Despite taking place thousands of kilometres from Africa, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is having a substantial impact on the continent's economies and governments. Facing hurdles in the supply of grain, fertiliser and fuel, and starved of Russian investment, especially in mining projects, African countries are trying to adapt to the crisis while Moscow and Western countries are lobbying hard to bring them into line with their respective positions.
South Africa and Russia want a connecting flight between their capitals, likely run by Russian firm Nordwind. But Western sanctions are getting in the way.
Western sanctions on Moscow have slashed Finland's exports to Russia, forcing Finnish firms to look for business elsewhere. Helsinki has it sights set on East Africa, where it hopes to open up new trading opportunities.
It is unlikely the halted bill aimed at sanctioning African states deemed too close to Russia will be reintroduced to Congress after the midterms in November. The Senate sees the text as counterproductive and poorly presented.
The state body that provides wheat for Egypt's subsidised bread programme has agreed to supply private millers to help them through a crisis that has shut most of their mills. But this is a stop-gap measure, with the country hoping that an IMF loan will provide long-term relief.
The trading arm of the Russian oil giant Lukoil, which until now has been run from Geneva, is gradually moving to Dubai in order to continue its activities in Africa despite sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine.
Accompanied on her tour by her Africa expert, the president of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa alliance has made the opening of a West Africa headquarters in Senegal official.
Since September, the UN mission in Mali, MINUSMA, has been directly affected by the International Civil Aviation Organisation's (ICAO) decision to block the UN use of Russian aircraft
Many representatives from Russia attended the 28th edition of Africa Oil Week in Cape Town, South Africa.
The pan-African organisation, concerned about fluctuations in commodity markets and other possible consequences of the war in Ukraine, has set up a task force to gather information and take action to try to limit the effects of the conflict.
The armed forces of Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Gabon will have to wait a little longer to receive the first transfers of French armoured personnel carriers under the Integrated Ground Mobility and Protection Programme that Paris launched last year.
Faced with supply difficulties linked to Russia's war on Ukraine, the Australian fertiliser producer Incitec Pivot has restarted its imports of phosphates from the Boucraa mine in the Sahara, operated by OCP. It had stopped sourcing there in 2016, after protest from Scandinavian shareholders.
The Russian mining firm, whose main shareholder Alexey Mordashov is under European sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has had to work out new paths to get its Guinean and Burkinabe gold production to refineries in the United Arab Emirates.
At the request of Libya's National Oil Corp subsidiary AGOCO, the Russian Zarubezhneft group sent a delegation to Benghazi in August. The EU and the US are both concerned this move may spell the possibility of sanctioned Russian oil being transshipped.
Following the invasion of Ukraine and ensuing sanctions on Moscow, Visa and Mastercard bank cards issued in Russia no longer work outside the country. In order to keep attracting Russian tourists despite this ban, Egyptian banks have decided to take on the former's payment system, Mir.
Against the backdrop of Russia's war on Ukraine, the Moscow Conference on International Security, Russia's major defence event, welcomed a dozen African delegations on 16 August, whose "friendship" was praised.
Behind the display of harmony between Russia and its African allies during foreign minister Sergey Lavrov's recent tour, the war in Ukraine is taking its toll on Moscow's relations with the continent. Traditionally pro-Russia Sudan has agreed to serve as a layover for military equipment heading to Ukraine.
For several decades now, Yaoundé has cooperated with a variety of foreign partners on defence. But when it comes to officer training, Russia has of late quietly drawn ahead of its rivals.
Guinea's stalwart partner under Alpha Condé, Russia has striven to protect its interests since Col Mamadi Doumbouya came to power in a coup last year. But its diplomats and businessmen have suffered several setbacks and are very short of contacts within the new set-up.
Before its invasion of Ukraine, Russia was the leading export market for oranges and clementines from Morocco but, since March, it has become near impossible for the latter to find banks or maritime transporters willing to work with Russia.
Through an exceptional call for tenders involving 825,000 tonnes of wheat, Cairo has secured its supplies until mid-October. Of the 14 ships ordered by GASC, the authority in charge of purchasing cereals, six are French.
France recently brought together the largest international traders to support its initiative towards the countries most dependent on agricultural imports. But NGOs fear that the FARM Task Force overlooks longer-term agricultural issues in Africa.
Just as world leaders meeting in Germany for the G7 summit look to ban Moscow from exporting gold extracted from its soil, Russian firms have turned to Ankara, where they have found all the necessary expertise to refine and sell gold they have mined abroad, and especially in Africa.
