Ukraine takes on Russia in the battle for hearts and minds in Africa
Ukraine’s top diplomat is a busy man, but Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has found a whole ten days for his first tour of the African continent. On Monday, in the Senegalese capital Dakar, Kuleba told reporters that “boats full of seeds” would be making their way to the continent from Ukraine.
Over 12% of Africa’s wheat is imported from Ukraine. Africa imports about 45% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, and the Russians have blamed Western sanctions for rising prices and a broken supply chain. Now, Kuleba said, it was time to bring “the Ukrainian truth” to Africa, which, perhaps nostalgic for Soviet friendship, has a soft spot for Russia that belies trade numbers that pale into insignificance beside those from Europe, China and the United States.
This is the first African tour in the history of Ukrainian diplomacy and it is part of a much larger “roadmap” that Volodymyr Zelensky has asked his Foreign Ministry to chart in order to win over African leaders, after many of them either sided with the Kremlin in the United Nations following the February 2022 invasion or stayed neutral. (There were exceptions, of course. This memorable speech by Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, for instance.)
Another element of the Ukrainian roadmap, according to Ukrainian government websites, is a “large scale Ukraine-Africa conference” that Kyiv is preparing. Food security, trade relations and technology products are among Ukraine’s offerings to the continent.