Burundi maintains Neutrality on Ukraine-Russia conflict

Burundi has maintained its “neutrality” regarding the conflict in Ukraine, declaring that “no one can win this war.”

President Evariste Ndayishimiye stated this during a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Burundi, an African country in the Great Lakes region, voted against the latest UN General Assembly resolution calling on Russia to withdraw its military from Ukraine in February.

In total, 22 of the African Union’s 54 member states abstained or did not vote, and two countries, Eritrea and Mali, voted against.

In a press conference held in Bujumbura with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Burundi’s Foreign Minister Albert Shingiro stated, “We have taken an abstentionist position, a position of neutrality, of non-alignment to prevent this conflict from reaching other regions, particularly Africa. We need to mitigate the impact of this conflict, and this is the position of most African countries on this issue.

“There is no one who can win this war,” Mr Shingiro also asserted.

“We highly appreciate Burundi’s balanced and responsible position, and above all the fact that Burundi understands the root causes of this conflict,” said Sergei Lavrov, continuing: “We also talked about the need to reform the UN Security Council, and the fact that Africa is not sufficiently represented.”

Mr Lavrov’s visit to Kenya on Monday follows a trip by his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kouleba to several African countries, including Ethiopia and Rwanda, last week.

Moscow and Kiev are seeking to increase their respective influence on the African continent.

Mr Lavrov has already visited Africa twice since the start of the war in Ukraine at the end of February 2022, on tours of several countries.

Mr Kouleba, for his part, this week called on some of the continent’s governments to abandon their “neutrality” in the Ukraine conflict, and also stated that he intended to improve Kiev’s ties with a continent of 1.3 billion people, especially by announcing the opening of new embassies.

Russia’s ties with African countries date back to the Cold War, when the Soviet Union presented itself as a fighter against imperialism.

A Russia-Africa summit, the second of its kind, is scheduled for 26th– 29th July in St. Petersburg, Russia.