to several countries in Africa and other regions of the world (Tella, 2021). Three main versions of socialism competed with the U.S.-led capitalism in Africa. These are ‘Marxism-Leninism’ of the USSR, Mao Zedong’s ‘Maoism’ of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and ‘African socialism’ of Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Léopold Senghor, Sékou Touré among others. Named after the German philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883) and the leader of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924), Marxism-Leninism in Africa became an appealing ideology to several national liberation movements-cum-political parties in the continent. In Portuguese colonies, that is, Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cabo Verde (PAIGC), and the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) were all inspired by Marxism–Leninism (Katsakioris, 2019c, 2021a). Also espousing Soviet Marxism–Leninism was the non-Lusophone country, Ethiopia. In 1975, the Derg junta transformed Ethiopia into a Marxist–Leninist state (Schwikowski, 2018). Even with deficits in military and economic aid, the socialist persona of the USSR was strong enough to attract political loyalty from several African states (Filatova, 2000). On the domestic front, Akinola and Ogunnubi (2021: 3) argue, ‘Marxist–Leninist ideology was a potent soft power resource deployed by many African states in their domestic economic system’.
Furthermore, the Soviet’s anti-imperialism posture was another source of political value that incubated Russia’s soft power in Africa. Captured in literature as a ‘non-colonial past’ (Akinola and Ogunnubi, 2021), Russia’s absence in the scrambling and partitioning of Africa is very important to its anti-imperial persona that has become a significant Kremlin’s soft power in the continent. Russia is not just perceived as ‘Africa’s friend’, but liberator ‘who played a significant role in abolishing the colonial system’ (Besenyő, 2019a: 133).
In the second half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union rendered moral, diplomatic and military support to national liberation movements opposed to white minority rule in Southern Africa in particular and colonialism in Africa generally – to the benefits of the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria, MPLA, PAIGC, FRELIMO, African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, South-West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) of Namibia and Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) (Matusevich, 2009, 2019; Ogunnoiki et al., 2024). The support for anti-racial and anti-colonial struggles earned the Soviet Union the admiration of many Africans.
Furthermore, the Soviet Union was able to establish cultural centres across the African continent. Nevertheless, Soviet power of attraction in Africa began to wane in late 1980s. Moreover, the eventual dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, which brought an end to the Cold War, led to the emergence of the U.S. as the ‘triumphant’ superpower.
The resurgence of Russian soft power in Africa
In the 1990s, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow adopted a limited global ambition and closed some of its cultural centres in Africa, which became a major setback in Russia’s soft power projection in the region (Adebajo, 2021; Besenyő, 2019b). However, since Vladimir Putin’s rise to power in 2000, Russia has revived its great power ambition, as it strives to regain and possibly surpass Soviet lost glory and sphere of influence. This has encouraged Kremlin to fashion a goal-oriented African strategy. The first of these goals is to boost arms sales to African countries and project military power in the continent. Second is to gain diplomatic support for Moscow’s vision of a multipolar world order, and for Russia at multilateral platforms such as the UN. Third, to increase trade, and secure access to Africa’s natural resources. Fourth, is to gain political influence in the region while undermining that of the West, especially France and the U.S. (Daly, 2023; Ferragamo, 2023; Young, 2024). To achieve the second and fourth goals, the Kremlin has employed both old and relatively new assets in its soft power toolkit.
The Russian Federation, like its predecessor, utilises education as a soft power tool in its engagement with African countries. To date, higher education remains a pull factor to Russia, as a destination country for thousands of young Africans seeking to study and obtain a degree (Ogunnoiki et al., 2021). Addressing African leaders and delegates at the maiden Russia–Africa Summit in October 2019, President Putin said over 17,000 African students were in Russia that year (President of Russia, 2019). In March 2023, at the International Parliamentary Conference in Moscow, he mentioned that there were about 27,000 African students studying in Russian higher institutions of learning, 5000 of which are on scholarships (President of Russia, 2023a). By May 2024, the number of African students in Russia rose by 8000 from the previous year to about 35,000. To deepen existing cooperation between Russia and African countries on education, the Russian–African Network University (RANU) was founded in Russia in August 2021 (Pantserev, 2023). In March 2023, Russian Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin, announced the return of People’s Friendship University of Russia (RUDN) to its original name – Patrice Lumumba University, in memory of the DRC’s first prime minister (TASS, 2023). Putin also announced his plans to expand Russian centres of science and culture, ‘Russian Houses’, which are presently active in eight African countries (President of Russia, 2023b). In May 2024, Moscow also declared its intention to raise international students in its universities to 500,000 by 2030 (Klomegâh, 2024).
