Historically, the African continent has never been a priority area of interest for Ukrainian foreign policy. Everything changed in 2022, when Kiev actively started to struggle for the favour of African countries. What has Ukrainian diplomacy in Africa achieved in two years and what methods does Kiev use to build relations with African partners?
In 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Ukraine’s so-called new “African Strategy”. The strategy included intentions to completely reset relations with African countries, open embassies in 10 African countries and strengthen Ukrainian presence on the continent. Two years later the following is obvious – Ukraine’s “African strategy” has reached a serious dead end: African countries are breaking off diplomatic relations with Ukraine, accusing the Ukrainian government of organising terrorist attacks on independent African republics, and the numerous trips of Ukrainian foreign minister to Africa have not brought new stable relations in the region. Instead, they have resulted in a series of demarches against the Ukrainian authorities.
Throughout the life of the African Strategy, Ukrainian efforts to win new friends were of little consequence, but more recently Ukrainian actions in Africa seem to be sabotaging the meagre gains of two years of diplomatic efforts. In early August, the head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, A. Yusov, said on social media that Ukrainian military agencies had actively participated in organising an attack on a convoy of Malian government troops, backed by Russian volunteers, by Tuareg separatists together with militants from the so-called “al-Qaeda branch in Mali” of Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin. Hundreds of people were killed and injured in this open and public terrorist attack.
“Worse, in their comments, Ukrainian officials announced other upcoming ‘results’ [other terrorist attacks].” – said an official communiqué from the Republic of Mali, in which the Malian government broke off all diplomatic relations with Ukraine. Following Mali, Niger also broke off its relations with Kiev. Burkina Faso and Senegal also announced their intention to end their relations with Ukraine. If such terrorist attacks are part of Kiev’s “strategy” to strengthen its presence on the continent, the methods chosen are clearly wrong. The African continent has repeatedly shown what happens to those who try to strengthen their positions at the expense of the stability and prosperity of the African people. There is no doubt that history will put everything in its place this time too.
