The third Russia-Africa Summit concluded in October 29 in Moscow with a final declaration deepening strategic cooperation and a 2027-2029 action plan, as Vladimir Putin framed the partnership as a pillar of a multipolar world free from neocolonial practices.
The 3rd Russia-Africa Summit concluded on October 29 at the Kremlin, where the plenary session approved the final declaration, a specific agreement on artificial intelligence, and the action plan that will govern the 2027-2029 period, presenting the A7 platform as a sovereign alternative to Western banking.
These documents set out the agreed roadmap for expanding cooperation between Moscow and African states while advancing what both sides describe as a fairer international system. A world order free from hegemonies ultimately summarizes the goal declared by the parties.
The final declaration consolidates what the Kremlin describes as steady progress toward a just international system, while the separate statement on artificial intelligence opens a new technological front in the partnership.
Alongside the summit, the Economic and Humanitarian Forum also took place, serving as a platform to deepen bilateral exchange. According to participants, the forum sought a joint response to financial pressures and coercive measures imposed by Western countries.
Addressing the plenary session, Vladimir Putin stated that bilateral relations rest on a shared history of friendship, which he described as the foundation for a global architecture with multiple centers of power and no double standards. In this sense, the Russian President reaffirmed his country’s commitment to international law, the Charter of the United Nations (UN), and the sovereignty of African nations, which he argued is essential for strengthening their economies and social sectors.
The model currently promoted by Moscow combines technology transfer with sovereign investment. Through this approach, the parties reaffirm their rejection of resource exploitation and their commitment to stronger cooperation across the Global South.
Putin insisted that the Russian business model breaks sharply with the extractivism practiced throughout history by the imperial powers of the collective West. “Their approach is the exact opposite. Far from extracting profits in the manner of the colonial practices once employed by former imperial powers, they reinvest their earnings in the development of their national economies,” the Russian leader said.
This combination of technology transfer and sovereign investment, he argued, underpins the rejection of resource plunder and moves forward the integration of the Global South on more equal terms.
🇷🇺🌍 Putin Pushes for $50B+ Russia–Africa Trade and Alternatives to Western Finance
At the Russia–Africa summit in Moscow, Putin called for doubling bilateral trade, expanding payments in national currencies and sharing Russian technology in energy, AI, agriculture and… pic.twitter.com/JJ8ZaU53v3
Russian President Putin underscored the operational efficiency of the A7 platform, explaining that conversions between currencies, digital ones included, are processed instantly, slashing the costs, delays and financial intermediation that have long made Global South trade more expensive.
“Digital currencies are developing all over the world, both in the United States and here in Russia, but why can’t the African continent connect to this high-tech system?” he asked the international delegates. His answer was unequivocal. “This system is sovereign as well. It is not tied to anyone or anything, and nobody is going to block it,” he stressed.
⚡️Russia showcases payment systems operating beyond Western control
Finance Minister #Siluanov highlighted Russian company A7, which is preparing to offer cross-border payment services in #Africa, with transactions processed "in one click" for a fee of just 0.3% pic.twitter.com/xFlbWGK15b
— Russian Embassy in South Africa 🇷🇺 (@EmbassyofRussia) October 29, 2026
Created in the wake of the Western financial measures introduced in 2022, the A7 platform now processes around 2,000 transactions per day on average. It is being presented to African countries as a mechanism for selling raw materials, purchasing industrial inputs, financing infrastructure projects, and importing food using their own currencies, without relying on Western banking systems or their associated conditions and transaction costs.
The action plan running through 2029 supplies the framework for converting the summit’s pledges into concrete mechanisms over the next three years, consolidating what both parties describe as movement toward a just international system.
Serguéi Lavrov described Africa as a civilization in its own right and one of the pillars of an order that, in his view, is replacing five centuries of Western hegemony. Russia opens the third summit on Wednesday with 48 delegations and an offer to support the continent’s industrial and technological sovereignty, with the El Dabaa nuclear plant already under construction.
