Shunned in the West, his authority tested by a failed mutiny at home, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia needs to project normalcy and shore up support from his allies. So on Thursday, he will host African leaders at a flashy summit in St. Petersburg, part of his continuing outreach to a continent that has become critical to Moscow’s foreign policy.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, some African countries have backed Mr. Putin at the United Nations, welcomed his envoys and his warships, and offered control of lucrative assets, like a gold mine in the Central African Republic that U.S. officials estimate contains $1 billion in reserves.
But if Mr. Putin sought to move closer to African leaders as he prosecuted his war, the 17-month-old conflict is now straining those ties. This summit is expected to draw only half the number of African heads of state or government as the last gathering in 2019, a situation that the Kremlin on Wednesday blamed on “brazen interference” from the United States and its allies.
The summit comes against the backdrop of escalating tensions in the Black Sea over Mr. Putin’s recent decision to terminate a deal allowing Ukraine to ship grain to global markets. Russia’s withdrawal has caused food prices to spike, adding to the misery of the world’s poorest countries, including some of those attending the Russia-Africa summit.
As African leaders prepare to meet Mr. Putin, Russian warplanes have pulverized the Ukrainian port of Odesa that is a key distribution point for grain exports. And in recent days, American and British officials have warned about Russia’s increasingly aggressive actions in the Black Sea.
The outcry over the end of the grain deal — the Kenyan foreign ministry called Mr. Putin’s decision a “stab in the back” — has put the Russian leader on the defensive. In an article previewing the summit, he offered to make up for the shortfall to African countries by supplying them with Russian grain, even for free.
At the same time, Western nations have seized the opportunity to drive a wedge between Mr. Putin and his African guests.
“President Putin seems dead set on causing as much suffering around the world as he can,” Barbara Woodward, Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, said on Tuesday. “Russia is driving Africa into poverty.”
While grain politics are likely to dominate the summit in public, in private, some African leaders are expected to press Mr. Putin on the fate of Wagner, the paramilitary group that mounted a failed uprising against his military leadership last month.
While Wagner is best known for fighting in Ukraine, its forces are also deployed to African countries like the Central African Republic and Mali, where they exploit gold and diamonds in return for propping up fragile authoritarian regimes.
At the summit, Mr. Putin will want to personally assure nervous African partners that, whatever happens to Wagner, their partnership with Russia “is not going away anytime soon,” said Catrina Doxsee, an analyst with the nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The summit comes as Mr. Putin seeks to demonstrate that Russia still has foreign policy firepower despite its wartime isolation. Since the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has stepped up diplomatic efforts across developing countries, attempting to curry favor by casting the conflict in Ukraine as pushback against an imperialist and power-hungry West.
The gathering Thursday and Friday is the latest in a series of splashy events in world capitals, including Beijing, Brussels, Istanbul and Washington, hosted by governments seeking to strengthen ties with Africa. The continent’s population is projected to double in the next quarter-century, and it has large reserves of the minerals needed for industries of the future, like electric vehicles.
The Biden administration hosted its own summit in December, welcoming nearly 50 African leaders to Washington and announcing billions in aid and investment. A stream of senior American officials has traveled to Africa since then, including Vice President Kamala Harris. The administration says it has helped close 75 business deals worth $5.7 billion.
Washington’s efforts were partly seen as a response to Moscow’s intensifying diplomatic outreach to Africa; since February 2022, for instance, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, has visited a dozen African countries, including U.S. security allies such as Kenya.
In St. Petersburg, Mr. Putin will have his chance to dazzle his African guests with the stately beauty of his home city. The summit will take place at an exhibition center near two of Russia’s most extravagant imperial palaces.
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