The third Russia-Africa Summit opened in Moscow today with delegations from 48 of Africa’s 54 states, 22 of them led by a head of state or government, according to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, up from 17 at St. Petersburg in 2023. President Vladimir Putin addressed the plenary of the Economic and Humanitarian Forum together with the summit’s co-chairman, Burundi’s President Évariste Ndayishimiye, the current chairman of the African Union, who told the hall: “The potential for a Russian-African partnership is great. Our task is to translate it into concrete results.”

“We are witnessing the emergence of a genuine multipolar world order as an objective and irreversible trend,” Putin said. “In the past, the future of whole continents was determined by a very small group of select states, but this epoch is past us.” Resistance comes from “countries accustomed to thinking in colonial terms and becoming fabulously—yes, fabulously—rich at the expense of others,” which “resort to any, even the ugliest and most cynical means, including tariff wars, illegitimate sanctions, economic dictate, blackmail and interference in the internal affairs of others.” Western countries, he said, “are making aggressive attempts to drive Africans back into financial bondage, imposing on them the financial resources they so desperately need on extortionate terms, which force them to pay back many times over.”

He then quoted Thomas Sankara, “that great son of the Burkinabé people,” from his 1987 address to the Organization of African Unity: “Debt is neo-colonialism, in which colonisers have transformed themselves into ‘technical assistants’ ... debt is a skilfully managed reconquest of Africa, intended to subjugate its growth and development through foreign rules.” Putin: “That was said not so long ago—not yesterday, but in 1987. Unfortunately, little has changed since.” Africa’s infrastructure “was built in colonial times to serve the export of raw materials to the metropoles. Even today, by expert estimates, value added in the continent’s manufacturing industry is less than 2%. Of the total annual trade turnover of African states—$1.5 trillion—only 15% consists of transactions within the continent itself.” What Africa needs is “long-term investment in energy, industry, transport and logistics” to “finally throw off the shackles of the colonial legacy,” and reform of the IMF and World Bank to “redirect them towards the needs and requirements of developing economies.”

Food was the concrete heart of the speech. More than 40 African countries import Russian grain and fertilizer, and Russia shipped 13 million tonnes of agricultural products to Africa in the first nine months of 2026. “At the same time, Africa has agricultural potential of its own and is capable of feeding itself. I believe this is one of the continent’s most important tasks.” Russia offers “seeds, fertilisers, agricultural machinery, and transport, storage and processing of food products” in support of the African Union’s agricultural program, “so as to achieve food sovereignty.” Russian-African trade reached $27 billion in 2025, up from $18 billion in 2022; Putin called for passing $50 billion, and for settlement systems to “shield settlements from politically biased interference by unfriendly countries,” since some African states “have no financial systems of their own and are instead tethered to European ones.” Relations, he said, “are hindered neither by the unprecedented restrictions imposed on our country nor by the intense pressure exerted by the West on our partners across the continent.”

In the evening Putin met the heads of ten African regional organizations, joined for the first time by the Eurasian Economic Union and the CIS, to discuss “aligning the integration processes underway on both the African and the Eurasian continents.” Ndayishimiye, for the AU: “Our compass is Agenda 2063.... We would like to achieve a level of cooperation that goes beyond commodity exports.” Africa’s most important capital, he said, is its youth, who “need engineering education, cooperation in science and education.” And: “We adhere to the principle of African solutions to African problems.... Thank you for respecting our priorities.” Putin also met Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi; talks with Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed and Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso followed. The summit is to adopt a final declaration, a 2027-2029 action plan and a declaration on civilian artificial intelligence on Thursday.