Putin still has many (almost) friends, especially in Africa | Abroad

He’d never been there, and that’s saying something when you’ve been Russia’s foreign minister for nearly twenty years. Sergei Lavrov shook hands this week with Denis Sassou Nguesso, the president of the Republic of Congo. He is in Africa to strengthen ties, to rekindle old friendships or to make new friends. In addition to the Republic of Congo (not to be confused with its large neighbor Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the former Belgian colony), Lavrov also visited Egypt, Uganda and Ethiopia on this trip.