The planned resumption of trilateral negotiations between Ukraine, Russia and the United States in Abu Dhabi in early November is already being presented in several Western capitals as evidence that diplomacy has regained its momentum, but a return to the negotiating table should not be confused with genuine progress toward
In Oleshky, the humanitarian convoys have finally arrived. So have the television cameras. After more than four years of Russian occupation, hunger and isolation, the surviving inhabitants of this devastated Ukrainian town have suddenly found themselves at the centre of international diplomacy.
Their predicament has acquired a political significance extending far beyond the immediate question of how to get food into Oleshky and its people out.
On Friday, 30 October, Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, confirmed that humanitarian assistance had reached the town and transport was ready for residents wishing to evacuate to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, is coordinating the operation. Twenty-five buses, capable of transporting 750 passengers, together with ambulances for vulnerable residents, have been prepared.
The temporary ceasefire, which began on 27 October, is scheduled to expire on 1 November.
The number of evacuees remains uncertain. Ukraine’s prime minister withdrew an earlier estimate, explaining that the figures were changing and that premature disclosures could compromise the mission.
For civilians who have endured years of occupation, the operation offers something considerably more valuable than diplomatic recognition: a chance to survive.
For the governments involved, however, the calculations are rather different.
The White House announced the agreement on 23 October, crediting Melania Trump with securing the humanitarian ceasefire.
It was an unusual intervention by an American First Lady, and one that Ukrainian officials have publicly welcomed.
But the limited scope of the arrangement deserves attention.
Moscow has agreed to suspend hostilities temporarily, permit humanitarian deliveries and facilitate civilian evacuations. It has not agreed to withdraw its forces, reconsider its territorial demands or substantially alter its conduct of the wider war.
The political return, meanwhile, could be considerable.
Russia can demonstrate cooperation with Washington. The Trump administration can point to a negotiated outcome. The First Lady receives international recognition for a humanitarian initiative.
All this comes just days before the American congressional elections on 3 November, offering the White House a visible diplomatic success without requiring the Kremlin to sacrifice anything strategically important.
Whether the operation will actually deliver Republican votes is another matter. There is no evidence that it will materially influence electoral preferences.
But the publicity value is unmistakable.
For Putin, the arrangement offers something perhaps more useful than an electoral favour to Trump: an opportunity to cultivate the image of a reasonable negotiating partner while preserving Russia’s freedom of military action.
There is a deeper irony in Russia’s new role as a partner in Oleshky’s rescue.
Before the invasion, approximately 24,000 people lived in the town. Today, an estimated 1,700–2,000 remain.
The survivors have endured Russian occupation since 2022, widespread destruction, restrictions on movement and severe shortages of basic necessities. The catastrophic flooding following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June 2023 compounded their predicament.
Yet Moscow can now present itself as a participant in relieving the humanitarian catastrophe.
The transformation is politically convenient.
Images of Russian officials accompanying aid convoys may help construct a narrative of humanitarian responsibility, particularly for international audiences unfamiliar with the town’s recent history.
Facilitating an evacuation does not, however, absolve an occupying power of its obligations towards civilians.
Nor should cooperation on a single humanitarian operation be mistaken for evidence that Moscow has reconsidered the policies that produced the crisis.
The information campaign surrounding Oleshky is particularly revealing.
On 7 October, Ukraine’s Security Service warned that Russian military personnel were allegedly preparing interviews in which residents would blame Ukrainian forces for their suffering while praising Russian troops.
These allegations require independent scrutiny. But they raise an uncomfortable question: how much weight should be attached to political declarations made by people emerging from years of occupation?
Fear can produce silence. It can also produce conformity.
Civilians dependent upon the authorities controlling their territory may repeat the language of those authorities, whether from conviction, intimidation or self-preservation.
Some residents may genuinely support Russia. That does not make them less entitled to humanitarian assistance.
There is a fundamental distinction between holding pro-Russian political opinions and actively collaborating in crimes against Ukraine.
A state defending its sovereignty need not demand ideological conformity from citizens it seeks to protect.