Serguéi Lavrov spent nearly an hour and a half on Tuesday with the heads of Africa’s leading media outlets, gathered in Moscow on the eve of the third Russia-Africa summit, and laid out how Russia sees the continent.
“We regard the African continent as a distinct civilization, one of the most important pillars of the multipolar world that is now, as an objective course of history, actively taking shape on the international stage, replacing the hegemony that Western countries have exercised for more than 500 years,” the Foreign Minister said.
According to Lavrov, Russia wants to help strengthen the sovereignty of African states, the development of their industries and greater self-sufficiency in the economy, finance and technology. The summit agenda, on October 28 and 29, groups those goals into four areas, namely political and economic cooperation, security, science and technology, and cultural and humanitarian ties.
Nearly all the delegations from the 48 confirmed countries are already in Moscow, and 22 of them are led by heads of state. On the table are 33 documents, among them an agreement on cooperation in artificial intelligence, and the 2027-2029 joint action plan, which Vladimir Putin and Burundi’s Évariste Ndayishimiye, the current chair of the African Union, will adopt at Thursday’s plenary session. Putin also has 24 bilateral meetings scheduled, with the leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali and Libya, as well as Iran and Qatar, in a week when the Russian capital is also hosting the Gas Exporting Countries Forum.
Seven years separate this gathering from the first one, held in Sochi in 2019, which closed with 92 agreements worth some $12.5 billion. The second brought together delegations from 48 countries in St. Petersburg in July 2023, and since then the Russian Foreign Ministry has created the Department of Partnership with Africa to follow up on what was signed, while intergovernmental commissions grew from four in 2023 to nine in 2025. In August, Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced that Moscow would bring to this summit a package of contracts on peaceful nuclear energy, independent payment systems, food security, digitalization and artificial intelligence.
Paul Kagame confirmed his attendance after several Western governments suspended part of their financial aid to Rwanda in 2025, and in Moscow he will sign the creation of a cooperation commission with a country he has already invited to build fertilizer plants. Ghana, whose parliament is processing a military-technical cooperation agreement with Russia, has an open tender for its first nuclear power plant, a 1,000-megawatt facility, in which Rosatom is competing with suppliers from China, South Korea, Canada and the United States.
In 2023, oil, refined products, wheat and metals made up 90% of Russian exports to Africa, while Russia bought mainly fruit, cocoa and coffee. The balance leaves Russia with a surplus of more than $10 billion a year.
Settling that trade became harder when Russia’s exclusion from SWIFT in February 2022 cut off the usual channels of Russian banks. Moscow responded with its own payment network, in which the rublealready covers 84% of transactions with Africa, backed by the Russian financial messaging system, China’s CIPS, crypto assets and the A7 payment agent, which operates in Nigeria and Zimbabwe. For African importers the circuit still carries costs, since obtaining rubles requires a double conversion through dollars, exposes them to the volatility of that currency and leaves their banks open to Western secondary sanctions, which is why several banks on the continent refuse to process payments linked to Russia.
Egypt, which accounts for 30% of Russia’s trade with Africa, hosts the Russian Industrial Zone on the Suez Canal, agreed in 2018 for 50 years, which took its first step in July 2026 when Moscow selected the developer. An Egyptian government source estimates investment of up to $5 billion and completion in 2028, and goods made there with more than 30% local content will enter as Egyptian products the markets where Cairo has preferential agreements. Benedict Oramah, President of Afreximbank, the African Export-Import Bank, urged Russian companies to seize an open market in energy, mining, railways and health, and in June the bank signed contracts with four Russian manufacturers.
Uranium for Europe, Blackouts in Niger
On Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, at El Dabaa, Rosatom is building four 1,200-megawatt reactors that will supply 10% of the country’s electricity. A Russian state loan covers most of a cost set in 2017 at $28.75 billion, which other estimates put at $30 billion, and the first unit is due to come online between 2028 and 2029.
The Russian corporation, which is carrying out 27 of the 31 nuclear plant export projects underway worldwide, offers a complete package covering the reactor, fuel, waste management and staff training over a 40- to 60-year lifespan, to a continent where some 600 million people live without electricity. The International Energy Agency estimates that universal access requires $15 billion a year, six times what was committed in 2023 for sub-Saharan Africa.
