Putin’s African Games: Insidious Moscow Anti-Colonialism

Russia keeps positioning itself as a defender of the interests of former colonies and falsely pretends that it is a great friend of the African continent. There is not an iota of sincerity in this position of the Kremlin. But there is a lot of falsehood and a desire to use the countries of the Global South for their own selfish interests. The state, which in form is a typical colonial empire and is simultaneously waging a war of aggression, instructively reproaches the countries that got rid of their own colonies a long time ago.

There is something deeply contradictory and repulsive in Moscow’s constant attempts to play the role of defender of all the oppressed and the poor. After February 24, 2022, Putin repeatedly raised the topic of “exploitation by the West of its former colonies” in his speeches. In late July, at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, he expressed his concern that there are still certain manifestations of colonialism in the world. Earlier, in September 2022, during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Samarkand, the Russian dictator cynically accused the West of still living in a paradigm of colonial thinking. On December 11, 2022, Putin even approved a special decree instructing the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation to carry out scientific research on the history of the origin, development, and consequences of the colonial policy of European states in Africa and other continents at the expense of the state budget.

The speaker of the Russian State Duma, Viacheslav Volodin, went even further. On August 3, he wrote an interesting post on his Telegram channel, where he stated that the UN should consider the issue of compensation to the people of African countries from the US, Great Britain and France for the damage caused in the past. Volodin repeated Putin’s manipulative point that the prosperity of the West is based mostly on the plunder and oppression of the peoples of Africa. The Russian official also mentioned the slave trade and the demographic impact it caused. And also, about the fact that the USA, Great Britain, and France are allegedly ravaging African mineral deposits and harming the environment. And in general, the current poverty and economic problems of Africa are not the fault of corrupt and inefficient local authorities, but bad overseas colonizers.

Although the recent Russia-Africa summit was not a triumph of Kremlin diplomacy, a certain influence of Moscow on the countries of the African continent remains. The same applies to parts of Asia, including India. So how does Russia manage to “save face” in front of a large part of the population of the Global South? One reason is that Russia is still largely not perceived as a colonial empire. And this enables it to act as a defender of the interests of “all the oppressed and victims of colonialism.”

There is an established stereotype that overseas conquests carried out by the metropolis are one of the signs of colonialism. All the classic colonial empires of the modern era, such as the British, French, Spanish, Dutch or Portuguese, are known for their colonies located on other continents or remote islands. As for such an empire as the Russian one, things look a little different here. Moscow began active colonial expansion in the 15th–16th centuries. But due to the peculiarities of geography, it was directed deep into the vast expanses of Eurasia. At first, the territory of North-Eastern Europe was conquered up to the coast of the Arctic Ocean. Then the process of penetration through the Urals began. While Europeans founded colonies in Africa, America, and South Asia during the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries, Moscow expeditions advanced through Siberia and reached the Far East. History knows many examples of land-type empires that extended over vast territories: Assyrian, Roman, Mongolian, Chinese, and Ottoman. Russian is one of them.

The Kremlin has never recognized that the territories captured by it as a result of expansion are its colonies. It was about their supposedly “voluntary joining,” the need for “Christianization of pagans” and “the spread of progressive Russian culture.” But the practice of such “peaceful accession” has many tragic pages for local tribes and peoples who have fallen into the orbit of Moscow. During this process, many regional state entities were destroyed. Russian colonial policy was accompanied by active assimilation and integration. And in some places – by physical extermination of peoples who put up serious resistance. The fact that Russian colonial conquests are located in different geographical latitudes than European ones does not give grounds to claim that colonialism is a foreign practice for the Kremlin. Moscow has never legally called captured territories inhabited by various ethnic groups as colonies. Still, this does not mean that they were not so de facto.

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the process of Russia’s decolonization did not end. Moscow succeeded in suppressing national movements in Chechnya, Tatarstan, and Bashkiria and halting the process of disintegration. Today, the Russian Federation is actually one of the last surviving great colonial empires. But the Kremlin continues to cynically play the card of a fighter with the heavy legacy of colonialism, which it inherited from Soviet times.

Another reason why Russia retains some influence over African countries is its ability to manipulate local public opinion. Through the mouths of its top officials, Moscow voices what the people of Africa and many leaders of African states are generally happy to hear. It is too profitable to blame someone other than oneself for all the troubles of modern times. It’s no wonder that most of the former colonies gained independence more than 60 years ago, the damned Western colonizers are to blame for everything. Not the corruption of the local authoritarian elites who rule the states of the African continent, not the weak civil society, but the former metropolises.

Blaming the West for the heavy legacy of colonialism and demanding reparations to former colonies, Moscow should start with itself. Also, if the Kremlin decided to play the old card of anti-colonialism and the slave trade, why not present claims to the countries of the Arab world? After all, the slave trade flourished in Africa long before Europeans appeared there. And the Arabs were engaged in it even after it was banned by European states at the beginning of the 19th century. According to rough estimates, Arab slave traders sold into slavery at least 10 million inhabitants of the continent. And there was no idyll at all in pre-colonial Africa. It was a rather cruel world, along the paths of which caravans of slave traders walked. Tropical diseases raged in it, and there were frequent wars between tribes. Western colonialism brought to Africa not only misery, but also progress, modern medicine, communication routes and new models of governance.

In fact, Russia is not at all interested in the development and well-being of African countries, the building of stable democratic institutions and more prosperous societies there. She needs this continent as a tool in her geopolitical plans. For Moscow, Africa is a region for exporting weapons, exploiting resources, provoking conflicts, and migration crises. The more chaos in Africa, the better for Putin. Because chaos can be used as an additional tool of pressure on the West. Also, the Kremlin does not avoid the issue of possible world hunger due to withdrawal from the grain agreement. By flirting with Africa, Moscow pursues its own selfish interests, cloaked in anti-colonial rhetoric, as the Soviet communist leadership once did. Cunning is one of the main features of Russian international policy.

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