Istanbul traders and food companies are increasingly serving as intermediaries between Russia and the agricultural trading giants, particularly to supply North and East Africa with grain, flour and sunflower oil.
Egypt is having great difficulty importing large quantities of Russian wheat, which represented nearly 60% of its purchases prior to the war in Ukraine. Cairo is now trying to negotiate with New Delhi in the hope of ensuring a partial lifting of the embargo on Indian wheat.
To meet the mounting needs of the Ukrainian army as it struggles to hold the Donbas, Kyiv did the rounds of suppliers at the Eurosatory defence trade fair in Paris this week. One of these was Nigerian armoured vehicles manufacturer Proforce.
On a tour of southern Africa, Russian Federation Council leader Valentina Matvienko promised Zimbabwe and Mozambique that their imports of basic necessities would not be hit by the war in Ukraine. But the Kremlin envoy notably did not include South Africa in her trip.
To counter Russia's invasion, Ukraine has requisitioned six choppers deployed with the UN's peacekeeping mission in Mali, compromising the force's operational capacity.
The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre sees the challenging commodity market environment as an opportunity to strengthen its trading position in Africa by welcoming Russian and Swiss traders and promoting the use of cryptocurrencies.
The West's sanctions on the Russian mining colossus Alrosa, the world's largest diamond producer, are taking a huge toll on Angola, its main partner. That has left the field open for the world's second largest diamond producer, Botswana, to charge ahead.
In late April, Cameroon signed a new military cooperation agreement with Moscow, prompting an immediate diplomatic reaction from France. Christophe Bigot, Africa director at the foreign ministry, travelled in person to Yaoundé, and at one point a visit by Emmanuel Macron was even envisaged.
The Whiba brothers' holding company previously brought in grain from Ukraine to support its wheat import and processing activities. It even had its own local subsidiary to facilitate these transactions.
Mombasa, East Africa's main commercial port, is faced with major disruption in the flow of goods from China and Russia. This affects the entire region and has become an issue in Kenya's presidential election.
Since Moscow began its military offensive in Ukraine, numerous southern African entrepreneurs have had to freeze their investment projects in Russia or leave their positions as directors of companies under sanctions. Being separated from these wealthy Africans has entrenched the dichotomy of Russia's presence on the continent:
As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council since January 2022, Gabon took the lead in voting against Russia's exclusion from the Human Rights Council. This sparked a request from Paris for further explanations from Libreville.
Despite the reallocation of European security cooperation funds to Ukraine, Paris has made a point of reassuring its West African partners by releasing other funds their way.
Oil companies operating in Ghana want to increase their offshore fields' gas production. They hope to convince the Akufo-Addo administration to go along with them, given the risk that Russia's war in Ukraine poses to LNG imports into Africa.
Kenya, faced with the threat of falling prices, had to find new outlets for huge quantities of black tea in record time. The stock, worth about $3.5m, was initially destined for Russia.
The Egyptian government, which has until now always avoided sourcing from India, has reached out to New Delhi in a bid to obtain large volumes of grain to compensate for the lack of Russian and Ukrainian suppliers.
The halt in Russian and Ukrainian wheat exports has opened a window of opportunity for French grain producers in North and West Africa, who in recent weeks have been able to act as substitute suppliers at short notice.
The Russian-owned telecoms giant has come to an agreement with the Algerian state's investment fund over the value of its shares in mobile operator Djezzy. But the protracted sale may come unstuck following Russia's invasion of its neighbour.
Split in its response to the Russian offensive in Ukraine, the Arab League has quietly set up a small task force to address the issue. This will be no easy task for the team primarily comprised of African members of the league.
The Russian pipeline company ChelPipe (TMK) had been well placed in the race for the Uganda-Tanzania pipeline contract, but the current geopolitical situation has completely thrown its situation into doubt.
Despite Ivory Coast having a minimal dependence on the Russian and Ukrainian economies, the country is increasingly feeling the impact of the war in Ukraine, which has placed President Alassane Ouattara in a delicate position.
Alexey Mordashov, who has been put on the British Treasury's sanctions list following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is struggling to find a refiner for the gold produced by his UK-listed Nordgold group in Burkina Faso and Guinea.
Determined to remain at the head of the government in Tripoli, Abdelhamid Dabaiba has reactivated his channels of communication with Chechnyan strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, who has long offered his services to train the Libyan military.
With all exports to Russia on hold, tea prices have dropped drastically. Kenya's minister of agriculture is working hard to find new outlets for the unsold stock.