Moscow’s investment in the education of Africans comes with benefit for Russia both now and in the future. In a recent interview of a few Nigerian visa applicants at the Russian diplomatic post in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, the interviewed Nigerians did not hesitate to shower Russia with praises for its educational system and state scholarships (DW, 2024). The positive remark by these Nigerians reflects the image of Russia, as against Western efforts to make the country a pariah state because of its war in Ukraine. In the long run, some of the African students in Russia who eventually return to their home country after graduation could rise to become the next crop of political elites and policymakers of their country. Thus, there is a tendency that these Russian-trained politicians will initiate or deepen existing cooperations between their country and the Russian Federation.
Summit and Global-South diplomacy are soft power resources employed by Russia in wooing African countries. In the last 5 years, Russia has hosted two Russia–Africa Summits – the first in October 2019 and the second edition in July 2023. President Putin has used these submits not only to recount Soviet contribution to decolonisation and anti-apartheid campaigns of the continent but highlighted Russia’s support for counterterrorism operations and its military-technical cooperation with many African countries. Amid the Russia–Ukraine War, only 17 African Heads of State and Government attended the second Russia–Africa Summit in St. Petersburg unlike in 2019 when 43 African leaders were present in Sochi (Melly, 2023).
Russia’s Global South alignment through Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) is also a source of attraction. Established in 2009 as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the group of emerging economies became BRICS following South Africa’s admission in 2010, and BRICS+ with the addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which took effect in January 2024. In 2024, the nine full members of BRIC+ accounted for 45% of the world’s population and around 28% of the global economy (Rosenberg, 2024). The addition of 13 partner countries (three of which are from Africa – Algeria, Nigeria and Uganda) to the group in October 2024 further increased the combined population and economies of BRICS+, thus giving the group an edge in international economic engagements. Dissatisfied with the US-dominated international order, Russia within and outside of BRICS has championed the call for a multipolar world order that mirrors the 21st-century balance of power reality. African countries such as South Africa are joining Russia in calling for not only a multipolar world order but also inclusive international organisations (Sergunin, 2020). At the October 2024 BRICS+ Summit in Kazan, Russia, President Putin advocated for the reform of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to address the lingering underrepresentation of Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the UN’s principal organ (RT, 2024a).
Information is power, and the dissemination of it in print, through audio and visual display devices, and social media can shape the perception and opinion of diverse people about a country on domestic and international issues (Antwi-Boasiako, 2022). This is why Russia has incorporated news outlets, as a relatively new instrument, into its soft power assets. In Africa, where anti-Russian narratives are popularised by Western media, Moscow has utilised RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik to counter negative report on Russia. These news outlets, which publish and broadcast in English and French, serve as an alternative source of information for many and portray Russia in a good light to its African audience (Ambrosetti, 2022a; Clifford and Gruzd, 2022). However, due to Russia’s Ukraine War and the resultant Western sanctions, South Africa-based MultiChoice, a top satellite television service provider in Africa suspended RT. In response, RT established a bureau in Algeria in 2023 and reportedly planned to open an English-language station in South Africa (Schwikowski, 2022). Moreover, RT and Sputnik have significant audiences in Africa, especially in French-speaking countries (Hellman, 2024). These media have recruited many Africans to developed local contents into their programmes. These have aided Moscow to fuel existing anti-Western sentiments, where Russia’s presence is strong in the continent, especially in several Francophone countries, such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Central Africa Republic, where they played a major role to discredit France and undermine Paris’ influence over its former colonies. Worth mentioning also is the fact that the two news outlets have played a role in Russia’s disinformation campaigns on social media platforms in the continent (Antwi-Boasiako, 2022). Wagner Group under Yevgeny Prigozhin also reportedly maintained the Internet Research Agency for this purpose (Clifford and Gruzd, 2022).