Niger, the world’s eighth-largest uranium producer, supplied France’s power plants for more than five decades (France gets about 70% of its electricity from nuclear power) and in 2022 provided almost a quarter of the natural uranium delivered to European plants.Only 20% of its 25 million inhabitants have electricity, and in Arlit and Agadez, where the ore is mined, coverage is close to zero. French company Orano took 86.3% of all the uranium sold from the Somaïr mine since 1971, more than its 63.4% shareholding. General Abdourahamane Tiani’s government nationalized the mine and the power utility Nigelec in June 2025, and although a tribunal of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes ruled in Orano’s favor in September and barred the sale of the ore, some 1,000 tonnes of concentrate are waiting at Niamey airport. The French press reported a deal to sell them to Rosatom.
Niger’s Mines Minister, Ousmane Abarchi, brought to Moscow a proposal for two reactors totaling 2,000 megawatts. “Electricity must be accessible to everyone on this planet; it should not be a privilege,” he said, and his Russian counterpart for energy, Sergei Tsivilev, replied that Moscow wants to build a complete peaceful nuclear energy system in Niger, beyond mining.
A plant of that size takes ten to fifteen years from contract signing to the first unit in operation, and costs tens of billions of dollars. The Russian model, tested in Egypt and Bangladesh, rests on state loans repaid over decades, and analysts following the case note that in Niger the most visible collateral is the uranium itself.
In Namibia, the world’s third-largest uranium producer, Rosatom plans to invest $500 million in a mine set to start production in 2029. Rwanda signed a roadmap in June for small modular reactors, Ethiopia signed another in March for its first power plant and Nigeria resumed the design of two plants. South Africa, home to Koeberg, the continent’s only commercial nuclear plant, launched a tender for 2,500 megawatts in which Rosatom is competing with French, South Korean, Chinese and U.S. companies.
Rosoboron export has military-technical cooperation agreements with 46 African countries and has signed some 150 contracts worth more than $20 billion since 2023. Between 2020 and 2024, Russia was the continent’s leading supplier of heavy weapons, with 21% of imports, ahead of China and the United States, helped by a Soviet-era arsenal that still needs spare parts and by contracts free of political conditions. Even with the war in Ukraine, which cut its global arms exports by 64% between 2021 and 2025, Africa accounts for 30% of the state company’s order book.
Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger asked French troops to leave, formed the Confederation of Sahel States and opened their barracks to the Africa Corps, the force that replaced the Wagner Group under the direct command of Russia’s Defense Ministry. The “3+1” pact, signed in Niamey, extends cooperation to the economy and the central banks of the three countries, and Moscow plans to use the Togolese port of Lomé as a sea outlet for a landlocked region.
In July, during the second round of consultations with the Sahelian foreign ministers in Niamey, Lavrov spoke of building together “a fair multipolar world order” against “neocolonial practices.” Russia reopened its embassy in Niger this year, and Putin asked his Foreign Minister to invite the three presidents to the summit.
The alliance is fighting the jihadist coalition JNIM, which in September 2025 blockaded fuel supplies to Bamako and in April 2026 forced the Africa Corps out of Kidal. When Human Rights Watch attributed killings of civilians to Russian forces in July, Moscow and Bamako jointly rejected the accusation.
Lavrov announced in August a security memorandum with ECOWAS, the bloc the three Sahelian countries left in January 2025, and offered to mediate between the two; the regional organization has not yet confirmed the scope or the signing date.
Washington Tries the Russian Formula
The break with Niger cost the United States the withdrawal of 1,000 troops and a $110 million drone base in 2024, and Donald Trump brought a transactional approach. Massad Boulos, the presidential adviser for Africa, toured Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in early 2026 and acknowledged past mistakes in the name of sovereignty, while Erik Prince, owner of a military contracting firm and an informal adviser to Trump, has been meeting with Madagascar’s junta since late 2025.
