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DAKAR, Senegal — President Emmanuel Macron of France traveled to West and Central Africa this week and denounced the “hypocrisy” of African leaders who’ve refused to name out Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Mr. Macron additionally warned towards the rising affect of Russian “disinformation” within the area and accused Russia of utilizing vitality and meals in a brand new sort of “hybrid” struggle.
The French president’s three-day tour of West African nations got here as Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s international minister, was wrapping up a competing journey to Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda and the Republic of Congo. Mr. Lavrov argued that Russia was not answerable for international meals shortages and known as on African leaders to refuse a worldwide order imposed by the West.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, most African nations have maintained a place of neutrality, declining to facet with Ukraine and arguing that the battle has nothing to do with them. That place has irked many Western officers, who’ve tried to rally African nations behind Ukraine’s trigger at the same time as Russia woos them, too.
On Wednesday, Mr. Macron sought to counter Mr. Lavrov’s rhetoric by calling Russia an “imperial colonial energy” that determined to “invade a neighboring nation to defend its pursuits.”
“If you see them poke their head into your nations, don’t assume in any other case, even when they are saying the alternative,” Mr. Macron mentioned at a information convention in Benin with the nation’s president, Patrice Talon.
Mr. Macron disputed solutions that France had offered extra monetary and navy help to Ukraine than to its allies in Africa. In Benin, he promised to ship extra weapons to the nation, which has confronted sporadic assaults in its northern territories.
In Cameroon, the French president argued that “too typically,” African leaders have failed “to name a struggle a struggle and say who began it” and supplied an evidence: “as a result of there are diplomatic pressures — I’m no idiot,” he mentioned as he stood at a information convention alongside Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya.
The struggle in Ukraine has worsened a number of meals crises on the continent, together with within the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. However many African nations have long-running navy ties with Russia, and Mr. Macron’s go to to Cameroon got here simply months after the West African nation signed a protection settlement with Moscow.
Mr. Macron was scheduled to go to Guinea-Bissau on Thursday. The journey, his first outdoors Europe since he was re-elected in Might, comes as an anti-French sentiment has unfold throughout French-speaking nations in West Africa, and weeks forward of the tip of a nine-year navy mission in Mali, the place France has fallen out with the nation’s navy junta.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, can also be scheduled to journey to Uganda subsequent week, in addition to to Ghana, to handle the consequences of Russia’s struggle towards Ukraine on Africa.
In Benin, Mr. Macron mentioned Russia was waging what he known as hybrid struggle, manipulating data, meals and vitality to realize leverage over different nations which may facet with Ukraine. He additionally accused Russia of deploying mercenary teams in African nations to additional its pursuits.
“I feel that it’s worrying for the African continent,” Mr. Macron mentioned.
Elian Peltier reported from Dakar, Senegal, and Aurelien Breeden from Paris.
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