Three months before the Russia-Africa summit, Moscow is already preparing to host Africa for the third time after Sochi (2019) and Saint Petersburg (2023). Even as the West promises to isolate the Kremlin, the diplomatic calendar this summer tells a different story.
A diplomacy that never waits
On March 25, Vladimir Putin signed the decree for the third edition of the summit and entrusted its organization to Yuri Ushakov. Two months later, on Africa Day, he uttered a disarming phrase: “I will be happy to welcome African leaders to Moscow.” Ushakov, for his part, framed the summit within a historical context: the 2019 and 2023 editions, he said, “gave new impetus to Russian-African cooperation,” and “considerable and far-reaching work” now awaited the teams. Anton Kobyakov summed up the ambition in one word: to leave “a lasting legacy,” sealed by decisions signed in the areas of economics, trade, investment, culture, and education. As early as January, Ambassador Dmitry Kurakhov announced in Dakar that Putin would come “regardless of which host country was chosen.” The question, therefore, was never whether Moscow would host Africa, but how many capitals would accept. The response began to take shape as early as April, when the Russian embassy in Ouagadougou delivered to President Ibrahim Traoré the Kremlin chief’s personal invitation: “The head of the Russian diplomatic mission conveyed to the minister an invitation from the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, addressed to the President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré,” the official statement specified. The groundwork in Ouagadougou had already been laid: as early as September 2025, upon receiving the invitation to the Cairo ministerial conference, Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré reaffirmed Burkina Faso’s commitment to strengthening cooperation with Moscow. Nothing in this sequence was improvised. Everything followed a method proven successful in previous years: back in 2023, in Saint Petersburg, Putin had already delivered, according to Russian news agencies, a seminal speech on the formation of a new world order.
Four capitals, one single line
As early as March 16, in Moscow, Kenyan Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi set the tone: “The next Russia-Africa summit should be held in Moscow in October of this year.” The summer confirmed this trend. On July 7, in Addis Ababa, Sergey Lavrov received the endorsement of the African Union itself: its Commission Chairperson, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, promised a dedicated team and set a target of $54 billion in trade. On July 8, in Niamey, in the presence of Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop and Nigerien Foreign Minister Bakary Yaou Sangaré, Lavrov conveyed the presidential message: Putin would be “very pleased” to see the presidents of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger in Moscow. Nigerien President Abdourahamane Tiani personally received the minister to discuss the preparations, while Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré, representing Ouagadougou, welcomed a cooperation that now extended beyond purely security-related matters. On July 9, in Maputo, President Daniel Chapo shared a vivid memory with Lavrov: the Mozambicans “remember very well the help the Soviet Union gave them during the struggle for independence,” a legacy visible “on the flag, with the Kalashnikov.” His Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maria Manuela dos Santos Lucas, added gratitude for Russian assistance during the floods. Finally, on July 10, in Bujumbura, President Evariste Ndayishimiye reaffirmed his commitment to the “African solutions to African problems” announced by Lavrov before accepting, in his capacity as the current Chairperson of the African Union, to co-chair the summit. His Minister of Foreign Affairs, Édouard Bizimana, sealed the agreement: “We have agreed to pay particular attention to expanding and deepening trade, economic, and investment relations.”
The figure that Brussels had not anticipated
On July 19, diplomat Anatoly Bachkine revealed the figure that settled the debate: more than thirty countries confirmed their participation, out of 54 African states, a total he considered “quite significant,” with applications arriving “every day.” Behind this number lies a precise agenda. Tatiana Dovgalenko, head of the Africa department at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, listed the priorities: digital technologies, artificial intelligence, civilian nuclear energy, independent payment systems – enough to “give additional impetus” to cooperation on the ground. For Dmitri Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, the summit remains “a good platform” for trade, investment, humanitarian aid, and, to a certain extent, security.
The illusion of containment comes to an end
Since 2022, and indeed since 1945, a segment of the West has gambled on the Kremlin’s isolation. A four-stop tour, conducted in a single week by one man, reveals the limitations of this strategy. The pan-African institution itself is co-sponsoring the event. The most contentious regional organization in the Sahel is also present. National memories, forged in the era of decolonization, are being transformed into diplomatic capital. None of these convergences stems from coercion. They all serve specific interests: trade, security, historical memory, and technological sovereignty. What is emerging in Moscow is not an anti-Western coalition in the strict sense used by Western elites and mainstream media: “United in their hatred of the West,” they say. Rather, it is an aggregation of national interests, each negotiated separately, the sum of which produces a political effect that neither sanctions nor warnings have been able to prevent. Containment presupposed a uniform continent, aligned with the preferences of an external, particularly Western, power structure. July revealed the opposite: a continent negotiating its own place, capital by capital.
A meeting that defines the decade
Two trajectories are emerging for October, and both confirm the same dynamic. The first: a massive summit, with more than forty heads of state, which would solidify Moscow’s position as both a major diplomatic hub on the continent for the coming decade and a sustainable alternative. The second, equally robust: some thirty high-level delegations, sufficient to translate into concrete agreements the momentum observed since July in the four capitals visited by Lavrov. In both cases, the momentum is established. What the March decree initiated, what the July tour consolidated, the October agenda – digitalization, civil nuclear energy, sovereign payments, investments – will transform into a lasting partnership.
We can therefore say that between Moscow and Africa, the third edition of the summit does not close a cycle: it opens a new one, denser, more ambitious, and already underway.
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Mohamed Lamine KABA, Expert in the geopolitics of governance and regional integration, Institute of Governance, Human and Social Sciences, Pan-African University.