In light of Western measures against their shareholders, the fertiliser producers PhosAgro, Uralchem and Eurochem will drastically cut their exports to Africa, a market they had turned to with relative success after the loss of their Ukrainian clients in 2014.
The risk of seeing diamonds produced by Russian group Alrosa, including in Angola, being used to finance Russia's war on Ukraine has brought a reaction from the civil society coalition monitoring implementation of the Kimberley Process.
In Pretoria, the Ukrainian embassy has received many requests from South Africans and neighbouring nationals to join the fight against Russia, yet at the moment there are several obstacles stopping them from going.
While its attention is focused on the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin is still taking care of its African networks, some of which are being used to help wage its diplomatic and media offensive against Kyiv.
Nigeria's defence ministry is paying the cost of the sudden interruption of weapons imports from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Lebanese broker Simon Naoum, who has links with Minsk, has had to abandon plans to train Nigeria's special forces.
The European Union's decision on 9 March to blacklist the oligarch Andrey Melnichenko, who holds a majority stake in Eurochem, is likely to disrupt Helios's plans. The fund had been counting on the Russian-Swiss fertiliser giant to raise the stakes on Solevo against OCP.
The two French defence giants are doing business with Russia to kit out Algerian combat aircraft. Sanctions are set to complicate those arrangments.
Following two years that have been marred by the Covid-19 pandemic and the state-owned railway operator's logistical problems, the South African coal sector is suddenly being courted by European consumers. In an European market previously dominated by Russia, it now plans to regain a slice of the pie.
Redeployed to reinforce NATO's eastern flank, Ukrainian operator Antonov Airlines' surviving fleet of An-124s are also backing France's military efforts in Africa. But the clock is ticking...
The conflict in Ukraine will completely block Russian oil companies' access to European, American and Asian lenders. Finding alternative funding, in particular from China, will be difficult.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has shown itself very open to the advances of the Patriarch of Moscow, who is on a crusade against the Church of Alexandria for recognising the Orthodox Church of Ukraine's independence from Russia in 2019.
Libya depends heavily on Russian and Ukrainian grain imports, and recently saw its last shipments arrive in Misrata port. The country is urgently looking to source new suppliers.
The Ukrainian army is recalling many of its reservists working overseas to fight Russian forces. Some of those deployed in Africa have already returned home. Meanwhile, the shelling of Ukraine's weapons factories is disrupting the spare parts supply chain most African countries rely on, especially with regard to helicopters.
Until now, all firms selling petroleum products in West and Central Africa were partly supplied by Russia. But since the US slapped sanctions on Russian fuels, these companies are urgently having to review their supply schedules.
Sudan's interim vice president took the stage last month alongside top Russian government figures. Two weeks earlier, Sudanese authorities signed a lobbying contract with a US firm in Washington.
The thirty or so journalists who make up #RTFrance's web editorial staff continue to feed articles to the site for readers in the 160 or so countries where it is still accessible, including those in French speaking Africa.
With grain shipments in the Black Sea becoming impossible, large and small suppliers of both millers and state agencies are having to adapt to meet their requirements. At the same time, prices are exploding, which may be a double-edged sword.
The world titanium market is in the midst of a major reorganisation following the Russian offensive in Ukraine. African producers of this mineral, which is highly prized by the defence and aerospace industries, are expecting a record year.
Sent to Ukraine for maintenance 10 years ago, the last Antonov An-124 held by the Libyan state is in danger of being destroyed in the battle for control of Kyiv.
For several weeks, Russian diplomats all over Africa have been using all the means at their disposal to justify their country's invasion of Ukraine and limit its impact on Russia's interests on the continent.
As the mining industry struggles to take in the impact of the historic sanctions slapped on Russian banks and capital by Washington, Brussels and London, Russia's private and state-owned mining firms on the continent are preparing for when their funds run dry.
Angered by Kais Saied's silence over Ukraine, EU commissioner Oliver Varhelyi has cancelled his trip to Tunis planned between 1 and 3 March.
Célestin Tawamba, head of Cameroon's employers' federation and owner of La Pasta, is leading the Cameroonian flour mills' revolt against the government. After failing to obtain tax and customs exemptions, he and his competitors have decided to flout their sector's regulations.
In parallel to its military attack on Ukraine, the Kremlin is mixing religion and diplomacy in an offensive against the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Africa.
The Moscow-Kyiv crisis is leading to a drastic reduction in the volume of grain shipped from Black Sea ports. Fearing a Russian offensive, shipping companies are now refusing to make new commitments to traders. This situation particularly affects Algiers, which has been relying on supplies from this region to compensate for its halt in French purchases, but it is also of consequence to Egypt.
