What you should know but will either not find in this morning’s New York Times or Financial Times or read through a very distorted lens
As one might expect, yesterday evening’s news program on Rossiya 1 gave special attention to the arrival in St Petersburg of delegations from 49 out of the 54 African nations, out of which 21 delegations were led by heads of state or heads of government. They will all meet with President Putin and in parallel one may expect that many commercial, cultural and military agreements will be reached. The emphasis last night was on how this very high attendance rate was achieved in the face of extreme pressure applied by the United States and European allies, especially France, to ensure that no one would come to Putin’s party.
On the sidelines of the African Summit there will be a gathering of BRICS negotiating teams with high level officials from China and India specifically mentioned in the news.
Why are these meetings being held in Petersburg and not in Moscow? I imagine that both the timing and the venue of the Summit is connected with a very important Russian military event that takes place in the Northern Capital this Sunday starting at 11.00AM Moscow time: the annual Naval Parade of state of the art Russian warships down the Neva and in the greater harbor extending to the naval center at Kronstadt, where a new Naval Museum is opening in time for the Parade. Logically many of the African leaders will be honored guests at this Parade.
Meanwhile, this morning’s FT crows that “limited representation from continent is a blow to Vladimir Putin” and “Today we analyse the significant slump in interest from African leaders towards the Kremlin’s invitations.”
One other very interesting item in last night’s news program was a video clip of the arrival of a military delegation headed by RF Minister of Defense Shoigu’s at the Sunan international airport of North Korea. The timing was set to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean war. We are told that Shoigu was met at his plane by North Korea’s Defense Minister General Kan Sun Nam and that the delegation will be engaged in talks to further the development of military ties and cooperation between the countries.
In effect what this means is that the Russians are finally abandoning all pretence at sanctioning North Korea. The ‘axis of evil’ that George W. Bush had once declared, when none in fact then existed, is being fleshed out daily by the obtuse and self-destructive efforts of the Biden Administration.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023