Dr. Shaaban hails recent Russian-African summit

The Russian-African Summit was held in St. Petersburg on the 27th and 28th of this July. Leaders and officials from fifty African countries attended this summit, in addition to all heads of leading regional organizations in Africa despite unprecedented pressure exerted by Westerners to discourage Africans from attending, Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, the presidential advisor, said in an article published by SANA on Sunday.

This is the second Russian summit following the one held in Sochi in 2019. President Putin said his country’s cooperation with Africa has reached a new level in recent years, noting that the African continent has become one of the poles of the crystallized multi-polar world.

Moscow’s action plan with Africa, until 2026, aims to increase trade exchange, improve its infrastructure, and deal with local currencies. A number of African leaders also called for de-dollarization, and it was remarkable to focus on the cultural, knowledge and values dimensions, and on confronting the colonial system and the West’s attempts to eliminate moral and human values.

According to Dr. Shaaban, this summit will be followed next month by an important meeting of the BRICS countries in South Africa, and even if President Putin announces that he will not attend the summit, there is no doubt that Russian logic and thought will be present, and there is no doubt that the BRICS summit will open a wide door for countries wishing to shake off the Western colonial legacy from their shoulders, and seriously engage in the formation of a multipolar world. This is what the West is trying to resist in obsolete ways, but the world is taking shape with steady steps.

Shaaban said that here are the African leaders presenting an initiative regarding the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, to which Putin responded by saying: “All mediation processes in the past were exclusive to countries that are said to be developing democracies, but now they are not.” He added, “With all respect, we deal with your initiative and we will study it with interest.”

NR