Putin promises free grain for six African countries at summit in Russia
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00:00 Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia can replace grain exports to Africa and that
00:06 Russia would start supplying grain for free to six countries within three to four months.
00:11 Speaking at a summit of African heads of state in St Petersburg, the president promised 25,000
00:16 to 50,000 tonnes of grain for each of Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central
00:23 African Republic and Eritrea. He wants to convince them that the 33 million tonnes of
00:28 grain exported from Ukraine in the past year can be replaced less than two weeks after
00:33 the breakdown of a grain deal that kept exports flowing.
00:36 Well, our correspondent Caroline Dumais is there for us in St Petersburg. Tell us a little
00:41 bit more, Caroline, about Putin's address.
00:45 Yes, as you said, it was actually a very broad address. He had a whole rundown of all business
00:54 that Russia is doing with some African partners and mainly business in agriculture. And as
01:01 you said, the main point was this free grain that he's going to send to Africa, free grain
01:08 that should actually replace the Ukrainian grain that some African countries cannot get
01:15 anymore. And he did say that this could be actually operational within three to four
01:21 months. And he mentioned a few countries. He mentioned Mali, he mentioned Burkina Faso,
01:27 the Central African Republic. He also mentioned Zimbabwe and he mentioned Eritrea. So he was
01:33 quite positive on that point. The rest of the statement was very factual, lots of figures
01:42 on all sorts of sectors, all sorts of promises on nuclear energy, telecommunication, IT and
01:51 also the banking system, because to make business with Russia, obviously, they have to use the
01:57 rubles and the banking system has got to adapt. So he was kind of promising some serious change
02:05 so that they could trade between Russia and the African continent.