THE IMPACT OF RUSSIA AND UKRAINE WAR ON THE ECONOMY OF AFRICAN COUNTRIES

ABSTRACT

The war between Russia and Ukraine that began in 2014 has had a significant impact on the global economy, including in African countries. This project aims to analyze the economic effects of the conflict on African countries, particularly in terms of trade, investment, and aid. By examining the trade relationships between African countries and Russia/Ukraine, the project will evaluate the extent to which these relationships have been affected by the war. Additionally, the project will assess the impact of the conflict on foreign investment in African countries and the amount of aid provided to these countries by Russia and Ukraine. The findings of this project will provide insight into the ways in which global conflicts can have ripple effects on economies beyond the immediate region of the conflict.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background to study According to Smeagol 17(2023) War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces. Warfare refers to the common activities and characteristics of types of war, or of wars in general. Total war is warfare that is not restricted to purely legitimate military targets, and can result in massive civilian or other non-combatant suffering and casualties. While some war studies scholars consider war a universal and ancestral aspect of human nature, others argue it is a result of specific socio-cultural, economic or ecological circumstances, (2023).
According to Sharma (2020:1) Starke says that “war in its most generally understood sense was a contest between two or more states primarily through their armed forces, the ultimate purpose of each contestant or each contestant group being to vanquish the other or others and impose its own conditions of peace,( Sharma 2020:1).
According to Sharma( 2020:9) Grotius introduced the concept of “just war” and imposed certain limitations on the unfettered power of the States to wage war. According to him war could be resorted provided the rights of others are not infringed, and consequently, the use of force, which does not violate the rights of others is not unjust. Even some of the writers of the nineteenth century made a distinction between “just and unjust wars” and between “right and wrong wars”. Woosley has asserted that war may be waged to procure good or prevent evil by force, and just war is an attempt to obtain justice or prevent injustice by force, or in other words to bring back an injuring party to a right state of mind and conduct by the infliction of deserved evil,(Sharma 2020:9).
According to Salih(2023) Africa is the world’s second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth’s total surface area and 20% of its land area. With 1.4 billion people as of 2021, it accounts for about 18% of the world’s human population. Africa’s population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, behind Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, tribalism, colonialism, the Cold War, neocolonialism, lack of democracy, and corruption. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Africa an important economic market in the broader global context. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos. It contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states, eight territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Algeria is Africa’s largest country by area, and Nigeria is its largest by population. African nations cooperate through the establishment of the African Union, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa,(Salih 2023).
According to Global Conflict Tracker (2022) Armed conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted in early 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The previous year, protests in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to reject a deal for greater economic integration with the European Union (EU) were met with a violent crackdown by state security forces. The protests widened, escalating the conflict, and President Yanukovych fled the country in February 2014. One month later, in March 2014, Russian troops took control of the Ukrainian region of Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited the need to protect the rights of Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Crimea and southeast Ukraine. Russia then formally annexed the peninsula after Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation in a disputed local referendum. The crisis heightened ethnic divisions, and two months later, pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk held their own independence referendums. Armed conflict in the regions quickly broke out between Russian-backed forces and the Ukrainian military. Russia denied military involvement, but both Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reported the buildup of Russian troops and military equipment near Donetsk and Russian cross-border shelling immediately following Crimea’s annexation. The conflict transitioned to an active stalemate, with regular shelling and skirmishes occurring along frontlines separating Russian- and Ukrainian-controlled eastern border regions. Beginning in February 2015, France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine attempted to kickstart negotiations to bring an end to the violence through the Minsk Accords. The agreement framework included provisions for a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weaponry, and full Ukrainian government control throughout the conflict zone. Efforts to reach a diplomatic settlement and satisfactory resolution, however, were largely unsuccessful. In April 2016, NATO announced the deployment of four battalions to Eastern Europe, rotating troops through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland to deter possible future Russian aggression elsewhere on the continent, particularly in the Baltics. In September 2017, the United States also deployed two U.S. Army tank brigades to Poland to further bolster NATO’s presence in the region. In January 2018, the United States imposed new sanctions on twenty-one individuals–including a number of Russian officials–and nine companies linked to the conflict in eastern Ukraine. In March 2018, the U.S. Department of State approved the sale of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, the first sale of lethal weaponry since the conflict began. In October 2018, Ukraine joined the United States and seven other NATO countries in a series of large-scale air exercises in western Ukraine. The exercises came after Russia held its own annual military exercises in September 2018, the largest since the fall of the Soviet Union. In October 2021, months of intelligence gathering and observations of Russian troop movements, force buildup, and military contingency financing culminated in a White House briefing with U.S. intelligence, military, and diplomatic leaders on a near-certain mass-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The only remaining questions were when the attack would take place and whether the United States would be able to convince allies to act preemptively. Both were answered on February 24, 2022, when Russian forces invaded a largely unprepared Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized a “special military operation” against the country. In his statement, Putin claimed that the goal of the operation was to demilitarize and degasify. Ukraine and end the alleged genocide of Russians in Ukrainian territory. In the days and weeks leading up to the invasion, the Joe Biden administration made the unconventional decision to reduce information-sharing constraints and allow for the broader dissemination of intelligence and findings, both with allies including Ukraine and publicly.