Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry announced restart of relations with Africa

The Ukrainian foreign policy department announced the expansion of Ukraine's diplomatic presence on the African continent.

Rubryka informs about this with reference to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

As noted in the message of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the purpose of such activity of Ukrainian diplomacy is uninterrupted and effective interaction with African countries. The diplomatic department shared the achievements in the African direction during 2022.

In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated: "Since February 2022, there have been 18 conversations between the President of Ukraine and African leaders, 9 of which are the first in the history of bilateral relations (Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, DRC, Zambia, Côte d'Ivoire, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Botswana). In October, the President of Guinea-Bissau and current head of the Economic Community of West African States, Umaro Embalo, visited Ukraine. This was the first official visit to Ukraine by the leader of a Sub-Saharan African state since 2004."

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, joined the development of diplomatic relations with African countries and held 35 meaningful telephone conversations and meetings with African colleagues. In October of last year, the first African tour of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine in the history of Ukrainian diplomacy took place, during which Kuleba visited Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Kenya.

"The Special Representative of Ukraine for the Middle East and Africa, Maksym Subkh, appointed in July 2022, additionally visited five African countries. During the tour, important agreements were reached, primarily in economy and education. The achievements of Ukrainian policy in Africa should include consolidation of support for African countries at the level of the UN General Assembly. In particular, no African state voted against the resolution of the UN General Assembly, "Territorial integrity of Ukraine: protection of the principles of the UN Charter," dated October 12, 2022, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs added.

The achievements of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs include the expansion of the geography of the Crimea Platform summit participants, interparliamentary interaction with African countries, measures to counter russian propaganda narratives, etc.

"By providing humanitarian aid to African countries suffering from hunger, as well as thanks to the humanitarian initiative of the President of Ukraine Grain from Ukraine, our state proved its status as a reliable guarantor of food security in the region," the embassy emphasized.

In addition, the ministry announced plans for Africa for 2023:

• the opening of a number of new embassies;
• increasing the volume of Ukrainian exports of goods and services;
• implementation of joint Ukrainian-African projects in the spheres of trade and economic, investment, scientific and technical cooperation, and production cooperation.

Reference

The russian invasion of Ukraine limited the circle of moscow's political allies to world pariahs. We looked at how russian president vladimir putin uses them against Ukraine.

However, at the beginning of December, an alarm bell may have sounded for vladimir putin. According to Western media reports, Morocco will become the first African country to provide real military assistance to Ukraine. Moreover, in the same reports, this decision was called a serious failure of the kremlin in an attempt to strengthen African neutrality.

Note that most African countries chose a neutral position regarding the war, even though on February 24, the kremlin, in addition to Ukraine, attacked the international order and the UN charter.