Russia-Africa Summit 2026: 48 Countries, 22 Presidents, One Big Begging Bowl

Theme: "For Peace, Security & Development"

But Whose Peace? Whose Security? Whose Development?

Dates & Venue: 28-29 October 2026. Grand Kremlin Palace and Gostiny Dvor Exhibition Centre, Moscow.

Hosts: Vladimir Putin and Burundi's Evariste Ndayishimiye, current African Union Chairman and co-chair.

Guests: 48 of 54 African countries confirmed, according to Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov. 22-23 heads of state. The rest - ministers, ambassadors, senior officials queueing for a photo.

Agenda: A substantial package of intergovernmental agreements and commercial contracts. Two plenary sessions where Africa will listen. One-on-one meetings where each president will queue alone to meet Putin. The Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum alongside - business panels, deal signings, exhibition stands. On 27 October, Moscow also hosts the 8th Gas Exporting Countries Forum. Ushakov says Putin's schedule is "extremely tight."

Of course it is tight. He has an empire to manage. And we have a begging bowl to carry.

The History They Won't Show on TV
First Summit: Sochi 2019. Agreements signed. Speeches made.

Second Summit and Forum: 27-28 July 2023, St Petersburg. 9,000 participants, 104 countries, 59 panel sessions, 457 speakers. Four tracks: New Global Economy, Science and Technology, Humanitarian and Social Sphere, Integrated Security and Sovereign Development. 50+ exhibition stands.

Brutal question: What factory did Sochi build in Mwenezi? What seed bank did St Petersburg plant in Yatenga? What fertilizer plant did those 59 panel sessions produce in Lusaka?

Now, Third Summit: Moscow 2026. Same formula, bigger palace. New Action Plan 2027-2029. Another PDF.

Russia is not hiding its interest. It is honest. Under Western sanctions, it needs African gold from Mali, uranium from Niger, votes at the UN General Assembly, ports in the Red Sea, and gas alliances. Russia practices Trapment (Trapment: the doctrine of trapping value at source - processing, beneficiating and industrializing where the resource is found, instead of exporting it raw).

That is sovereignty. We must learn from it, not kneel to it.

What is Africa's interest? We are flying 48 delegations to discuss peace we cannot enforce because we outsourced security to foreign private military contractors including AFRICOM and the Wagner Group, security we have not defined, and development we have not beneficiated. This is not partnership. This is raw material export. We are exporting our heads of state to be beneficiated into a group photo in Moscow winter.

And that is why Captain Ibrahim Traoré is not going?

The Burkinabè government confirmed that Prime Minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo left Ouagadougou representing the President of Faso. SIG Burkina: "representing the President of the Faso, Head of State, Captain Ibrahim Traoré." No reason given.

For weeks reports listed Traoré, Assimi Goïta and Abdourahamane Tiani among the leaders expected after his sharp anti-neocolonial speech in St Petersburg in 2023. He stays home.

The West will call it absence. Africa calls it presence. In 2023 Traoré went and told the truth about neocolonialism. In 2026 he tells it without traveling: The revolution will not be conferenced in the Kremlin Palace. Peace, security and development are in Ouagadougou, in Windhoek, in Luanda, in Accra - with a processing plant built, with unemployment addressed, with poverty dealt with.

Maybe Traoré understood the theme before landing: Peace will not be delivered from Gostiny Dvor. Security will not be signed in a commercial contract. Development will not come from an Action Plan written in Moscow and read in Addis.

We are not anti-Russia. We are pro-Africa. Russia is not our enemy. Our begging bowl is our enemy.

Africa is saying: If you want to help us, buy from us, do not host us. Build a tractor factory in Harare, not an exhibition stand in Moscow. Build a fertilizer plant in Dakar, not a panel session on fertilizer.

Until Africa can host 48 European countries in Africa and make them queue for one-on-one meetings with our chair, we are not sovereign. We are guests at other people's tables, eating crumbs and calling it strategy.

And finally, the question you will not ask if you carry a begging bowl.

You will sit in that palace under the banner "For Peace, Security and Development" while reports allege that African nationals, lured by fake job adverts and deceptive recruitment, have been enlisted to fight and die in the Russia-Ukraine war. International media, including investigations cited by the Mail & Guardian and Reuters, have documented cases of foreign nationals allegedly trafficked into the conflict. Mothers in Gaborone, in Bamako, in Harare are crying for sons who reportedly went to Russia for work and came back in body bags, or never came back at all.

This is your chance, 22 Presidents. You have President Putin in front of you as co-chair of this summit. Will you ask where our sons are? Will you ask about peace while reports allege our own children are being fed to a meat- grinder war that is not theirs? Will you sign another contract while our nationals allegedly face death in foreign trenches? Or will you, begging bowl in hand, smile for the photo and sell your own blood for another communique?

Africa is saying: A leader who cannot protect his sons and daughters from foreign trenches cannot talk about security.

48 countries. 22 presidents. One city. Zero self-respect if we come home with only a communique and no answers about our sons allegedly lured into a war which is not theirs.

Sawadogo (Sawadogoism: the doctrine of Yacouba Sawadogo, the Burkinabè farmer who stopped the desert with a shovel and Zaï pits - proving that African solutions come from working the soil at home, not begging abroad) did not stop the desert by attending summits about deserts. He stopped it with a shovel.

Put down the begging bowl. Pick up the shovel.

Fortune Madondo is a Pan-Africanist writer and decolonial thinker. This is an opinion piece. [email protected]