Book Review

Africa is not a group of Russia’s lackey states in its resurgence in global politics

Book Title: Russia in Africa: Resurgent Great Power or Bellicose Pretender

Author: Samuel Ramani

ISBN: ISBN-10: 0197744591 ISBN-13: 978-0197744598

Publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2023, $24.95*

*Book price at time of review

Review Title: Africa is not a group of Russia’s lackey states in its resurgence in global politics

Reviewer:
Frank Lekaba¹

Affiliation:
¹Wits School of Governance, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Corresponding author: Frank Lekaba, frank.lekaba2@wits.ac.za

How to cite this book review: Lekaba, F. Africa is not a group of Russia’s lackey states in its resurgence in global politics. New Contree 92 (2025): a889. https://doi.org/10.4102/nc.v92i0.889

Copyright Notice: © 2025. The Author(s). Licensee: AOSIS. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Introduction

In its opening, the author has an introduction to the South African edition, detailing the courting between Russia and the countries of the African continent, with the specific cases of the presence of the Wagner Group in Africa and the emerging anti-Western narratives from the Second Russia-Africa International Parliamentary Summit held on 19 March 2023. The engagement of Russia and the countries of the continent of Africa after the collapse of the Soviet Union, mainly literature that examines the relations after the 1989 global order, is scant. The literature is littered with how Russia was a partner of African countries in their quest for decolonisation. This could be because of Russia’s foreign policy towards African states, the major focus on China’s rise in global politics and how it has rivalled the Western bloc in Africa.

Discussion

The book details the resurgence of Russia, using Africa as a battlefield, with its Wagner Group. The author points to the Russia-Africa summit held in October 2019 as a sign of ‘Moscow’s great power ambitions’. At this summit, Russia signed various agreements on military-technical issues, mining and nuclear energy. Another important factor is the fact that Russia exports more weapons to Africa than the US, France and China combined. These are the key drivers of Russia’s engagement with the continent, and it is through these drivers that Russia seeks to restore its former position as the Soviet Union. This book opens a discourse on the rise of Russia, its possibilities and its prospects. It further puts Russia under academic interrogation about its dealings in Africa, particularly the arms supplies, which may further contribute to its instabilities. The continent has recently experienced the rise of coups and the belligerence of the coup leaders to adhere to the Lome Declaration and the AU’s constitutive act on unconstitutional government changes in the continent. Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad have confidently defied the AU and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in discussing the return to civilian rule. Further questions arise: Is Russia responsible for these coups, or does it somehow influence the resurgence of this phenomenon? Thus, the aim of this book is canvassed:

Given the split-screen nature of Russia’s policy towards Africa, the sustainability of Moscow’s influence is an open question. This book addresses this puzzle head-on by posing the following question: Is Russia a resurgent great power, which has a long-term strategic vision in Africa, or a bellicose pretender driven by opportunism and a desire to take revenge on Western powers? This book strikes a middle ground on this question throughout. (p. 2)

This aim is achieved; however, some gaps could have been addressed. The discussion on the rise of Russia as a resurgent power should ideally present the attributes of the Soviet Union as a state. How the current Russian state emulates those attributes to restore its former glory. Is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the beginning of the expansionist agenda that would stand Moscow in good stead to challenge the Western Bloc? How is the relationship between Russia and China in this context? In the book, the author claims that Russia is a ‘virtual great power in Africa, as it has many of the trappings of great power status but only occupies a second-tier position of influence on the continent’s geopolitical hierarchy’. This point is debatable and may be dismissed to a greater extent. Regarding investment and trade, China has occupied the ‘second-tier position’, not Russia. China has an estimated Foreign Direct Investment and lending of about $ 60 billion in 2021 to African countries.¹ Juxtapose this with an estimated trade of Russia of $ 17.7 bn by 2021.² Although China indicated that it plans to cut down on the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and lending to $ 40 bn, Russia’s investment still cannot be emphasised as a second-tier position in the continent. It would also be over-ambitious to expect Russia to be in the second-tier position, considering that its re-engagement with the continent started in President Putin’s era in 2000.

The chapters are well arranged and flow logically and chronologically. The author starts with an interesting chapter detailing ‘the tumultuous 1990s’. During this period, Russia experienced a steep decline in its global position. The second chapter focuses more on the decade after Russia’s decline. This is the period President Putin rose to power. It helps to understand the leader’s initial ambitions and vision for Russia. Out of this chapter, one can assess whether President Putin’s leadership has been on the rise or just an equilibrium in global politics. The following eight chapters detail Russia’s foreign policy towards Africa and how it has positioned itself as an anti-Western ally of the continent. The chapters focus on: (1) Russia’s ambition in Africa, (2) anti-Western rhetoric, (3) rebuilding influence in North Africa, (4) the continent-wide strategy, (5) the shifts in the foreign policy ideals and tactics, (6) foreign policy in the age of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), (7) a post-COVID-19 policy focused on security policy and lastly, the Ukraine war.

Conclusion

To conclude and close the chapters, the author presents future implications of Russia’s foreign policy in Africa. Two issues stand out in the Postscript chapter: (1) The ambition of Russia to become a real power on the continent, transitioning from a ‘virtual great power’. Based on two facts, this would not be easy to achieve; firstly, the continent is a contested terrain. Various trade relations are forged with countries of the continent as a bloc. The Japan International Cooperation Agency, Economic Partnership Agreements, Forum on China–Africa Cooperation and African Growth and Opportunity Act are among others.

In 2023, the African Union was included in the G20. These are trade agreements between countries of the continent and foreign powers, which Russia would have to rival and conquer. Some of these trade agreements are political and influence the foreign policies of African states. Secondly, the Western bloc is imposing sanctions on Russia and threatening to impose sanctions on African countries seeking to continue diplomatic relations with Russia. The severity and impact of these sanctions would be evidenced in the long term. Thirdly, which is not included in the Postscript, is that African countries are not lackeys in these relations, including the relations with Russia. The continent may be a battlefield, but countries such as South Africa have demonstrated the possibility of firmly disagreeing with the big powers. This is a significant omission in the book. In the end, the author does not make this outright judgement, although the message is succinctly communicated that Russia is a resurgent great power, not necessarily a bellicose pretender. I suppose this is left to the reader to make their determination, and of course, as indicated at the outset, this book opens a discourse often neglected about Russia’s engagement with the countries of Africa.

References

Footnotes

1. International Monetary Fund (IMF), At a Crossroads, 3.

2. Droin and Dolbaia, Russia in Africa, 4.