Image: Get­ty, Tomas Rag­i­na

Online webi­nar: The Rus­sia-Ukrain­ian con­flict: What does it mean for Africa?

Date: Thurs­day 24 Feb­ru­ary 2022

Time: 1pm – 2.30pm SAST

In 2019 the Rus­sia-Africa Sum­mit her­ald­ed Russia’s renewed strate­gic inter­est in the con­ti­nent, invit­ing African coun­tries to rethink the glob­al pow­er dynam­ic. Last year, Rus­sia gath­ered more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrain­ian bor­der on three fronts, threat­en­ing to esca­late its eight-year hybrid mil­i­tary cam­paign against Ukraine if the West will not sat­is­fy its secu­ri­ty demands to halt NATO expan­sion. This has trig­gered a cold war-type debate around the prin­ci­ples of sov­er­eign­ty, indi­vis­i­ble secu­ri­ty, and the under­stand­ing of democ­ra­cy.

This webi­nar aims to reflect on:

• The key fac­tors that define the Russia–Ukraine cri­sis: they go beyond the first Russ­ian mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in 2014, when para­mil­i­tary forces were deployed in the East of Ukraine and Crimea was annexed. This includes the new hybrid threats such as dis­in­for­ma­tion, cyber­at­tacks, and ener­gy diplo­ma­cy.
• The imme­di­ate rea­sons for the esca­la­tion between Rus­sia and the West; and
• The pos­si­ble impli­ca­tions these events might have for African coun­tries, espe­cial­ly in light of the Rus­sia-Africa Sum­mit planned for Novem­ber 2022.

Pre­sen­ter: Dzvin­ka Kachur – Researcher, Cen­tre for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Tran­si­tions at Stel­len­bosch Uni­ver­si­ty

Dis­cus­sants:

Iri­na Fila­to­va — Pro­fes­sor of Nation­al Research Uni­ver­si­ty High­er School of Eco­nom­ics

Steven Gruzd — Rus­sia-Africa Pro­gramme Head at SAIIA

This event is joint­ly organ­ised by the Cen­tre for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Tran­si­tions (CST) at Stel­len­bosch Uni­ver­si­ty and the South African Insti­tute of Inter­na­tion­al Affairs (SAIIA).