Indeed, rescuing them irrespective of their political sympathies is a more meaningful demonstration of democratic principles than any carefully staged declaration of gratitude.
The American dimension introduces its own peculiarities.
The White House has portrayed the ceasefire as an achievement of the First Lady’s personal diplomacy. Yet Washington was not the only party attempting to secure an agreement.
On 16 October, a week before the White House announcement, Pope Leo XIV appealed directly to Putin for a ceasefire in Oleshky to permit food deliveries, medical assistance and voluntary evacuations.
Three days later, the pontiff raised the same issue with Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Vatican’s documented intervention does not negate Melania Trump’s involvement, which Ukrainian and Russian officials have acknowledged. It does, however, complicate the suggestion that the breakthrough was exclusively an American diplomatic achievement.
In the meantime, the publicity surrounding the operation has assumed a conspicuous political character.
On 29 October, Melania Trump announced that four journalists from Newsmax, a broadcaster closely associated with Trump’s conservative constituency, would accompany the mission as neutral observers.
The broadcaster’s involvement was also welcomed by Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s special representative for international economic cooperation.
The interests converge rather neatly.
Washington obtains images of successful humanitarian diplomacy. Moscow gains an opportunity to appear cooperative before an American audience. The First Lady receives recognition for an initiative that has produced tangible results where much broader diplomatic efforts have struggled.
None of this diminishes the importance of saving civilians. But the political presentation risks becoming an achievement in its own right, potentially obscuring the question of why those civilians required rescuing in the first place.
The military reality provides a rather less reassuring picture.
Oleshky lies on the Russian-controlled eastern bank of the Dnipro, opposite Ukrainian-held Kherson.
According to reporting by Le Monde, Ukrainian officials fear that Russian forces could exploit the temporary pause to replenish supplies and prepare further operations around Kherson.
Such concerns do not establish that a new offensive is imminent. Nevertheless, they highlight the distinction between a local humanitarian agreement and a genuine reduction in military confrontation.
The evacuation route reflects these security sensitivities.
Rather than crossing the Dnipro directly, residents wishing to reach Ukrainian-controlled territory are expected to travel through Russia and Belarus.
The arrangement avoids an immediate frontline crossing but creates separate concerns about possible coercion, screening and freedom of movement.
Meanwhile, Russia has made clear that its willingness to negotiate humanitarian pauses does not imply a willingness to suspend its broader offensive.
The distinction is critical. Moscow can cooperate over evacuation buses while continuing to launch missiles elsewhere in Ukraine.
For European governments, the danger lies in confusing limited cooperation with strategic change.
The Kremlin has demonstrated that it can make a carefully circumscribed humanitarian concession, receive international recognition and retain its fundamental negotiating position.
The wider implications are significant.
A diplomatic process that rewards Moscow for temporary gestures while leaving its military objectives untouched risks producing the appearance of progress rather than progress itself.
Europe’s interest is not merely in securing occasional humanitarian agreements, valuable though they are. It is in ensuring that negotiations lead towards a settlement that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty and does not leave the continent facing an emboldened Russia.
For now, Oleshky offers no evidence that Moscow has moved substantially closer to such an outcome.
The humanitarian mission may save hundreds of Ukrainian lives. If it succeeds, those who negotiated and implemented it deserve recognition.
But political recognition should not become historical absolution.
The occupying power has agreed to help evacuate civilians from a town it continues to occupy. Washington has secured a diplomatic achievement that places few constraints on Russia’s military ambitions.
The cameras will eventually leave Oleshky. The temporary ceasefire will expire.
And unless something more substantial changes, Russia’s occupation — and the war that made the evacuation necessary — will continue.
Education binds generations. But “provided sovereignty” is ambivalent – can you build it for someone else?
