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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in South Africa on an official visit on 23rd January just prior to the visit of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to Pretoria midweek.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in South Africa on an official visit on 23rd January just prior to the visit of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to Pretoria midweek. The visit follows Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang’s recent five-nation Africa tour of Ethiopia, Angola, Benin, Gabon, and Egypt. Political observers view the visits as diplomatic exercises to win Africa through strategic partnerships.
The increased bilateral cooperation, as well as multilateralist fora such as the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping, formed the agenda of Lavrov’s visit to South Africa.
Earlier, a week back, South Africa’s military announced its decision to hold joint naval drills with Russia and China off its coast next month. The announcement was met with some criticism from within and abroad pointing out that it coincides with the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. South Africa defended the decision and said that such exercises have been done with other countries such as France, the US, and others from the Western NATO military alliance to share operational skills and knowledge.
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Mr Lavrov was also in Africa in July 2022, when he visited Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Congo-Brazzaville. The recent announcement by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktoria Abramchenko that Russia is exploring a mechanism to settle payments for grain exports to Egypt in rubles instead of dollars is significant in many ways. Egypt is one of the largest importers of Russian wheat. For the dollar-strapped Egypt, payment settlement in the rouble will be a big relief. At the same time, it will be an important step topaymenttroducing payments settlements in roubles with more countries. A similar deal was recently struck between Russia and Turkey.