Religion is a crucial cultural index and conduit of influence and admiration (Ekpo and Offiong, 2022; Huntington, 1993). Historically, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) maintains close ties with Ethiopian Orthodox and Egyptian Coptic (Besenyő, 2019a; Filatova, 2000). Currently, ROC has improved these ties, despite theological differences, as it pursues its expansion in Africa. On 29 December 2021, ROC’s Synod announced the creation of an exarchate for Africa at the request of African Orthodox Christians under Greek Alexandrian Orthodox Church (Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa, 2023a). Since the Moscow Patriarchate established an “African Exarchate” in 2022, over 200 African priests have joined the Russians, the Central African Republic has legally recognised parishes switching from Alexandria to Moscow, and ROC has made inroads in Tanzania (Braw, 2024). Between January 2022 and 2023, ROC established over 200 parishes in 25 African countries (Russian News Agency, 2023).
Enjoying close ties with the Kremlin and operating in line with Russia’s foreign policy, ROC has played a major role in Moscow’s spiritual outreach in Africa. The Russian church has presented Russia as the moral substitute to the West, which some believe to be experiencing moral decadence as evident with the promotion of abortion and same-sex marriage (Graceffo, 2023). In Africa, ROC leverages on the similarities of Russia and Africa’s traditional values on marriage, family, and gender and sexual orientation in winning the hearts and minds of the people. Thus, ROC is admired by many Africans for its conservative stance and opposition to homosexuality. Despite Western pressure for the recognition and protection for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer + (LGBTQ+) community, several African countries have proscribed same-sex marriage, which is considered to be contrary to the cultural and religious conservatism of the country and the African continent (Akinola and Ogunnubi, 2021; Ambrosetti, 2022a). As of 2020, 32 African countries had criminalised homosexuality, which attracted capital punishment in some cases (Karmer, 2022).
Recent ROC’s spiritual and humanitarian activities as documented on the website of the patriarchal exarchate of Africa have the potential of making Africans develop a soft spot for the Russian Federation. By April 2023, ROC had translated prayer books into not less than seven African languages – Tiv (Nigeria), Kirundu (Burundi), Acholi (Uganda), Bemba (Zambia), Malagasy (Madagascar), Kikuyu (Kenya) and the Swahili language spoken in East Africa. Following the 6.8 magnitude earthquake in Morocco on 8 September 2023, the Russian church delivered humanitarian aid to some of the affected people in the North African country. In 2024, it donated a gas cooker to an orphanage home in Burundi, was instrumental in the execution of agricultural projects in the DRC and Kenya, and baptised about 1000 people in seven parishes in Malawi (Hoyle, 2024). As a church, ROC is deeply concerned about the persecution of the Christian population of African countries in North Africa and the Sahel (Graceffo, 2023). Thus, the church continues to speak openly on the killing of Christians on religious grounds and make an appeal for the protection of Christians in the continent (Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa, 2023b).
Moscow’s long-established soft power resources in Africa will be incomplete without cultural centres and the Russian language. Since Russia’s closure of some of Soviet cultural centres in the continent in the early 1990s, Moscow has not made substantial investment in increasing the number of its cultural centres across the continent unlike China with respect to Confucius Institutes (CIs) (Ambrosetti, 2022b). However, President Putin at the second Russia–African Summit announced his plans to expand Russian centres of science and culture, ‘Russian Houses’, in Africa (President of Russia, 2023b). Already, these cultural centres operate in less than a dozen African countries, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Tanzania and Tunisia. According to the Rossotrudnichestvo agency, Russia is opening its next African cultural centre in Angola (RT, 2024b). Among other things, these centres are designed to promote Russian language and culture. Russian is one of the major languages of communication in international relations. It is one of the six official languages of the UN – Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. In Africa, there is a growing number of centres for teaching and learning the Russian language at rudimentary, intermediate, and advanced levels. Several universities in Africa have partnered with Russian counterparts to offer Russian as one of the foreign languages studied by interested undergraduate and postgraduate students. Russian Ministry of Education is also funding online Russian language courses in Africa. Since 2021, therefore, the Language Testing Centre at St. Petersburg University offers free distance courses in the Russian language in Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Algeria, Niger and Tanzania, and plans to add Ethiopia, Rwanda, Mali and the Gambia. Equally, more than 27,000 people from 50 African countries have attended the online courses (St. Petersburg University, 2023). Thus, the Russian-speaking Africans are emerging with job prospects in Russian diplomatic posts and companies in their country or abroad. Moreover, these Russian-speaking Africans will be at ease should they choose to study in Russian higher institutions of learning. With the burgeoning Russian presence in Africa and African enthusiasm to learn, the Russian language is becoming one of the country’s soft power resources in the continent (Kulkova, 2021).