A U.S. company agreed in late 2025 with Mali’s state mining company to revive a gold deposit valued at $11 billion. In Madagascar, Washington is negotiating the $700 million Toliara project to extract titanium, zirconium and rare earths, along with a proposal for a military presence at the former naval base of Antsiranana. Colonel Michaël Randrianirina, who came to power after the overthrow of Andry Rajoelina, received Russian drones and instructors and U.S. envoys almost at the same time.
The Washington think tanks that call the Russian offer a “survival package”for military governments now note how their own government is adopting a similar scheme, with security in exchange for minerals.
From Classrooms to Fields
The places Russia funds for African students rose from 2,100 in 2021 to about 4,800 in 2026, and some 35,000 young people from the continent are now studying at Russian universities. The Association of African Universities opened an office in October at St. Petersburg Mining University, and Rwanda already has 24 graduates in nuclear fields working at its Atomic Energy Board and the country’s regulator.
Russia’s ambassador to Burkina Faso, Igor Martynov, pledged technology transfers in agronomy, fertilizers, irrigation, fisheries and animal vaccines. In Togo, which signed a military agreement with Russia in 2024 and keeps its security channels with the West open, the first intergovernmental commission closed on October 1 with a protocol, a memorandum on cultural heritage and plans for mechanization and fertilizer production from local phosphate.
Egypt is building its nuclear plant with Rosatom without distancing itself from Washington or the Gulf monarchies, South Africa defends its non-alignment and Ethiopia joined BRICS without breaking with its Western lenders. According to an analysis published within that bloc’s orbit, Russia is welcome in Africa wherever it offers what others do not.
This week’s 33 documents will add to the 92 from Sochi and those from St. Petersburg, and the 2027-2029 plan will have its first milestones at the Suez industrial zone in 2028 and, a year later, at the first unit of El Dabaa and the Namibian mine. With those projects, Moscow seeks to give concrete form to the idea of Africa as a pillar of the multipolar world that Lavrov laid out on Tuesday before the African media.
Putin Denounces Western Colonialism and Pledges Increased Grain Supplies to Africa.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin inaugurated the Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow, where delegations from 48 countries will discuss cooperation, defense and technology topics for two days.
Representatives of regional organizations, such as the African Union and the African Continental Free Trade Area, are also present at the Moscow meeting.
The summit will have two plenary sessions, after which participants will adopt a final declaration outlining the agreed approaches for the development of Russian-African cooperation and the deepening of collaboration in the international sphere.
They will also approve a declaration on cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence and an action plan for the Russia-Africa Cooperation Forum for the years 2027-2029.
At the end of the event, Putin and Burundi President Evariste Ndayishimiye, in his capacity as the current head of the African Union, will offer statements to the media to summarize the results of the summit.
📌 EXCLUSIVE | Russia-Africa Summit convenes as "global geopolitics has changed substantially": Kenyan FM
During his intervention at the summit, Putin denounced Western colonialism in Africa and promised to increase grain supplies to the continent.
“We are observing active attempts by Western countries to once again plunge Africans into debt, imposing on them much-needed financial resources under abusive conditions, subsequently forcing them to overpay far beyond the debt to the detriment of their long-term development plans,” he said in the plenary session.
According to the Kremlin chief, the multipolar world is a reality, but not everyone is willing to accept it. “We are witnessing how the multipolar world is becoming a reality and this trend is objective and irreversible,” he asserted.
He also drew the attention of those present to Africa’s “new awakening” with the strengthening of its countries’ sovereignty and the increase of their prestige on the world stage.
Russia develops its relations with African countries on the principles of “equality and friendship” and is willing to expand aid to the continent, said Putin, who stressed that “more than 40 African countries already receive Russian fertilizers and cereals, and we are ready to further expand the geographic scope of our agricultural exports.”
In the first nine months of 2026, Moscow exported 13 million tons of agricultural products to Africa. “For some countries, shipment volumes have multiplied several times, not only in percentage, but in absolute terms,” Putin stated.
He also mentioned that exports of African agricultural products to Russia cover 8% of the needs of the Russian market and “this figure must grow and it will.”