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Reflection and outlook
The speech delivered by Vladimir Putin on October 28, 2026, at the Gostiny Dvor in Moscow, at the opening of the plenary session of the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum, lends itself to two interpretations. The first, the most immediate, reduces it to a catalog: wheat, fertilizers, hydroelectric power plants, scholarships, mobile laboratories, and language models. The second takes it for what it is: a programmatic text that would be translated the following day into the 2027–2029 Partnership Action Plan. The summit is the third in the series, following those in Sochi and St. Petersburg. The continuity of the format already speaks volumes: the Russian-African relationship has moved beyond the phase of declarations and is seeking a framework.
Moscow does not offer Africa a volume of resources capable of competing head-to-head with Beijing or Brussels, and it knows this; instead, it offers a set of infrastructures related to sovereignty – food, energy, finance, digital technology, and education – whose political value exceeds its accounting value. The geopolitical value of this cooperation lies in this gap. Its limitations, which do exist, lie in the very same point.
The word that underpins the entire discourse is “sovereignty.” Putin uses it about twenty times, but what matters is the definition he provides halfway through the text. It is no longer merely about control over territory and borders: sovereignty encompasses the political and financial stability of the system, the availability of food, water, and energy, reliable transportation and communications, and a distinct cultural identity. Added to this list is a further layer: jurisdiction over data, platforms, and artificial intelligence models.
This expanded definition has a precise logical consequence. If sovereignty consists of material and technical elements, then it can be built – and if it can be built, it can also be provided by a partner. Sovereignty thus becomes, in the Kremlin’s discourse, something to be exchanged: Russia provides the technical means by which African countries can reduce their dependence on other suppliers. It is no coincidence that Putin concludes by announcing a “platform for the sovereign development of African states,” designed in Russia and presented at a dedicated exhibition. This formula carries an obvious ambivalence, which we will return to.
The second theme is that of anti-colonial memory. The quote from Thomas Sankara on debt as a form of neocolonialism – in which the colonizers have transformed themselves into “technical assistants” – is no mere ornament. Sankara is a figure who speaks to the new leadership in the Sahel – particularly in Ouagadougou – and whom urban African youth know well. Invoking him in Moscow means situating Russia within an African, not a Soviet, genealogy. The next passage makes the strategy explicit: the continent’s infrastructure was built to export raw materials to the metropolises; manufacturing value-added remains below 2 percent; and intra-African trade accounts for barely 15 percent of a total trade volume of 1,500 billion dollars. This diagnosis is the same as that found in African literature on structural dependence. Moscow embraces this analysis and presents itself as the means to overcome it.
The scale of trade
The Russian president has stated that Russian-African trade will exceed $27 billion in 2025, up from $18 billion in 2022, and has set a target of surpassing $50 billion “in the near future.” This growth is real and, considering that it occurred under the most extensive sanctions regime ever imposed on a G20 economy, politically significant. It indicates that a substantial number of African governments have chosen not to align with Western measures and have paid the price for this choice in terms of diplomatic pressure. Putin openly acknowledges this when he thanks his partners for their “firm and principled stance.”
This is a market thatcan still grow – if that is the goal. China’s trade with the continent is in the range of $300 billion, as is that of the European Union. Russia’s trade is less than one-tenth of either of those figures. Not only that: the balance is highly asymmetrical. Russian agricultural exports to Africa reached 13 million metric tons in the first nine months of 2026, while imports of African agricultural products totaled about $4 billion – 8 percent of Russia’s needs. Putin himself admits that the figure is low and that it will have to grow. This admission is significant because it touches on the most sensitive point of anti-colonial rhetoric: a partner that sells grain, fertilizers, and weapons but buys very little replicates, in numerical terms, the very structure that the discourse denounces.
This leads to an initial assessment. Russia competes in niches where it enjoys comparative advantages that are difficult to replicate: grains and fertilizers, civil nuclear power, hydroelectric power, mining, higher education, and military cooperation. These are sectors in which the quantity of capital matters less than its strategic nature. A country that depends on Russia for wheat and on Russia for its nuclear power plant has a closer tie to Moscow than the monetary value of trade would suggest.