In our fast-globalising world where epidemic and pandemic are existential threats to mankind, Russia has pursued health diplomacy in Africa. In December 2013, the Ebola virus broke out in the Republic of Guinea and spread across the West African sub-region between 2014 and 2016, killing over 11,300 people. Russia has an interest in Guinea’s bauxite, which explains the presence and investment of RUSAL – a Russian aluminium company in the resource-rich country. To assist the French-speaking country in combating the epidemic disease, RUSAL spent over USD 10 million to build the Centre for Epidemic and Microbiological Research and Treatment (CEMRT) in the Kindia region of Guinea, which was launched on 17 January 2015, with the grateful president of Guinea, Alpha Conde, in attendance. To date, RUSAL prides itself as the only public company in the world that initiated such an expensive project against the viral disease in Guinea (RUSAL 2015). Moreover, the Russian Federation produced the Ebola vaccine – GamEvac-Combi, which was administered to about 2000 people in Guinea (Pharmaceutical Technology, 2018; RUSAL, 2015). In 2020, Africa had its fair share of the global spread of the novel coronavirus following its outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 (Ogunnoiki, 2021). Declared a pandemic on March 11 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO), Russia was among the foreign powers to produce a COVID-19 vaccine – Sputnik V. Amid the global inequitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, Moscow offered 300 million doses to the African Union (AU) (Bavier and Lewis, 2021). However, there was a mixed reception of Sputnik V in the continent. While Nigeria’s pharmaceutical regulator approved the vaccine in 2021, Namibia discontinued its use following a health concern raised by South Africa, one of Russia’s top African trading partners (Stronski, 2021).
Against this background, Russia has developed several soft power resources in a bid to rebuild influence in the region and achieve its diplomatic and political objectives. Nevertheless, as Ramani (2023) pointed out, the alleged war crimes of the Wagner Group in Libya and the CAR, Moscow’s backing of authoritarian governments, and the failed Sputnik V distribution campaign have affected contemporary Russia’s soft power in Africa. Treatment of African students and workers in Russia has also raised concerns around racism against the Black and Asian in the country (Tubridy, 2023). Moreover, Russian media activities have been accused of disinformation and misinformation that threaten the stability of some African countries. The role of Russia in inspiring the recent wave of military coups in Africa and sustaining these military regimes have also alarmed most governments and peoples in democracies or at least civil rule on the continent. As evident with some protesters and rioters calling for military intervention in Nigeria in 2024, Russian flags have been used in pro-coup and pro-junta advocacies and campaigns in many African countries (Ogunnoiki, 2024). Furthermore, Russia’s territorial pursuit and war in Ukraine have dented its long-standing image as an anti-colonial and anti-imperial power on the continent (Gruzd et al., 2022).
The Ukraine War and Russia’s soft power in Africa
The Ukraine War has had multidimensional impacts on Russia, including its soft power. In many considerations, including the Ukrainian resilience, innovations, surprise attacks and Kursk incursion and occupation, the war has challenged the prevailing image of Russian military since the end of World Word II, as untouchable and unbeatable. On one hand, therefore, the war has shown the limitation of Russian military in conventional warfare, the painful struggle of its forces, and cost of protracted conflict. While the cost of the war has forced Russia to divert a greater share of its resources for military purposes, Western sanction has compelled Moscow to also vote significant resources to escape international isolation. On the other hand, the war has made Moscow the champion of anti-Western positions, such as rule-based international order, double standard, imperialism and US dominance of world affairs. Accordingly, the war has created a conflicting image of Russia in African and other developing countries, where Moscow is sometimes seen as aggressor against Ukraine and at the same time victim of Western world order.
