Russia’s Afrigrad - the unseen war the West is losing
Londongrad out, Afrigrad in
While I carry little respect for the man that ordered The Black and Tans into Ireland to commit atrocities and stamp on our freedom, I will say, Winston Churchill dropped some catchy lines. Winnie once described Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma". Spoken in 1939, these still ring true today.
The spotlight of the world’s attention often focuses on the main theatre of conflict dominating our headlines; Russia and Ukraine. There is a tendency to become consumed in thinking Ukraine is the only geostrategic location and disregard developments in far flung places. Long-time readers of this Substack will know I’m more interested in connecting the dots between developments off the beaten track rather than the adding to the pile of mainstream material.
Svalbard, Nagorno Karabakh, Uzbekistan.. places that are rare to pop up on your push notifications and yet deserve more attention. This piece aims to shine the light once again on a place that is of little relevance in many people’s minds but may be the deciding factor in defining geopolitics for years to come.
Next up; Africa.
Much is discussed in the media about Russia’s ability to finance its war machine against Ukraine. When the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, the Western world piled on the sanctions in an attempt to limit the amount of funding Russia can receive through sales of oil and gas. At the outset, the idea of covering the front door of Russia’s shop in red tape and tripwires to limit their customers’ accessibility was nothing short of fantastical. This would work for a simplistic business model like a village shop with customers coming in the front door to buy some goods and leaving through the same door they entered.
Russia’s business model is more akin to the Clara Market in County Offaly; morally questionable characters in transit vans, wheelin’ & dealin’ stolen goods facilitated through payment means the taxman will have a tough job trying to trace. Russia has created an African-Clara Market which is acting as the engine room to provide the thrust for Putin’s desires. Africa, as the key to Russia’s power, can provide endless cashflows, valuable assets, international support and friendly votes at the United Nations. All the good stuff required to carry on being a geopolitical arsehole.
Pre-war, Russia was known for its infiltration of London to take advantage of the many financial and legal services on offer to clean its cash and act as a safe haven for investments. This gave London the appropriate nickname of Londongrad. With many restrictions now placed on Russians doing business in the Western world, the flow of funds will find the path of least resistance. This now means Africa, or soon to be known - Afrigrad.
To understand what is at play here, we first must understand Putin’s playbook:
Pick a country in Africa and find a corruptible figure that you can influence. Military figures are the flavour of the month.
Convince said figure through some ego stroking / threats that his position should be at the top with nothing less than authoritarian control supported by his new Russian friends.
If said figure doesn’t have the manpower to secure control through a military coup, no problem; offer the Russian premium package and send in Wagner mercenaries to give a friendly helping hand.
Once power is secured, the leader will remain in power kicking back in his palace for as long as Putin has access to extract whatever resources he wants from the country completely unchecked.
If the leader decides one day that he would like to pivot away from Russia in an attempt to do some good and develop his country, please revert to step 1 and repeat the process.
Once Putin’s tentacles have spread into an African country, exterminating the infection is easier said than done. Putin then begins the process of extracting valuable commodities such as gold. Tons upon tons can then be shipped or flown back to Russia to add to Putin’s coffers where it can then be used to barter or exchange for whatever he wants. International sanctions and finance hawks are left utterly useless in preventing this means of funding for Russia.
The price of gold is at its all time high and there is little stopping Putin cashing in on this.
By installing new leaders through coups or having countries fall into line through signing military agreements, Russia is exponentially increasing its resource flows that no Western sanctions can disrupt.
The sheer scale of the African continent and the severe lack of values-led policy means there are more opportunities for Russia to tap into than you can shake a geopolitical stick at. All the fruits of these exploits can be funnelled back to Moscow to continue greasing the wheels of its war machine in Ukraine and neighbouring locations.
The following is a scary map of the countries in Africa that have signed military agreements with Russia highlighting how deeply embedded Russia is on the African continent:
The recently blown-up leader of Wagner, Prigozhin, released a video standing in Africa the day before he became brown bread saying he was “making Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa even more free”.
