Putin promises free grain to six African nations after collapse of Black Sea deal

Vladimir Putin has promised free grain supplies to six African nations as Moscow seeks to capitalise on the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal.

Speaking on the first day of a Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg, the Russian president claimed his country would be able to replace Ukrainian grain exports blocked by Moscow’s decision to abandon the UN-brokered arrangement which had allowed the export of grain and other products from Ukraine through the Black Sea to markets, many of them in Africa.

“In the coming months, we will be ready to provide Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea with 25,000-50,000 tonnes of grain free of charge,” Putin said, speaking in front of several African leaders on Thursday.

Russia is hosting a two-day summit with the African continent designed to portray Moscow as a great power despite crippling western sanctions and growing unease in the global south over the country’s destabilising war in Ukraine.

The summit comes a week after Russia’s decision to pull out of the grain deal. Putin partly blamed his country’s withdrawal on western sanctions that he said restricted the sale of Russia’s agricultural products abroad. The grain deal, also brokered by Turkey, had lasted about a year and allowed billions of dollars worth of grain to safely transit out of Ukraine via the Black Sea.

Observers believe that Putin will use this week’s summit with African nations to push a plan to supply grain directly to Africa and cut Ukraine out of the global market. Moscow has previously used the grain issue to find allies in the global south for its war in Ukraine and gather support against western sanctions.

But, despite a flurry of Russian diplomatic efforts in Africa, there are clear signs that frustration on the continent is growing over Russia’s decision to withdraw from the deal, amid fears of a looming food supply crisis.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that just 17 African heads of state would be attending the summit, fewer than half of the 43 who came to the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019 hosted in Sochi. Asked about the low number of attenders, Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, blamed the west for “putting pressure” on African countries “in order to prevent their active participation in the forum”.

Less likely to be discussed in public is the role of the Wagner mercenary group, which is most active in Central African Republic, Libya, Mali and Sudan. The Kremlin has repeatedly pledged that it will not reduce Wagner’s activities in Africa, following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted rebellion last month.

Late on Wednesday, a close ally of Prigozhin posted a picture purportedly showing Prigozhin meeting African officials in St Petersburg. In the unverified photograph, Prigozhin is seen standing next to a senior official from Central African Republic (CAR), an impoverished nation that has welcomed thousands of Wagner mercenaries over the last few years.

The image was first published on Facebook by Dmitry Syty, a Russian national whom western officials have described as an important figure in the CAR branch of the Wagner group. According to local news outlet Fontanka, the image was taken at the Trezzini Palace hotel in St Petersburg, which is reportedly owned by Prigozhin.

If confirmed, the image would represent the first visual sighting of Prigozhin in Russia since the warlord halted his mutiny over a month ago. The Kremlin has previously said that Prigozhin met with Putin shortly after his march on Moscow to discuss Wagner’s future, but the warlord has since been photographed in Belarus.

Under a deal to end the rebellion, which saw Wagner troops seize a major southern city and march on the capital, charges against Prigozhin were dropped and he was ordered to move into exile in Belarus. A video circulating on social media last week purportedly showed the mercenary chief addressing his fighters in Belarus and calling the Russian war effort in Ukraine a “disgrace”.

Before the summit, Prigozhin gave a rare interview with the pro-Kremlin television channel Afrique Média, which targets French-speaking African countries. “There was no, and there will be no, reduction in our programmes in Africa,” he said.

Meanwhile, Russia’s military continued its targeting of grain infrastructure at Ukrainian port cities, hitting port infrastructure in Odesa’s Black Sea region, killing one person and causing significant damage.

Russia has stepped up its attempts to strangle Kyiv’s globally important agricultural exports after exiting the grain deal, damaging 26 port infrastructure facilities and five civilian vessels in the previous nine days, according to the deputy prime minister for the restoration of Ukraine, Oleksandr Kubrakov.

Kubrakov, the infrastructure minister, also said that Russia was restricting shipping in the area of ​​the temporarily occupied Crimea and near the territorial waters of Bulgaria.