The Ukraine War has raised many questions, such as: How has the war in Ukraine affected Russia’s soft power in Africa? How has Russia’s soft power affected the war’s perception and support in Africa? On the global scope, the Russian war in Ukraine is eroding its soft power as demonstrated by the Brand Finance post-2022 global rankings, as the ranking of Russia dropped from 9th in 2022 to 13th and 16th in 2023 and 2024, respectively. This suggests that before the war, Russia was making progress in building its image but had lost this momentum to the war. In Africa, Russia did not fair badly in public opinion that assessed Africans’ view on its economic and political influence over their country. For instance, a survey conducted by Afrobarometer across 34 African countries between 2019 and 2021 revealed that 35% of the respondents viewed Russia’s economic and political influence over their country to be somewhat or very positive while 17% believed it to be somewhat or very negative (Sanny and Selormey, 2021).
A Gallup poll conducted in 2021 revealed that before the war, 42% of Africans, accounting for a global median of 33%, approved the Russian leadership (Bikus, 2022). Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may have impacted negatively on these horizontal perceptions, thereby hurting its soft power. For instance, even with the rekindled old fraternal relations, a survey conducted among 1582 South Africans between November and December 2022 revealed that the percentage of South Africans who viewed Russia’s influence positively had declined from 30% in 2021 to 25% in 2022 (Patel, 2023). Although the lost in influence by foreign powers affected other powers like China and, more significantly, the U.S., the survey result shows that Russia has lost a considerable ‘fan base’ of which the war could be one of its possible explanations. This is particularly so because there is a pattern in which Russia’s approval ratings in Africa have consistently dropped in the years that followed its invasion of another sovereign state. For instance, Russia’s rating in Africa, according to the Gallup poll, dropped from 54% in 2008 to 47% in 2009, following its interventions in Georgia; and from 42% in 2013 to 38% in 2014, following its first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 (Bikus, 2022).
A careful analysis of Gallup’s Rating World Leaders report shows that Russia’s war in Ukraine has hurt its leadership admiration in Africa, as its approval rate dipped from 42% in 2022 to 34% in 2023. Similarly, the disapproval rate also escalated from 24% to 34% within the same period (see Table 3). While the 2024 rating suggests that Russia has regained its momentum and admiration in Africa by securing an approval rating of 42%, the disapproval rating remains largely significant at 34%. This suggests that the war in Ukraine has not significantly boosted Russia’s soft power, especially at the horizontal level of assessment where unassuming Africans’ opinions are randomly weighed.
The approval rating of the US, China and Russia in Africa, 2021–2024.
Source: Gallup Rating World Leaders: 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 Reports (Gallup, 2024).
However, the opinions of random Africans are not reflected in major decisions taken on the floor of UNGA, where Russia has scored major diplomatic victories concerning the voting patterns of African states on critical issues relating to Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine. In the five major voting in UNGA that sought to condemn the invasion (2 March 2022), suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) (7 April 2022), reject Russia’s annexation of Ukraine (12 October 2022), call for Russian reparations for Ukraine (14 November 2022), and call for peace on the anniversary of the war (23 February 2023), many African states abstained, while some were absent and few voted against (see Table 4). For instance, only 52% of African states voted in support of the resolution that condemned the Russian aggression, while a significant 48% either abstained, voted against, or avoided voting. Also, only 19% of African states in the UNGA supported the resolution that sought to suspend Russia from the UNHRC, 81% either abstained, ignored or voted against the resolution. Again, while 56% of African states voted against the Russian annexation of Ukraine, a troubling 44% either abstained or ignored the exercise. Considering the continent’s colonial history and struggle for compensation for colonial injustices, it is surprising that 72% of African states either ignored, abstained or voted against the resolution that mandated the Russians to pay reparations to Ukraine. Importantly, 44% of African states either rejected or ignored the resolution that sought an end to the war (see Table 4). While these voting choices may not have reflected the popular opinions of Africans (as expressed in aforementioned polls and Herbert, 2023), these voting patterns would not have been possible if Russia did not possess a certain level of influence over the political class that were responsible for making these choices. Even if it is presumed that these voting patterns were coincidental or opportunistic, it plays into the Russian grand strategy to ‘play a spoiler role or to thwart western aims in multilateral forums’ such as the UN (Gavin, 2021: 11). These voting patterns, therefore, aided the Russian momentum in frustrating multilateral efforts aim at either isolating Russia or ending the Ukraine war.
Africa voting patterns in the UNGA on five key issues in the Ukraine–Russia Conflict.
Source: Adapted from Gopaldas (2023: 3).
