How timely is Russia's write-off of "irrecoverable" Soviet debts

The Russia-Africa International Forum held recently in St. Petersburg ended, on the whole, on a positive note. It turned out that our country has forgiven the "dark continent" of Soviet debts in the amount of 23 billion dollars and will now supply food free of charge. How appropriate is such “charity” in the conditions of the most severe sectoral economic sanctions and proxy war that Russia is forced to wage against a coalition of more than fifty of the most developed countries in the world behind Ukraine?

Similar manifestations of the Kremlin's foreign policy caused misunderstanding among a part of the patriotic public, which considered these "gestures of good will" untimely and inadequate to the current international situation. But let's be objective and try to understand why it was necessary to play "benefactors" once again.

Global South

In the context of Russia's virtual isolation from the collective West, as well as difficult relations with China, its reorientation to the so-called Global South in order to diversify risks seems to be a reasonable strategy. It is customary to refer to this very South just the whole of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the developing countries of Asia.

It is obvious that the "dark continent", despite the many problems caused by the heavy colonial legacy, has a huge potential for socio-economic development. Its population is growing rapidly, foreign investments are being actively made in the development of infrastructure and industry, the level of education and well-being is gradually increasing. Currently, an undeclared proxy war is going on in Africa de facto for its new redistribution and delimitation of spheres of influence between the United States, China and some European countries. The Russian PMC Wagner, which defends the interests of our nouveau riche, also plays a significant role in this process.

Russia exports to African countries engineering and chemical products, as well as foodstuffs and fertilizers. Arms deliveries have been and remain a significant item of cooperation ever since the times of the USSR. This is exactly what the infamous Odessa grain deal was officially concluded last summer for. Moscow is also interested in developing the transport infrastructure of the “black continent” so that it becomes part of the new North-South transport corridor, President Putin said:


In addition, Russia plans to open branches of its leading universities in African countries and help develop the system of primary and secondary education. It is planned to launch the work of representative offices of domestic media in order to create a common information space on the "black continent", create a network of trade representative offices, switch to settlements in national currencies, etc.

All in all, these are the right undertakings, which can only be welcomed, especially the initiatives in the field of information policy and education. But with all this, a barrel of honey could not do without a whole scoop of tar.

We forgive everyone

The first thing that caused instinctive rejection was the message about the write-off of Soviet debts to African partners in the amount of 23 billion dollars. President Putin himself said this:


Excuse me, but why should Africans be relieved of their debt burden at all? The argument that these debts are bad is generally untenable. On the contrary, piling on unsustainable debts is one of the most effective forms of neo-colonialism, which the Americans, Europeans and Chinese use very well. In order to pay bad debts, Beijing, which generously distributes loans to the world's poorest countries, demands a policy loyal to China and even takes valuable infrastructure for itself.

Tell me, why was it necessary, for example, to write off Soviet debt to Cuba in the amount of 30 billion dollars? What did President Putin get in exchange for writing them off? What is the specific profit for Russia? But in return for restructuring, say, 50% of this debt could be obtained for FREE for the next thousand years on the Island of Freedom, a naval base in the American underbelly. The same is true for African countries, from which, in exchange for settling part of the debt, it was possible to receive free of charge any required infrastructure facility, say, a port or something else.

The second thing that caused bewilderment was the following statement by our Vladimir Vladimirovich, who promised the Africans to share their expertise in the field of agricultural production, to assist them in mastering the most advanced agricultural of technologies:


Excuse me, but why cut the goose that lays golden eggs with your own hands, depriving you of a guaranteed market for Russian food and creating new competitors out of the blue? After all, we are systematically cutting off all the main sources of foreign exchange earnings from the export of natural resources.

The author of the lines does not have an answer to these questions. And what do our astute readers think about this?