The most important levers: food, energy, currency
The first lever is food security. Over forty African countries import Russian wheat and fertilizers, and for some, supplies have multiplied. This data must be viewed alongside the demographic trends mentioned in the same speech: over 2.5 billion inhabitants by 2050, 70 percent of whom will be under thirty, according to United Nations projections. For a continent with this demographic trajectory, the price of bread is a key factor in political stability, and whoever guarantees the continuity of supply gains a form of credit that does not appear on any trade balance. Putin, however, adds a new element: the provision of seeds, machinery, logistics, and processing capabilities to support African agricultural self-sufficiency within the framework of the African Union’s program. On the surface, this offer reduces dependence on Russian wheat; in practice, it shifts dependence from the product itself to the technological supply chain.
The second lever is energy. The reference to the 55th anniversary of the Aswan Dam serves as historical proof of reliability. The present is entrusted to RusHydro, to modular power generation for isolated areas, and above all to civilian nuclear power, which was mentioned among the forum’s topics. Putin speaks of over thirty energy projects in sixteen countries. Nuclear power has a distinctive feature that makes it geopolitically more significant than any other sector: a power plant binds supplier and customer together for sixty or seventy years, encompassing fuel, maintenance, staff training, and waste management. It is a form of cooperation that outlasts governments.
The third lever – the least spectacular – is probably the most important from a structural standpoint. Putin proposes consolidating settlements in national currencies, expanding banking correspondent networks, opening cross-border branches, and linking Russia’s SPFS to the Pan-African PAPSS. The PAPSS (Pan-African Payment and Settlement System) was developed by Afreximbank in collaboration with the AfCFTA Secretariat and launched commercially in January 2022. The SPFS is the Bank of Russia’s financial messaging system, operational since 2014 as an alternative to SWIFT. The stated goal is to reduce transaction costs and shield payments from “politically motivated interference.” Then comes a sentence that, in the report, goes almost unnoticed: some countries do not have their own financial systems and are tied to European ones, which limits their sovereignty. The reference is to the CFA franc zone. This is the first time, in a speech of this caliber, that the monetary issue has been linked so directly to the question of African sovereignty. The message is directed primarily at the governments of the Alliance of Sahelian States, which have turned the monetary issue into a political one.
This third point warrants careful consideration. The link between the SPFS and the PAPSS, if established, would create a payment circuit between Russia and Africa entirely outside Western infrastructure. The significance of this circuit, however, would depend on the liquidity circulating within it, and liquidity depends on trade volumes, which, as we have seen, remain modest. It is more likely, in the medium term, that the PAPSS will gain significance as an intra-African infrastructure and that the Russian connection will be one component among others, alongside those from China, India, and the United Arab Emirates. Even so, it would be a success for Moscow: there is no need to dominate an alternative circuit; it is enough to contribute to making it possible.
But also technology
The section dedicated to technological sovereignty is the most assertive part of the speech. Putin claims a complete value chain for generative artificial intelligence, two national language models, banking and healthcare platforms, and digital administration systems that he offers to African partners. More than two hundred officials from twenty countries have already participated in skills-transfer programs on digital administration.
Here, the ambivalence of “provided sovereignty” becomes evident. An e-government system, a healthcare data platform, or a language model are not neutral assets: whoever controls the code, updates, and hosting retains the ability to access and influence them. The problem does not concern Russia alone – and applies even more to U.S. and Chinese platforms already entrenched on the continent – but the speech does not address this. From an African perspective, the advantage lies in diversification: having a third provider increases bargaining power vis-à-vis the other two. This is the logic of multi-alignment that many African foreign ministries have been practicing for years, and which Russia supports rather than opposes.
Education is the area where continuity with the Soviet experience is most pronounced. Forty thousand African students are enrolled in Russian universities – a 50 percent increase since 2020 – with 5,500 government scholarships for the 2026–2027 academic year, the Russian-African University Network with over seventy universities in seventeen countries, consortia specializing in mineral resources and transportation, and fifty-eight open education centers in twenty-nine countries. The Patrice Lumumba University remains the symbolic reference point. This is the slowest-moving component of the strategy, and also the one that yields the greatest returns. The engineers, doctors, and civil servants being trained today in Moscow and St. Petersburg will, in fifteen or twenty years, hold decision-making positions in African governments and businesses, bringing with them language skills, technical standards, and personal networks. The generation of African professionals trained in the USSR sustained a significant portion of Russian-African relations for decades, even after 1991.
