The Russia-Africa summit and will see the participation of at least forty delegations of African states, out of the 54 recognized by the United Nations. Emphatically declaimed as the Second Summit of the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forumthe meeting follows the first held on 23-24 October 2019 in Sochi with the slogan: “For peace, security and development”.
The program is full of events: the panels on will be central nuclear, environment, development, female empowerment come on “New World Order: From the Legacy of Colonialism to Sovereignty”. The Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, indicted together with Putin by the International Criminal Court for the forced transfer of Ukrainian minors, is entrusted with the issue of child protection in the panel “Promotion of traditional values under the pressure of aggressive liberalism”.
Official Russian documents speak of the aim of achieving “un new partnership mutually beneficial to address the challenges of the 21st century”, and to “strengthen global and equal cooperation between Russia and African countries in all its dimensions: political, security, economic, scientific, technical, cultural and humanitarian spheres”. In essence it is that image of a Philanthropic Russia towards the problems of humanity of the “global South”, which Putin would like to assert in that part of the world to unite it against the West. And now the Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov he announced that “Russia is ready to send free grain to needy African countries even without the Black Sea Grain Initiative”, specifying that the matter will be discussed at the St. Petersburg forum.
Faced with this perspective who would like Russia at the center of a new world orderand, then, it is good to frame the mystifications of Putin’s strategies starting precisely from the withdrawal from the CD “wheat deal”, more properly referred to as Black Sea Grain Initiative.
The geopolitics of grain
To understand the scenario, several aspects need to be considered. Since the implementation of the agreement on wheat, 39.2 million tons have been exported, but among the first five recipient countries, the Chinese, to an absolutely significant extent with over 8 million tons, followed by Spain (6 million), Turkey (3.2 million), Italy (2.1 million), Holland (2 million), and then Egypt (1.6 million) and Bangladesh (1.1 million). From Africa, Tunisia (713.5 k), Libya (558.5 k), Kenya (437.5 k), and at the end of the list Ethiopia (282.5 k), Algeria (212.5 k), Morocco (111.2 k ) and Sudan (95.3 k) still appear, but in much lower quantities.
Basically, the reality is quite different from the narrative that the agreement would have helped Africa above all. This does not detract from the overall value of the agreement reached about a year ago thanks to the mediation of Turkish President Erdogan and the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres: the recovery of grain exports to the Black Sea has avoided the rise in the cost of grain on international markets and the related distorting effects on the increase in insurance and freight rates which greatly affect merchant traffic.
A different scenario: Russia with a surplus
However, there is another aspect to consider: the acclaimed surplus of Russian grain production, highlighted by the Russian news agency TASS itself, and by specialized agencies such as Jacob & Partners, World Grain and Bneintellinews, as well as by the US State Department. Putin himself in March announced the all-time record of 153-155 million tons of wheat produced last year, while Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko’s June 16 indications confirmed the positive trend of 130 million tons for this year.
The fact is that overproduction has led to a surplus that has not found outlets, with the inevitable problems of lack of space for storage and transport. The issue inside Russia is also taking on a risk profile for inflation and the grievances flowing from local assemblies to the center: Russian grain farmers have already lost about 1 trillion rubles ($15 billion) to export duties but the losses incurred on the domestic market would be even higher. In short, the idea of Putin and his nomenklatura is that somehow if Ukrainian wheat is blocked, Russia will be able to export its surplus cereals, which otherwise would end up rotting.
The design therefore combines well with the others two strategic needs: the first concerns the intent, of which it has been said, of win the recognition of the “Global South”the second now concerns the very current need to recover the control of the interference and conditioning on African governments hitherto ensured by the Wagner group, who has just rebelled and whose loyalty to the supreme leader is still very uncertain. Putin’s clearly evident aspiration to bring the ultra-nationalist area closer together should be placed on these profiles, which as documented by the Tsargrad-Russian Primacy website has long required a more firm and decisive posture in the escalation of the war.
The official statements of Russia on the part that would not be applied by the agreement with regard to its exports as a result of the sanctions must therefore be evaluated with many reservations. In reality, they can be considered indirect but only limited effects, because in general the system of Western sanctions against Russia has not concerned exports of food products. Moreover, even within the UN framework, technical solutions were being perfected that would have facilitated Russian exports and revised the Russian request to re-enter the agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank in the Swift financial circuit.
Realpolitik on the Black Sea
Russia’s choice to withdraw from the agreement is destined to have many consequences, and certainly now the pressure of its bombings is having an effect, starting with the port of Odesa. Certain principles of international law should therefore be effectively reaffirmed, above all by the United Nations. The “blockade of the ports or coasts of a State”, with the consequent limitation of freedom of navigation, is nothing but a declination of an act of “aggression”, which became illegitimate following the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations 3314 of 14 December 1974, and now punishable also under the Statute of the International Criminal Court (art.8-bis).
Furthermore, the art. 54.1 of the first Geneva Protocol of 1977 places an explicit prohibition on starving the civilian population, and in parallel with theArticle 8. War Crimes of the Statute of the International Criminal Court the conduct of “intentionally starving, as a method of warfare, civilians by depriving them of goods indispensable to their survival” is incriminated. This is a case for which dependent NGOs have already invested the Court by linking the blockade of food exports with the destruction of agricultural fields, dams and other criminal ways of conducting the war that have involved the civilian population.
A role for the General Assembly
On the basis of these universal principles and rules, it will now be necessary to see what intentions the African countries that will participate in the St. Petersburg summit are proposing. It is desirable that they do not get attracted by anti-colonial narratives and claim the right of their populations to be fed also by Ukrainian and European grainand to end the war. If this were not the case, it would therefore be good for Russia to be called to confront it in an open debate also within the General Assembly of the United Nations. And therefore, beyond the condemnations that arrived punctually, it is now necessary for the United Nations and the European Union to know how to bring together the positions of Turkey, but also of China and the countries of the “global South” to rethink a Black Sea in which “humanitarian corridors” are restored.
Foto di copertina EPA/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE HANDOUT