Putin is fuelling his war by plundering Africa’s minerals

The global community must supplement sanctions on Russia to choke its illicit businesses

This week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a fevered pitch, warning that if Russia’s war against his country became “frozen”, it would “eventually reignite”. With war fatigue holding up £100billion in military support from the US and European Union, more must be done to choke the illicit businesses funding Putin’s war machine.

As the invasion approaches its second anniversary, there is a palpable risk of stalemate. Replacing lost troops on the frontline is a morale sapping endeavour, while replenishing military hardware gets harder as allied stamina wanes and the war in Gaza competes for the world’s attention. The audience in Davos – leaders of business and governments – offers an opportunity to revitalise and diversify the war effort.

While governments should heed Ukraine’s bids for military aid, more could be done by supplementing sanctions on Russia with concerted action against its nefarious business interests abroad. The murky death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, in a plane crash last August has not curtailed Russia’s looting and pillaging of natural resources around the world – from Libya to the Central African Republic (CAR). Instead, the Kremlin seized the moment to wrest control over those business interests, no doubt in part to raise extra revenue for its war effort.

Take CAR, where the Russian defence ministry now directs the mercenaries previously under Prigozhin’s control. A senior Russian diplomat coordinates the partnership carefully cultivated with CAR president, Faustin-archange Touadéra, desperate to assert control over a country ravaged by civil war since 2012. This Faustian pact, trading resources for security, licences appalling humanrights abuses at home, while funnelling cash to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.

In September 2021, in Kouki, north-west CAR, there were reports of aerial bombing and the execution of civilians, who stood in the way of Russian mercenaries seizing the local goldmine, killing mostly artisanal miners to plunder their resources. There have been similar accounts of executions, rape and torture by Russian forces against artisanal gold miners in Ndassima, while the Kremlin playbook is being deployed to siphon off resources from vulnerable communities in other unstable countries.

President Putin is not the only leader engaging in exploitation, although China’s Belt and Road strategy is somewhat less crude. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), China controls almost all the copper and cobalt mines in operation, paying a pittance to artisanal miners who refuse to roll over, lingering on the periphery and working in perilous conditions.

This exploitation is becoming more systemic, as demand for gold, critical minerals and precious metals grows. Artisanal miners, often little more than a few family members sifting through the ground with manual tools and a shanty or tent for shelter, produce 20 per cent of the world’s gold, and somewhere between 15 to 30 per cent of the cobalt coming from the DRC, the world’s largest producer. They are ripe targets for Russian forces and Chinese state corporations to supplement their larger mining operations.

The international community must

Dominic Raab is the MP for Esher and Walton, and former deputy prime minister and foreign secretary

do more to stamp it out. First, it should support the work of the UN and International Criminal Court in pursuing transparency and accountability for the worst atrocities. Second, the UK should lead the way in imposing Magnitsky sanctions – visa bans and asset freezes – on those overseeing the abuse. Third, we need to bolster and enforce international standards of good governance, led by governments, but supported by investors and the mining sector. The end goal should be to establish clearer standards for the treatment of local communities, and artisanal miners, that all host and foreign governments as well as business sign up to.

The risk is that fragile but truculent regimes cock a snook, and sell out their people for short-term deals with heartless or hostile foreign states. So, we need to lock in the joint efforts of aid, development policy, security guarantees and trade liberalisation with private sector investment to make those countries a better offer. If we want to turn the tide on the battlefield in Ukraine, compete with China’s Belt and Road scheme, and protect artisanal mining communities from being wiped out, countries sharing the basic values of humanity need to forge a better plan with the business community. Something to think about in Davos.