Vladimir Putin was snubbed by African leaders at a key summit in St. Petersburg on Thursday, heaping fresh humiliation on the Russian president.

Just 17 heads of state will take part in the second Russia-Africa summit this week – less than half of the 43 who attended the first in 2019.

The other 32 African nations will be represented by senior government officials or ambassadors.

Low turnout for the event has prompted the Kremlin to blame western powers undercutting with ‘outrageous’ interference as it seeks out diplomatic allies in its standoff with Ukraine.

Asked about the low number of attendees, Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov said: ‘This is absolutely blatant, brazen interference by the United States, France and other states through their diplomatic missions in African countries and their attempts to put pressure on the leadership of these countries in order to prevent their active participation in the forum.’

After being sanctioned by much of the western world and driven into isolation, Russia has spent much of the past year on a charm offensive in the global south, claiming the country’s future lies in Asia and Africa, where projected growth will present extraordinary economic opportunities.

The event comes after Russia destroyed Ukrainian grain warehouses on the Danube River after quitting the Black Sea grain deal, a UN- brokered pact that allowed the export of grain and other products from Ukraine through the Black Sea to overseas markets, many of them in Africa.

The deal was devised to alleviate soaring global food prices, and Russia blamed its collapse on the west blocking Russian exports of grain and fertilisers.

Moscow has attempted to downplay the issue in recent days by reassuring its African partners that it understands their ‘concern’ on the issue.

Nevertheless, some African leaders have spoken out angrily over Russia’s exit from the deal, fearing a possible civil backlash caused by rising grain prices at home.

Korir Sing’Oei, Kenya’s principal secretary for foreign affairs, last week tweeted ‘The decision by Russia to exit the Black Sea grain initiative is a stab on the back at global food security prices and disproportionately impacts countries in the Horn of Africa already impacted by drought.’

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Along with grain, another issue likely to be on the agenda will be the fate of Russia’s Wagner military group, which is most active in the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali and Sudan- all of whom have confirmed their heads of state will be at the summit.

The Kremlin has pledged that it will not reduce Wagner’s activities in Africa even after the mercenary group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched an abortive mutiny in Russia last month.

Before the summit, Prigozhin gave a rare live interview with the pro-Kremlin television channel Afrique Média, which targets French-speaking African countries. ‘There was no, and there will be no, reduction in our programmes in Africa,’ he said.

In St Petersburg, the African leaders in attendance are expected to be more assertive in their diplomatic efforts to find a resolution to the war in Ukraine- a conflict largely perceived to be an internal European matter which has had an outsized effect on countries in Africa.

Last month a delegation of African leaders visited Moscow and Kyiv to urge both sides to cease hostilities, but the initiative had little effect.

‘African states are attempting to be kingmakers, rather than be caught in another proxy war,’ said Ronak Gopaldas, director of Signal Risk, an African risk advisory firm.

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