Russian President Vladimir Putin offered what he called “full support” for Africa, particularly in the fight against terrorism and extremism.

The speech was read at a summit in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to his African counterparts.

A growing number of African governments are cutting ties with traditional Western allies and turning to Moscow for help in combating frequent attacks by jihadists.

At the summit, Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré said Russia was a more suitable international partner than former colonial power France.

It’s a view shared by several former French colonies – and reiterated by Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop, who contrasted the Kremlin’s “sincere” partnership with the “neocolonial” relations of Western powers.

He said that in addition to military cooperation, Mali was studying other joint projects in the energy, telecommunications, technology and mining sectors.

“Russian companies are working in all these areas with the Malian government and (private) partners in Mali to provide solutions to the challenges facing the Malian people. Both sides agreed to accelerate the pace to ensure rapid results” , he said. the second and final day of the conference of African foreign ministers.

The Wagner mercenary fighters – now renamed Africa Corps by the Russian Defense Ministry – were the preferred choice of military leaders who ordered the departure of French and UN troops.

Russia’s aid, often in exchange for access to raw materials, also comes with promises that there will be no interference in a country’s internal affairs or lessons on how to to organize elections.

However, Russian military expeditions to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger helped protect the junta’s leaders but failed to make much progress in the fight against Islamist militants.

Nonetheless, the Kremlin is touting these new friends, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying the conference dashed Western hopes of isolating Russia.

And Mr Lavrov said Russia’s relations with Africa were strengthening “more and more” with progress “on all axes”.

Putin’s speech underlined this point.

“I would like to reiterate that our country will continue to provide full support to our African friends in different sectors: ensuring sustainable development, fighting terrorism and extremism, fighting epidemics, food problems and the consequences of natural disasters” , we can read.

Rwanda, whose Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe was also in Sochi, is one of several African countries that have already signed agreements with Moscow to obtain help for the construction of a nuclear power plant.

He told the AFP news agency that hundreds of Rwandan students had graduated from Russian universities, including “those who specialize in nuclear sciences.”

“We hope to be able to train a certain number of scientific leaders specialized in this field,” he added.

Five years ago, Putin promised to double trade with Africa – this has not happened.

But by using other means, which the West considers to destabilize the continent, Russia’s influence has increased significantly.