3/23/24, 10:59 PM The Ukraine war and Sahel

The Ukraine war and Sahel

By Roland Marchal

VIDC online magazine Spotlight

This article was published in the VIDC online magazine Spotlight June 2022. If you
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Further reading

FAO (2022) Information Note - The importance of Ukraine and the Russian
Federation for global agricultural markets and the risks associated with the war in
Ukraine, 10 June 2022 Update.
Human Rights Watch, “Ukraine/Russia: as War continues, Africa food crisis looms”,
28 April 2022.
European Council on Foreign Relations, “Why UN votes should not define Europe-
Africa relations”, by Gwamaka Kifukwe & Andrew Lebovich, 31 March 2022.
Agence Ecofin, “Mali: la récolte de coton a atteint le niveau historique de 760 000
tonnes en 2021/2022 (exécutif)”, 21 Mars 2022.
Friends of Europe, “Beyond Europe: the impact of the war in Ukraine on Africa”,
Paul Walton & Faten Aggad, 8 April 2022.

Author ×
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Roland Marchal is a sociologist at the French Centre National de la Recherche
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(CNRS) and Online Magazin des VIDC,
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for International Studies of
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Sciences Po (CERI). His research focuses on the analysis of civil wars in Sub-
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Saharan Africa, particularly in the context of state-building. He criticized the
reductionism of economic theories onAnmeldung
civil wars. More recently, Marchal dealt
with the concept of "radicalisation" and questioned the epistemological relevance
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3/23/24, 10:59 PM The Ukraine war and Sahel

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Portrait of Alassane Ouattara, President of Ivory Coast © Shutterstock/Boulenger Xavier

The Ukraine war broke out in a complicated moment in Sahel, which essentially
shaped its understanding and implications for the region. Furthermore, this tragic
event took place after two difficult years of economic slowdown, due to the COVID-19 ×
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pandemic and a drought that reduced the hope of a recovery that would have erased
most of the pandemic’s negative impacts on local economies. As other parts of the
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realized, Online and
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Russiades
areVIDC,
also sowie Einladungen
huge exporters of wheat, edible
zufertilizers
oil, Veranstaltungen und In
and energy. Dokumentationen
a globalized fooderhalten?
market, the war implies a scarcity in
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certain items and therefore a global deterioration of food security, especially in Africa
and Sahel.

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A Diese
reluctant endorsement
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sicher, solidarity
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kann.
Most Sahel countries abstained and did not endorse Russian aggression against
Ukraine on the United Nations General Assembly vote on 24 March but neither did
they show any enthusiasm in endorsing NATO. Reasons are both structural and
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3/23/24, 10:59 PM The Ukraine war and Sahel

conjunctural.
As the African proverb says, “When two
elephants fight, the grass is suffering”.
There is a sense in many African countries,
including Sahelian governments and public
opinions that the war in Europe is far away
and warring alliances may eventually make
Africans pay for their sympathy or hostility.
Therefore, it is better to keep quiet and
© pixabay
silent until a solution is found. The strongly
worded speech of the Kenya Ambassador at the United Nations Security Council who
condemned the Russian aggression was not matched later on by a vocal stance in
Nairobi as the Ukrainian Ambassador was somewhat sidelined the Kenyan Foreign
Minister. Russia evokes the Soviet Union and Africans still show respect,
independently of the current course of the Moscow policy towards African countries.
In Sahel, relations with the Soviet Union were even friendly due to changing relations
with the former colonial power.
There are other explanations more antagonistic towards the West, NATO, and France.
For years, Sahelian public opinions have questioned the stay of French troops, their
purposes and efficiency. French authorities pretend that this questioning is based on
multiple conspiracy theories, fake news, and other manipulations. Certainly, France-
bashing has become fashionable in Sahel and Russian operatives have recently been
involved in framing such kind of messages. For instance, late 2021, the French anti-
terror military mission Barkhane convoys were recurrently stopped by
demonstrations in Burkina Faso and Niger since local people believed that those
trucks were transporting weapons and other supplies to the Jihadi insurgents, while
they were moving equipment to Chad as French troops are slowly exiting Mali.
Yet, blaming Moscow and Wagner (a private security company that is a major tool in
contrasting with French and European military presence) is a too easy explanation.
France and its allies failed to convincingly respond to several criticisms over the years.
The main one is double standard. The NATO intervention in Libya, the killing of
Mo’ammar Qaddafi and the chaos that followed are often compared by Africans to
what Russia is doing today in Ukraine, not to quote the military intervention in Iraq, a
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comparison only recognized through a very Freudian lapsus by George W. Bush.
This
Siealso goes
wollen further. The
Spotlight, French Magazin
das Online outrage on
desMalian secondEinladungen
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matched by uneasy questions
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und Dokumentationen continued support to the
unconstitutional
Bitte tragen Sietake-over of Mahamat
Ihre Mailadresse ein: Idriss Déby, the son of Idriss Déby Itno, who
was killed in April 2021 in Chad or the endorsement of Alassane Ouattara’s third
presidential term against the Ivorian constitution. French policy to Sahel is indeed
contradictory,
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3/23/24, 10:59 PM The Ukraine war and Sahel

