The website Politico, owned by the German group Axel Springer, questioned in an extensive report the head of EU diplomacy, the Spanish socialist Josep Borrell, for being losing to the Russian Sergei Lavrov in the battle for “hearts and minds” in Africa.
Citing social media data, he compared the impact of an article by the Russian chancellor in African newspapers, “blaming the West for the global food crisis that leaves millions on the brink of starvation on the continent”, with the only mention of Borrell, “a ghost”. .
This one felt the blow. Speaking the day after on Cadena Ser radio, he complained that “some African countries bought Lavrov’s speech”, but also that “Western media are Russia’s sounding board, a certain tendency to listen to the enemy”.
More specifically, “Lavrov goes to Africa, tries to convince that sanctions are to blame for everything, and all the western media repeats it.” However, when “I go to Africa to say the opposite, no one can”.
Europe silenced “the enemy” by taking down local versions of RT, the Russian channel, but it maintained a presence around the world, according to Politico. For example, “in French-speaking countries across Africa, RT France has doubled down on an alternative favorable to Moscow.” Also in Latin America.
On sanctions, the president of Uganda, one of the countries visited by Lavrov, repeated in the RT What did you hear from him?
“Western sanctions on Russia do not mention wheat or fertilizers. But, he explained to me, the West prevents Russian ships in ports, so how will they come? Also the issue of banks, which are banned from doing business with Russia. They put insurance too high.”
This Friday, when answering a call from his American colleague Antony Blinken, in part to talk about the agreement on the transport of Ukrainian and Russian wheat, in which the US did not participate, Lavrov returned to the load. In the account of his ministry, linked by the New York Times:
“The minister emphasized that the situation is complicated by US sanctions, and that US promises to provide exemptions for Russian food supplies have not yet been fulfilled. geopolitical.”
‘WARMIST’
Above, the website of Berlin’s Die Welt headlined the first protests faced by the green Robert Habeck, when “anger over the Ukraine war, inflation and the energy crisis surprised the German economy minister” on Thursday.
