What’s Behind Russia’s Drive to Provide Africa With Grain?

President Vladimir Putin pledged that Moscow would deliver free grain as humanitarian aid to six African countries during the Russia-Africa Summit in July.

A ship carrying humanitarian grain from Russia arrived in Somalia's capital Mogadishu earlier this week.

Somali media reported that the Horn of Africa nation had received a "much-needed aid shipment of 25,000 tons of grain from Russia to address the [consequences of] flooding in the country."

This shipment "is likely to be ignored by Western countries," who don’t care about African nations’ well­-being and instead focus on their own political ambitions when supporting "Ukrainian grain deliveries," Sergio Rossi, a professor of macroeconomics and monetary economics at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, told Sputnik.

He was echoed by Richard D. Wolff, a professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a visiting professor in the graduate program in international affairs at the New School University in New York, who said in an interview with Sputnik that he expects "the West mostly to ignore [Moscow’s] grain shipment to Somalia."

When asked about what differences there are between Ukrainian grain supplies that mostly went to developed European countries and the Russian strategy, Rossi, for his part, singled out the West’s politically-motivated position on the matter.

"The Ukrainian grain deliveries to European countries may be considered as compensation for the efforts made by the latter countries in supporting both the Ukrainian government in its own military strategy and the Ukrainian people migrating to these countries – both of which, indeed, imply several billions of US dollars that these Western countries’ governments spent in this regard," the pundit pointed out.

Touching upon the Russian strategy, Rossi called it part of a geopolitical effort made by a spate of emerging economies since the beginning of this decade.

"The goal is to support their own development with a series of agreements involving the so-called BRICS community – that is, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – which will soon include many other countries in the Global South," the professor noted, in an apparent nod to the fact that January 1, 2024, will see full BRICS membership of Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

He stressed that by delivering raw materials to Global South nations, Russia signals its "real interest in integrating them within an expanding community of emerging economies."

The same view was expressed by Wolff, who told Sputnik that Russia is "messaging its eager integration into the BRICS side of the world economy allied with the countries of the Global South."

Rossi, in turn, noted that Moscow is seeking to set up and develop a "multipolar global economy, where there will be some other ‘key currencies’ beyond the US dollar”.

This, he concluded, could stop America from exploiting its "soft power" that so far "has allowed it ‘to give without taking, to lend without borrowing and to acquire without paying’ – as already noticed by the French economist Jacques Rueff in his 1971 book entitled The Monetary Sin of the West."

The remarks come several months after the Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered in cooperation between Turkiye, the UN and Russia, came to a halt. Moscow underscored that the provisions of the agreement related to facilitating Russian grain and fertilizer exports had not been fulfilled. The Kremlin emphasized that a considerable part of the supplies went to wealthy European countries rather than poor African nations.

Shortly after the expiration of the grain deal, Russian President Vladimir Putin assured that Moscow would continue providing African states with grain and fertilizers.