During this episode I spoke to Daria Labutina, journalist covering Russia’s big “Return to Africa” and member of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s journalist pool, author of the Telegram channel “Africa for Dummies”. 

Daria has been covering all things Africa for federal news agencies, having interviewed the prime-minister of the Central African Republic, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mali, as well as ambassadors to Russia from other countries of the region. She has also interviewed Russian ambassadors to Angola and the Central African Republic. Perhaps most importantly, she joined and covered the visits of Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov to Africa in 2022 and 2023. 

During the episode, Daria and I spoke about how Russia is building its PR strategy in Africa, how the high-level Africa visits went, why many Africans still speak Russian and whether or not the soviet legacy on the continent still matters. 

Timecodes:

2:53 Why everyone is talking about Africa 

3:54 The year 2022 changed everything 

5:46 Self perception and historical relations 

7:26 Going to Africa with Foreign Minister Lavrov 

11:28 Does the Soviet legacy in Africa still matter?

13:44 Interest in Africa VS actual financial opportunities 

16:11 Russia’s PR strategy in Africa 

19:06 Moving from growing influence to increasing trade 

21:26 Why Russia needed to work with Africa from scratch 

25:46 Russian chocolate on African markets

This episode was recorded under the MGIMO University development programme “Priority 2030”