The same applies to the media. The call to build a “common media space” – through the expansion of regional offices of Russian news agencies and a greater presence of African journalists in Russia – is a response to a narrative competition that Moscow considers an integral part of the game. The African continent is today one of the main arenas where the ability to produce competing interpretations of the international order is put to the test.
Africa is becoming polarized, and Russia is facilitating the process
At the systemic level, this discourse places Africa within the multipolar framework in terms different from those typically used in Western rhetoric. The continent is not viewed as a recipient of aid but as one of the emerging poles of the global economy and politics, represented by three members in the BRICS. The reference to the BRICS’ share of global GDP – which exceeds that of the G7 – must be contextualized, but the political point is clear: Africa is being encouraged to view its demographic and economic growth as a source of power rather than merely a development challenge.
Within this framework, Russia presents itself as a facilitator of African agency rather than as a hegemonic power, and this role suits it for a practical reason: it lacks the means to be hegemonic. It supports Africa within multilateral institutions, where Moscow proposes strengthening the African voice in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It consolidates this support through its backing of the AfCFTA, which Putin cites in positive terms and which represents the only project capable of addressing the fragmentation of African markets inherited from the colonial era. The calculation can be interpreted in realist terms. A more integrated and autonomous Africa reduces the scope for Western influence – which is Moscow’s primary objective – without requiring Russia to make investments it could not sustain.
The benefit for Moscow is threefold. First, the vote: 54 African states carry weight in the General Assembly, and their abstention or non-alignment on resolutions regarding the conflict in Ukraine has already demonstrated how valuable this is. Second, access: critical mineral resources, outlets for agricultural and energy exports, and markets for Russian technology excluded from Western markets. Third, legitimacy: a summit in Moscow attended by dozens of African delegations effectively refutes the claim that Russia is internationally isolated. And, throughout all this, the summit did not address the important military alliance between Russia and the Sahel, a topic for discussion on other occasions.
The success of Russian-African cooperation will be measured by the ability to truly transfer expertise, to localize the processing of raw materials, and to rebalance trade. Herein lies Russia’s greatest challenge: to help Africa, not to make it dependent. Sankara, whom Putin quoted, warned precisely against those who present themselves as technical advisors. African governments will judge Moscow on this basis, not on the words spoken at Gostiny Dvor.
Sergei Lavrov’s arrival in the United States for the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting is unlikely to transform the prospects for peace in Ukraine. For Moscow, however, the visit offers opportunities extending well beyond the formal agenda.
Russia’s veteran foreign minister will participate in discussions alongside representatives of the world’s major economies, including governments that have imposed extensive sanctions on Moscow and others that have maintained profitable commercial relationships with it.
The meeting, chaired by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on 30–31 October, takes place as Washington pursues another diplomatic initiative concerning Ukraine.
Lavrov’s presence has attracted criticism from American lawmakers, including Republican Congressman Don Bacon, who has questioned why a senior representative of a government conducting military operations against Ukrainian cities should be welcomed in the United States.
Yet the more consequential issue is not whether Lavrov should attend. It is what Moscow hopes to achieve through renewed access to Western diplomatic forums, and what the United States expects to obtain in return.
The Kremlin has spent much of the war arguing that Western attempts to isolate Russia have failed.
There is some substance to that argument, although it requires qualification.
Russia has suffered extensive restrictions on access to Western finance, technology and markets. Its economic relationships with Europe have been severely reduced, and its dependence on alternative trading partners has increased.
Nevertheless, Moscow has preserved important commercial and diplomatic connections with China, India and other countries unwilling to participate fully in Western sanctions.
For these governments, relations with Russia are often determined by energy requirements, commercial opportunities and their own strategic calculations rather than European security priorities.
