War in Ukraine: Russia undertakes not to recruit more Ganese

O Ghana obtained from the Russian President the assurance that no Ghanaian citizen will participate in the war against Ukraine at the end of the Russian-Africa summit in Moscow, Ghana’s Foreign Minister said today.

In recent months, several African countries have reported that some of their citizens have been tricked into fighting in the ranks of the Russian army and that many of them have ended up dead on the battlefield.

According to the Ghanai authorities, some 272 Ghanais have been recruited to fight in Ukraine since 2022; of these, more than half a hundred have been killed.

The Ghanai authorities have intensified meetings with Ukrainian and Russian leaders in order to put an end to these recruitments and repatriate the Ghanai prisoners of war captured on the Ukrainian front.

“[Vladimir] Putin stated that the Ganese are no longer allowed to participate in the war in Ukraine (...) either through irregular recruitments or voluntary demonstrations of interest,” Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Ablakwa said today on social network X.

This week Russia received delegations from 48 African countries — including 22 Heads of State — for a summit to strengthen its ties with the continent, described by the Kremlin as a “natural ally”.

Russia, a key actor in Africa during the Soviet era, has continued to exert significant influence in the region since the fall of the USSR.

It drew even closer to African countries — extending their political, economic and military ties — after the start of their offensive in Ukraine in February 2022, followed by heavy Western sanctions aimed at isolating Moscow.

Putin stressed that more than 40 African states received fertilizers and cereals from Russia, indicating that Moscow exported 13 million tonnes of agricultural products to Africa since the beginning of the year.