Fertilizer and grain shipments drive Russia-Africa trade past $27B

Russia’s trade with African countries climbed past $27 billion in 2025, and Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov pointed on Monday to the logistics behind that figure: fertilizer shipments, grain deliveries and a widening network of diplomatic posts that Moscow has been building out since 2022.

The delivery numbers, as reported by the state-run news agency Tass, form the operational core of the relationship. Russia shipped 1.5 million tons of mineral fertilizers to African buyers in 2025, and the flow has accelerated. Shipments in 2026 have already exceeded 2.2 million tons. Grain has moved on an even larger scale: African countries received more than 18 million tons of Russian grain in 2025, and another 13 million tons went out in the first nine months of 2026 alone.

Agriculture, Ushakov stressed, remains a key area of cooperation, and the commodity volumes suggest the supply chains are functioning at scale rather than in principle.

The infrastructure supporting this trade extends beyond cargo. Russia has opened three new embassies since 2022, in South Sudan, Gambia and the Union of the Comoros, while five other diplomatic missions have resumed operations in Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo. Ushakov presented the expansion as evidence of a growing institutional footprint across the continent, the kind of permanent representation that trade relationships depend on.

Beyond bilateral channels, Russia works with African countries through international organizations, particularly the UN, on practical security issues including counterterrorism, drug trafficking and cybercrime.

The timing of Ushakov’s remarks matters for what comes next. He spoke ahead of the Russia-Africa summit, scheduled for Oct. 28-29 in Moscow, with 48 African countries confirming participation, including 22 represented by their heads of state. The scale of attendance, by Moscow’s account, sets the stage for a follow-up round of commitments whose execution will be the measure of the current numbers.

Meanwhile, Ushakov turned to energy infrastructure and the machinery that governs it. Speaking on the role of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), he said global natural gas demand is projected to rise 28% by 2055, from 4.2 trillion cubic meters to 5.4 trillion cubic meters. That projected growth, in his framing, requires the industry to have a platform for professional, depoliticized dialogue, a need he tied directly to disruptions that have tested delivery systems in recent years: heightened tensions in the Middle East, attacks on Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines, and Western restrictions on gas purchases, equipment and technology.

Against that backdrop, Ushakov described Moscow as a responsible participant in the global gas market and a reliable supplier, saying Russia considers reliable and stable gas supplies essential to meeting growing global demand. He underlined the capacity behind that claim: Russia holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves and ranks second globally in production.

The GECF summit itself is scheduled for Tuesday in Russia, and participants are expected to adopt the Moscow Declaration at its conclusion, according to Ushakov. Whether the declaration translates into operational coordination on supply and technology remains to be seen, but the sequence of events this week, from the GECF gathering to the Russia-Africa summit two days later, presents a compressed test of the delivery record Moscow has just laid out: trade above $27 billion, fertilizer and grain shipments trending upward, and a diplomatic network rebuilt across the continent over the past four years.

For the governments and operators watching those flows, the figures Ushakov cited are less a political statement than a service-level report, one that the summit agenda in Moscow will now be measured against.