The G20 provides Moscow with an opportunity to exploit those differences.
Lavrov can challenge Western sanctions, defend Russia’s diplomatic positions and hold bilateral discussions without demonstrating any willingness to compromise over occupied Ukrainian territory.
That does not make the meeting a Russian victory. Attendance at a multilateral gathering is not equivalent to the removal of sanctions or recognition of territorial claims.
But it offers Moscow something useful: opportunities for engagement without the conditions that would normally accompany substantive negotiations.
The limitations of such diplomacy were illustrated recently when German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul met Lavrov in New York.
As EU Today examined in its analysis of that encounter, the meeting reopened a channel of communication but produced no visible movement in Russia’s position.
Germany restated its support for Ukraine. Moscow reiterated its established arguments.
The encounter demonstrated that diplomatic access and diplomatic progress are not necessarily the same thing.
The Trump administration approaches Russia from a different perspective.
Washington appears increasingly interested in identifying economic and political incentives that could make a negotiated settlement possible.
The calculation is understandable. Sanctions alone have not ended the war, and continued fighting imposes enormous costs on Ukraine while consuming Western military resources.
However, negotiations depend on more than establishing contact.
A settlement requires agreement over territory, security arrangements, enforcement mechanisms and the consequences of renewed hostilities.
Russia’s willingness to participate in discussions does not establish its willingness to accept terms compatible with Ukrainian sovereignty.
Nor does the prospect of economic cooperation necessarily create sufficient leverage to change Moscow’s calculations.
The administration must also consider how concessions offered to Russia would affect Ukraine’s ability to negotiate.
If Moscow expects economic benefits merely for remaining at the negotiating table, it has an incentive to prolong discussions while preserving its military position.
Conversely, a credible offer tied to verifiable Russian actions could provide a basis for substantive bargaining.
The difference lies in the conditions attached to any concessions and the mechanisms available to enforce them.
For European governments, the Atlanta meeting exposes a familiar weakness.
The EU is a major provider of financial assistance to Ukraine, maintains extensive sanctions against Russia and would face the consequences of any settlement that failed to establish lasting security arrangements.
Yet European influence over direct American-Russian negotiations remains limited.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas is attending the meeting and will conduct bilateral discussions, according to the European External Action Service’s official announcement.
Her participation gives Brussels an opportunity to communicate its position. It does not guarantee a role in determining the terms of any eventual agreement.
Ukraine itself is not participating in the gathering, although the G20 meeting is not formally a peace negotiation.
The danger for Europe is not simply exclusion from particular meetings. It is the possibility that decisions affecting European security will emerge from negotiations in which European governments possess limited influence over the agenda.
The EU retains important instruments of leverage, particularly sanctions, financial assistance and access to its markets.
But those instruments are less effective when member states disagree over their use or when Washington pursues a separate diplomatic strategy.
The meeting also takes place amid serious tensions over Iran, maritime security and international trade.
Washington wants greater cooperation over freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, Red Sea, Black Sea and South China Sea.
These priorities intersect with European interests, particularly energy security and the protection of commercial shipping.
Yet the participating governments approach these disputes from markedly different positions.
China has little interest in endorsing an American interpretation of maritime security that could constrain its own regional ambitions.
Russia is unlikely to support arrangements that weaken its position in the Black Sea.
Meanwhile, disagreements over American tariffs complicate Washington’s efforts to secure cooperation from traditional economic partners.
The G20 remains useful precisely because governments with conflicting interests can communicate through it.
But communication should not be mistaken for agreement.
For Moscow, Lavrov’s visit offers another opportunity to demonstrate that Russia remains engaged in international diplomacy despite its war against Ukraine.
For Washington, the challenge is to show that renewed engagement can produce something more substantial than another meeting.
Europe’s concern is more immediate: any settlement negotiated with Moscow will have to be sustainable on European territory, with European resources and against the possibility of renewed Russian aggression.
Diplomatic access may be relatively easy to restore. Establishing credible security arrangements will be considerably harder.
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