One major landmark was Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, among African countries, have signed agreements with Russia to cooperate on the peaceful use of nuclear technology on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum in St Petersburg, in July 2023.
As often reiterated, Russia and Zimbabwe have had an excellent bilateral relations, dating from the time fo Zimbabwe’s struggle for political independence. Soviet Union supported with military equipment, training specialists and offered humanitarian supplies, and until day Zimbabwe is still looking for such relations. A comprehensive analysis indicates that not much in visible on the landscape of Zimbabwe, except the frequent shuttling visits of government officials between Harare and Moscow.
The list of those official visits could be found on government websites. Of course, not all have been documented there such as those dealing with military-technical cooperation and intelligence services. We can recall here in 2022, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Zimbabwe Jacob Mudenda and his delegation paid a reciprocal working visit late September to Moscow, held separate meetings with Russian Upper House Speaker Valentina Matviyenko and Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, and finally addressed the plenary session of the State Duma.
Upper Chamber Senator Matviyenko and Lower Chamber Legislator Volodin, both have similar unique declaratory statement emphasizing the fact that Russia considers cooperation with African countries to be a foreign policy priority. And that Zimbabwe is Russia’s priority in southern African region.
Upper House Speaker Valentina Matviyenko visited and donated, as Zimbabweans expected from Moscow, huge gifts in June 2022. During her conversation with the head of the charitable foundation and First Lady of the Republic of Zimbabwe Auxilia Mnangagwa with Matviyenko noted mutual understanding that has developed in Russian-Zimbabwean relations. She, in addition, drew attention to the fact that the Angels of Hope charity fund coordinates the selection of candidates from low-income families for higher education in Russia under the quota of the Government of the Russian Federation.
“We highly appreciate it that the Zimbabwean leadership remains committed to the development of bilateral relations and mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia. And that Zimbabwe is resolutely resisting the unprecedented pressure of the collective West led by the United States, their open attempts to dictate their will,” Matviyenko said.
Besides the above charity, Russia-Zimbabwe Intergovernmental Commission on Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation has held series of meetings in Harare and Moscow. Several agreements have been signed down the years to engage seriously in economic sectors, just mention them, infrastructure development, transport, agriculture, industry nuclear technology et cetera. An increasing interest points to the Russian business community in building a beneficial partnership with Zimbabwe. For these to materialize, frequent interactions have been made possible, based on decades of strong ties of friendship and cooperation since the days of Zimbabwean Robert Mugabe.
One major landmark was Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, among African countries, have signed agreements with Russia to cooperate on the peaceful use of nuclear technology on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum in St Petersburg, in July 2023. Rosatom has offices in Cairo and Pretoria with the responsibility of managing the nuclear projects in Africa.
President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the ‘special military operation’ amins at denazifying and demilitarizing Ukraine, has utterly rejected the United States appeal to support sanctions against Russia. It has therefore won the Russia’s sympathy as a ‘friendly’ African ally. In return, Zimbabwe was given in late 2023 what was termed ‘delivery at no-cost’ grains and fertilizers, these were in addition to supplies of military equipment and training of Zimbabwean citizens on state budget at educational institutions in the Russian Federation. According the official statistics, there are currently 400 Zimbabweans are studying in the Russian Federation.
Mnangagwa, while visiting as a guest speaker at the 27th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and his special meeting with President Vladimir Putin in June 2024, was excited at winning favours by explaining, at length, how the United States has been supporting neighbouring southern African countries. Ultimately, Mnangagwa was to get better treatment for a broader supply of arms and weaponry, and food to feed the impoverished population. He did not negotiate for investment in agriculture, he did not suggest the construction of, at least, a kilometer road or a local school in any of the rural regions in Zimbabwe.
What was important for Zimbabwe, Mnangagwa asked for the chance to enhance bilateral cooperation, and that Zimbabwe is “one of the few countries in southern Africa that is regarded as anti-West” so there is the concrete basis for pursuing a more consolidated relations to escape being further isolated in southern Africa. “And there is a lot more that we can open for the Russian Federation to participate in our economy, especially in the mining sector and agriculture,” he stressed in his discussion.
Zimbabwe has the world’s second-largest platinum reserves after South Africa. Russia declared interest in the development of a platinum deposit in Darwendale. Several reports later confirmed that Russians have abandoned their lucrative platinum project contract that was signed for $3 billion in September 2014, the platinum mine in the sun-scorched location about 50 km northwest of Harare, the Zimbabwean capital. With great pomp and pageantry, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov launched the $3 billion Russian project back in 2014, after years of negotiations, with the hope of raising its economic profile in Zimbabwe.
Reports also indicated that the project was expected to involve a consortium consisting of the Rostekhnologii State Corporation, Vneshekonombank and Vi Holding in a joint venture with some private Zimbabwe investors as well as the Zimbabwean government.
Mnangagwa has been committed to opening up Zimbabwe’s economy to the rest of the world in order to attract the much-needed foreign direct investment to revive the ailing economy and make maximum use of the opportunities for bolstering and implementing a number of large projects in the country. That Zimbabwe would undergo a “painful” reform process to achieve transformation and modernization of the economy.
Zimbabwe has various potential investment sectors besides mining. There is a possibility of greater participation of Russian economic operators in the development processes in Zimbabwe, and southern Africa. But Russians need to move away from too much rhetoric and to make concrete economic engagement over the next few years.
Zimbabwe, a landlocked country in southern Africa, shares a 200-kilometre border on the south with South Africa, bounded on the southwest and west by Botswana, on the north by Zambia and on the northeast and east by Mozambique. Zimbabwe is a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).