Not yet four weeks ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov said in an interview that the unipolar world must be replaced by a multipolar world order. The supremacy of the US and the West must be overcome. That is the real aim of Russian geopolitics.

And the subtext is: We have the imperial idea of ​​returning to the old greatness of the Soviet Union, the longing to be a great power again. This is the trauma of Vladimir Putin’s life that he witnessed in 1990 how the Soviet Union exploded overnight and shrank into a virtual developing nation. With that began the bad, dark and embarrassing years for Putin – and for many Russians.

In 1997, politician, professor of sociology of international relations at the Faculty of Sociology of Moscow’s Lomonosov State University and adviser to the Russian government Alexander Dugin published his book The Foundations of Geopolitics. In it he advocated neo-Eurasism that would end the cultural and military domination of the United States. This should be the goal of Russia’s foreign policy, Dugin said. He divided the world into three large blocs separated by mini-states that act as buffer zones: the Anglo-Saxon bloc of North America and Britain. A Southeast Asian bloc led by China that also includes Australia. And the Eurasian bloc which includes India. One axis Berlin-Moscow had to let Germany dominate the Catholic and Protestant countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Africa and South America will open. This area must be fought for.

Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because “as a country it has no geopolitical significance, has no cultural importance, has no geographical uniqueness, certain territorial ambitions pose a grave danger to the whole of Eurasia, and without solving the Ukraine issue, it is pointless to go outside the continent to talk.” politics,” Dugin wrote at the time. Russia sees it that way to this day.

The conference of BRICS countries took place at the same time as Lavrov’s interview: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa stated at the end of the meeting that they wanted to launch their own currency at the initiative of Russia. As an alternative to US dollars.

The question is whether Russia has come one step closer to its imperial idea with the BRICS summit. Will African countries, out of old gratitude for their support in the fight against European colonialism and new dependence, side with Russia? If we are to prevent it (and rightfully so), then we must build a new and better relationship with the Global South as soon as possible. Because that is where the future of Russian imperial ambitions will be determined. This makes the question of food security in Africa a strategic issue for the West.