This tug of war on social networks and

news channels has clearly some
important stakes. One is to blame the
outside world for all failures affecting
Mali and Sahelian countries. But it is
clearly untrue to claim that France
strives to exploit Malian mineral
resources as they are mostly in the
Soldiers in Mali, 2013 © istock
hands of Canadian companies (and
maybe sooner than later, handed over to companies connected to Russian interests).
Whether Wagner mercenaries are in the few hundreds or more than 1,000, there is
no doubt that they won’t be able to build a military solution to end the Jihadi
insurgencies and do better than the French or European military contingents did.
Moreover, Mali has to pay for Wagner services (about $ 10 millions/month if
AFRICOM is right) while the European military presence was free of charge and
provided an opportunity for a dramatically increase of Official Development
Assistance (ODA) to Mali.

Other heads of state in the region have adopted a different stance, often in better
harmony with the European stance on the Ukraine war. But one should be aware that
President Mohamed Bazoum in Niger or Lieutenant Colonel Paul Henri Sandaogo
Damiba in Burkina Faso, the President and leader of the coup of 24 January, 2022, are
under strong pressure from their public opinions to prove that accommodation with
France and Europe bring better results than a cooperation with Russia, grounded in
an anti-imperialist populist narrative. Key in the challenge is the economic
predicament that got even tougher due to the war in Ukraine.

A new battle ground: rehabilitating the Sahelian economies

The war in Ukraine makes clear that Russia and Ukraine are worldwide staple food
and fertilizers exporters. Together they provide about 25% of the world consumption
of cereals. Due to anticipated shortages, wheat and maize prices raised more than 30
% in a couple of months after the beginning of the war: food price inflation is stark ×
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limits the ability of poor people to buy imported food, especially when they are
living in fragile environments (FAO 2022; Friends of Europe, 2022).
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Therefore, Sahel is going to be particularly
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affected by this trend, due to its high
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dependency on food imports. The UN is
already predicting that 34 million people in
West Africa
Klicken Sieand mostly
für eine Sahel won’t
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toDiese
feed themselves
Vorgangsweisenormally in the next
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few months
kann. (FAO, 2022). Senegal, that
usually thanks to its port, is an important
Food storage in Burkina Faso © pixabay
supplier for Mali, is going to face a difficult

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3/23/24, 10:59 PM The Ukraine war and Sahel

time as it is nearly completely dependent on Russian wheat exports. Some analysts

argue that Moscow plays the scarcity card to influence the attitude of African states
towards its war in Ukraine.
This situation is not only affecting food security as such but also puts at risk export
crops, such as the growth of cotton that need important quantities of fertilizers,
bought in large parts from the two European warring countries. Mali indeed is the
first exporter of cotton in Africa. About 90% of its cotton output is exported and
provides about 50% of Malian exports income (Agence Ecofin, 2022).
ECOWAS sanctions on Mali also add to the challenges since the Malian state should
provide inputs at subsidized prices to help farmers grow cotton and, on the side,
staple food. Already observers are highly concerned that, even if quantities need is
met, the quality of fertilizers is going to be very poor and more dangerous for the
environment and human lives than any time before.

Russian cooperation at risk?

The war in Ukraine is far away from Sahel and just raises further questions on the
rational of the Russia policy toward that part of Africa. While many Africans would
welcome a more transparent Russian cooperation with the continent, geopolitical
ambitions and the lack of transparency put at risk the sympathy Moscow may have in
different sectors of the society. The war in Ukraine, eventually, just illustrates the
growing polarization between Russia and Western countries that the Russian policy
creates without offering Africans a space to quietly renegotiate their relations with
the West (21 June 2022).

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