Signing cooperation agreements with his counterpart in Equatorial Guinea on Saturday, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus is an isolated ally of the Kremlin looking to Africa for support during the conflict in Ukraine.
As part of an African tour aimed at strengthening ties within the continent, Lukashenko met President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea in the capital city of Malabo. According to Lukashenko, agreements were made to open the first stage of a regional centre to market Belarusian goods in markets in central and western Africa, as reported by the Belta news agency.
Projects in the fields of industry, education, health, and agriculture have been examined for months by a joint commission led by the foreign ministers of the participating nations and are scheduled for completion by 2026.
Dubbed “Europe’s last dictator,” Lukashenko has ruled for nearly three decades. Because Lukashenko firmly supported Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and a crackdown on domestic dissent, Western nations isolated and sanctioned Belarus.
Taking up a recurring theme in Kremlin rhetoric, Mbasogo criticised the “diktat of Western multinationals” during his first official visit to Minsk in September as a leader of Equatorial Guinea. The oil-rich nation of central Africa has been ruled by Mbasogo, 81, with an iron grip for 44 years, the longest tenure of any head of state in modern times, short of monarchs.