Based on the above, one could argue that Russia’s soft power in Africa has advanced its ambition in Ukraine. This is, however, so at the elite level of decision-making that does not reflect the wishes of the majority. That notwithstanding, the little influence that Russia wields over Africa has served it well in the UNGA theatre and is continuing to do so. Nevertheless, Russia’s influence in Africa has not swerved perceptions about the war in its favour. If anything, perceptions about the war in Africa do not favour Russia. In an IPSOS poll conducted in seven African countries (Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia and South Africa) between 31 May and 23 June 2023, the majority of the respondents (63.28%) agreed that Russia has violated the principles of international law. Furthermore, 60% of the respondents agreed that Russia is guilty of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Importantly, more than half of the respondents (50.28%) disagreed that Russia is not the aggressor in the war. Additionally, 72.57% of the respondents agreed that the war is bad for their country by worsening energy and food shortages (Harris, 2023). The results of the poll also revealed that most Africans prefer their countries to remain neutral by neither supporting the Russians nor the Ukrainians in the conflict.
Discussions and Conclusion
Russian influence in Africa was arguably speculative until the recent Ukraine War. One of the oddities of the conflict has been the pro-Russian positions and support garnered in Africa by Moscow. While the voting patterns of African states on UN resolutions over the conflict have disrupted ‘conventional’ projections (Ajala, 2022), the utterances of certain African leaders echo the official position in Moscow. For example, South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa once said that:
The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less, instability in the region. . .There are those who are insisting that we should take a very adversarial stance against Russia. The approach we are going to take (instead) is . . . insisting that there should be dialogue (Cooks, 2022).
Considering the multidimensional advantage and diplomatic leverage that the collective West possesses in the continent, the support garnered from Africa by Russia over the Ukraine War has become a subject of debate. The democratic theory (Tawat, 2022), Russia’s politics of arms in the Sahel (Bagnetto, 2022), the so-called ‘sharp power’ (Akinola and Ogunnubi, 2021) and political, economic and strategic considerations (Ajala, 2022) have attempted to explain the behaviours of African countries towards Russia, especially in the UN. This study, however, provided the soft power pretexts and contexts to explain this puzzling support of Russia’s Ukraine War by some African states. Beyond soft power ranking and indexes, the preceding sections have provided a critical analysis of Russo-African historical and emerging relations in the context of soft power, from which inferences are drawn to explain contemporary African attitudes towards Russia.
The historical antecedents invoke nostalgia for the Cold War competition, of which African states prefer neutrality or ‘non-alignment’. Although Africans do not want ‘to become embroiled in a new Cold War’, there is a growing ‘empathy with Russia and antipathy towards the West, with diplomatic and political calculations’ (Mark, 2022). The development cannot be casually reduced to democratic leanings, Russia’s realpolitik, and sharp power. However, in the same way that ideology brought some African states under Soviet influence during the Cold War, admiration of the past and what Russia stands for – irrespective of how it is defined – remains a potent source of influence. Although Russia has recently made some gains in Africa, its hard power resources are inadequate to compete healthily with China and Western powers such as the U.S., the UK and France. Yet, a significant dimension in its history as a friend to Africa and challenger of Western hegemony subsists. Russia is seen by its supporters in Africa and beyond as a counterbalance to American hegemony or hypocrisy on a range of issues (Mark, 2022). From this perspective, therefore, ‘Moscow’s allure is based on its image as a global player that can stand up to the West, insists on domestic values against foreign interference, and is “open for business” with all countries, regardless of their government or level of democracy’ (Ambrosetti, 2022b).
The influence of Russia in Africa is evident in the disposition of African states regarding the Ukraine War. Measuring Russian soft power in Africa by present events has therefore shown the false reality of most rankings. Hence, the debate is no longer if Russia influences Africa or how well, but the sources or roots of such. Unravelling the sources of the contemporary influence of Russia in Africa, therefore, lies in understanding the history of Russo-African relations and the pretexts and contexts that defined such relations before, during, and after the Cold War. With regards to the SMO, more African countries and elites tend to play the neutral and ‘non-aligned’ roles as it becomes clearer that the conflict is between the collective West and Russia in a Ukrainian theatre. While there may not be a mono-causal explanation for African states’ behaviour, relevant insights could be drawn from the history of Russia–Africa relations and its soft power dimension.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
