The United Kingdom believes that African leaders should send a "strong" message to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg this week, UK Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward said on Tuesday
UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th July, 2023) The United Kingdom believes that African leaders should send a "strong" message to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg this week, UK Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward said on Tuesday.
"I think the Russia-Africa Summit this week is a very important one. It would be wonderful if African leaders were really strong in their messaging to President Putin," Woodward said at a UN Security Council stakeout.
She claimed that Russia has promised a considerable amount of investments in Africa, but only a small amount has materialized.
The second Russia-Africa Summit will take place in St. Petersburg from July 27-28. The Kremlin said it views the summit as an important opportunity to discuss the Black Sea Grain Initiative and Russia's support for Africa.
The summit comes against the backdrop of the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal, an agreement that provided for continued grain exports from Ukraine over the past year. The deal expired last week after Russia refused to extend it. Moscow has been dissatisfied that the deal's provisions pertaining to Russia were not fulfilled and that most of the supplies were ending up in rich European countries.
UN data show that the largest share of Ukrainian grain exports ended up in the EU, while Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia received slightly over 2% of the grain.
On Monday, President Vladimir Putin said Russia would replace Ukrainian grain on the market and continue to supply grain and fertilizers to African countries both on a commercial basis and free-of-charge, despite Western sanctions.
