Russia’s “Great Return” to Africa?

Russia’s comeback to Africa has been widely discussed since 2017.

How significant really is it and how does Russia’s Africa policy play out in practice? This paper aims to answer these questions, based on the testimony of Russian and African experts and participants whom the author met on different assignments. There is no doubt that Russia is back in Africa. Yet Moscow’s approach is based less on a grand strategic design aimed at domination than on an opportunistic and pragmatic search for influence that is dictated, in essence, by economic imperatives.