Putin offers 6 African countries free grain

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday offered free grain to six African countries as he launched a summit with leaders from the continent, as the Kremlin accused Western powers of "outrageous" efforts to pressure the African guests not to attend.

In a keynote address at the summit, Putin said: "In the coming months we will be able to ensure free supplies of 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Central African Republic and Eritrea."

Over a year, the grain deal allowed around 33 million tons of grain to leave Ukrainian ports, helping to stabilize global food prices and avert shortages.

Putin billed the two-day summit that opened in Russia's second-largest city as a major event that would help bolster ties with a continent of 1.3 billion people that is increasingly assertive on the global stage.

"Today, Africa is asserting itself more and more confidently as one of the poles of the emerging multipolar world," Putin said in a statement released by the Kremlin. "The forum will provide a further boost to our political and humanitarian partnership for many years to come."

On Wednesday, Putin held one-on-one talks with Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and said Russia will more than triple the number of Ethiopian students it hosts and cover their education costs.

Ethiopia's government has been under pressure from the United States and the World Food Programme after they made the extraordinary decision to suspend food aid to the country earlier this year following the discovery of massive theft of aid. They seek reforms that involve the government giving up controls over aid distribution.

Later on Wednesday, Putin also met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, hailing their growing bilateral trade that accounts for about one-third of Russia's trade with Africa.

Sisi said that Russia has been building Egypt's first nuclear power plant and emphasized the "special character of relations" between the two countries.

'Crude Western pressure'

It's the second Russia-Africa summit since 2019. The number of heads of state attending shrank from 43 then to 17 now because of what the Kremlin described as "crude Western pressure" to discourage African nations from taking part.

The Kremlin deplored "unconcealed brazen interference by the US, France and other states through their diplomatic missions in African countries, and attempts to put pressure on the leadership of these countries in order to prevent their active participation in the forum".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed African leaders attending the summit to demand answers about the grain disruptions that have propelled poorer nations toward crisis.

The summit will be an opportunity to exchange views on key issues, said Vsevolod Sviridov of the Center for African Studies at HSE University.

Agencies contributed to this story.