Ukraine

After months of Russian military buildups close to its borders with Ukraine (and in Russia’s ally, Belorussia), two days ago it finally happened – Russia invaded Ukraine.Though inevitably, in particular of late, I have done some reading on the issues (and I would strongly recommend the satirical ‘The Death of Stalin’) I’m not nearly familiar enough with them to arrive at any strong conclusions (or at least they are not particularly interesting to share).But I’ll permit myself a few general points and EU / Africa relevant ones:
 

• For the global economy this is a highly unpredictable negative event with potentially severe consequences.  For Africa, increases in food prices and energy prices could have significant impacts on specific countries.  Furthermore, global trade is unlikely not to be impacted.  After two years of covid, this is profoundly disturbing.
• African countries have been hesitant to comment on the matter, at least in the initial days.  One remembers the saying, ‘when the elephants fight, the grass gets crushed’.
• Global cooperation on issues such as poverty reduction, global tax rules, climate change, and security matters (to name just a few) is unlikely to improve in this context.
• Russian - Western tensions in Africa are unlikely to improve.  One has to be somewhat naïve to think this has much chance of evolving into positive scenarios for the African nations impacted (Libya, CAR, Sudan, Mali…)
• For Europe and the EU – security, of the military type, is likely to become a dominant and urgent priority.

In addition to the personal tragedies that war entails – for the Ukrainian population but frankly also the Russians – this war is undoubtably a global disaster.
 
26.02.2022, Brussels, Belgium.