The Russian leader placed special emphasis on humanitarian contacts, highlighting the growing number of students at Russian universities, and called on African airlines to begin operating flights to Russia.
Russia is preparing for the third Russia-Africa Summit by promoting sovereign cooperation and positioning Africa as a key component of the 21st-century multipolar order, Russian authorities said.
Among highlighted projects is the North-South transport corridor, intended to connect Russia with India through Iran; its completion and launch would also expand Russia’s direct trade access routes toward East Africa.
Russian authorities said the nation had established itself as a security provider for African governments facing complex problems. Cooperation through advisers and military specialists extends to West African countries in the Alliance of Sahel States — Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso — as well as the Central African Republic, according to officials.
Officials stressed that Russia had no history as a colonial power on the African continent and had never participated in plundering its wealth, according to the report.
Russia-Africa trade topped $27 billion in 2025 — FM spox Zakharova
'One of our most important avenues is still food security — Russia shipped around 18 million tons of grain to African countries in 2025'
Russian diplomats gave the highest priority to holding the third Russia-Africa Summit to consolidate and deepen mutual ties, under the premise of recognizing African civilization on the emerging international stage.
Moscow supports bilateral cooperation based on sovereign respect, without ideological impositions or claims to plunder resources, according to Russian authorities. Foreign Ministry specialists said Africa was a key component of the multipolar world order and that Russia lacked an ideology intended for export and had sufficient natural resources within its own territory.
🇷🇺🌍 The Third #RussiaAfrica Summit kicks off in Moscow today!
Delegations are arriving for two days of talks on October 28-29.
🎬 Watch our recap of the 2019 & 2023 Summits, which opened a new chapter in Russia-Africa cooperation. pic.twitter.com/EwmSFatcga
Russia’s trade strategy and connectivity differ from isolation policies promoted by Western powers because it prioritizes collaboration with members of the global majority.
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kenya are seeking the return of citizens drawn into Russia’s war, Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SZRU) said on 25 October. According to relatives and officials the agency cites, many of the men had gone to Russia for work, only to be tricked or forced into its army.
Russia fills its ranks partly with foreigners. In April, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) said the Russian Defense Ministry plans to enlist at least 18,500 of them in 2026. Foreign recruits let the Kremlin put off hard choices about another mobilization at home, the Atlantic Council argued in May. Home governments have pushed back before, among them Ghana in August. The new statements show the limit of that pushback. Once a man is serving in Russia’s army, his government has to ask Russia to let him go.
Kyrgyz minister: contracts are forced in enlistment offices and jails
Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev addressed the problem at a parliamentary committee on 13 October, answering lawmakers’ questions. He said Kyrgyz citizens in Russia are forced to sign contracts at military enlistment offices or in pretrial detention centers. If warned in time, diplomats try to stop the men from reaching the front.
Kazakhstan is compiling a list for Moscow
Kazakhstan is negotiating with Russia over citizens in the combat zone. Its Foreign Ministry said on 7 October that it was checking each hotline request. Once the checks are complete, the ministry said, it will send the compiled list to the Russian side.
SZRU separately cited unnamed relatives of one Kazakh worker. After he complained about working conditions, they said, he and other men were taken to an enlistment office and forced to sign contracts.
Kenya wants five men held by Ukraine treated as possible trafficking victims
Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, who also handles foreign affairs, gave lawmakers a count on 8 October. “The Ministry has records of 354 Kenyan nationals involved in the Russian-Ukraine crisis,” he told them. Families who petitioned Parliament dispute that number and put their own count at 841, Kenya’s The Star reported.
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Kenya says Russia agreed to stop recruiting its citizens – families of the missing are still waiting
Ukraine holds five Kenyans captured while fighting for Russia, and Nairobi has already appealed to Kyiv over them. The government told Parliament it wants them treated as people who may have been trafficked abroad.
For Kenyans still serving in Russia’s army, the way out runs through Russian officers. Moscow informed Nairobi that unit commanders will consider requests to end military contracts case by case, the same government response said.
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