Russia’s private army of bad guys, Wagner, were behind the recent new military leadership in countries such as Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad. To put this into perspective, the land mass of these 4 countries alone is equivalent to the land mass of Ireland, France, Germany, UK, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, Italy, Romania and Greece... combined. That’s some amount of road frontage lad.
Russia is also currently involved with the opposition of the current leadership in Libya, Sudan and Central African Republic. Adding these 3 African countries to the 4 above more than doubles the land mass at hand.
Putin recently held an Africa-Russia Summit where it is reported that Russia is working to integrate four African countries Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt into a “free trade area”. Notice on the map that all these countries line the southern Mediterranean shores.
The significance of this is two-fold:
First, securing access to the Med means Russian ships can easily ferry to and from the Black Sea around Crimea with their hulls full of plunder and whatnot.
Second, Africa has vast under-developed and under-protected populations. Russia can take advantage of these people by recruiting them or weaponizing them as refugees across the Med onto European shores.
Last week the small Italian island of Lampedusa with a population of around 6,000 people declared an emergency as 7,000 migrants came ashore in the space of 48 hours. As the Irish Times put it, “Surge in arrivals comes despite EU deal with departure country Tunisia”. EU deal my arse, this is now Afrigrad.
The riddle that is Russia is playing geopolitical chess here. Whether Putin had a hand in this situation on the Italian island or not, he certainly will be taking note for future levers and stunts to pull. The more headlines Putin can get of instances like this, the more he will stoke the flames of rising support for hard-right European politicians. Italy is now discussing the potential implementation of a naval blockade of North Africa, which is unlikely to happen but still.. yikes.
Once a few European countries slip down the far-right path for a few election cycles, it is not a stretch of the imagination to envisage a splintering of the European resistance to Russia as some countries may flip allegiances and become sympathetic towards Russia.
Once again, developments off the beaten track may be the deciding factor in defining geopolitics for years to come.
Why isn’t the expansion of the Russian sphere of influence across Africa being challenged by the West?
For the past few decades, America stood as the world’s policeman and the one truly dominate superpower. The latter is still certainly the case however the former is coming under increasing strain.
The recently leaked classified documents from the Pentagon showed the US is well aware of Russia’s push to create a Russian sphere of influence in Africa however there is a growing anxiety as the US are limited in their ability to stop it.
The US is pooling resources to counter the competition from an increasingly erratic Chinese state led by President Xi. With Biden’s historic visit to Vietnam last week, it is clear the US is pushing the envelop hard on bolstering support in Asia to act as a counterbalance to China.
Closer to home, many resources are being sucked into monitoring and countering the relentless military and political posturing along the front lines with Russia in Eastern Europe from the High North around Svalbard (as I wrote about here) to the South Caucasus around Nagorno-Karabakh (as I wrote about here). All of these objectives are viewed as essential for the West as it is their doorstep.
Unfortunately for Africa, needs trump wants. The need to maintain security over the front lines of Eastern Europe and South East Asia will take precedence over the want of upholding good honest democracy in Africa. This want of an ideal world has unfortunately slipped down the list of America’s and Europe’s strategic priorities due to limited capacity.
Africa has a sad history of existing as the plundering ground for the European elite. With the Western world’s appetite and capacity for getting their hands dirty down in this part of the world now limited, Russia has no problem diving in head first to exploit the resources on offer.
Ideology, values and religions vary from place to place but one that is universal in its acceptance is the belief in financial gain. Africa is an under-developed war-torn region with very few holding the keys to very much.
The Europeans took advantage during the colonial era for commercial gain. Now Russia is boosting its books through the same means. Which in itself is ironic, considering a former steadfast communist nation now becoming highly commercial.
A scary thought; the situation in Africa is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Drawing parallels back to Moscow and onto the front lines of Eastern Europe is where it gets a whole lot scarier.
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J bombs pockets are about to get stuffed with rubles. Great read.