President Yoweri Museveni has expressed his dismay over the escalating economic crisis and the continuous sanctions imposed against Russia. Museveni said this during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who is in the country on a two-days visit. The sanctions followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022. The invasion is a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014.
The invasion caused Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II, with more than 9.5 million Ukrainians fleeing the country and a third of the population displaced. The invasion also caused global food shortages. Museveni said in the sanctions by the West (European Countries) against Russia, they don’t mention that they have sanctioned wheat and fertilizers.
“Lavrov told me that the West has stopped Russian ships from docking at a number of ports, so how will the fertilizers or wheat go if the ships don’t move? Whenever issues come up and some people want us to take positions against Russia we say; but these people have been with us for the last 100 years. How can we be against them?” Museveni said adding that, “Uganda forgiven its former enemies the colonialists who did bad things to the natives and how can we be against somebody who has never harmed us but instead helped us.”
“We don’t believe in being enemies of somebody’s enemy. No! We want to make our own enemies, not fight other people’s enemies. This is our doctrine. We have got our clear position as part of the African liberation movement. We know who is who and who’s doing what and why, and we know where we stand,” he said. Museveni said Uganda’s interest with Russia is that when there is progress and stability in Russia, both countries benefit because there is barter trade.
“This idea of rivalry is not part of our African Liberation Movement strategy. If we stick to the charter of cooperation among countries irrespective of their different social systems, things will be much better for the world.”
he said Lavrov said western countries blame Russia for everything. This started a long time before the current military operation in Ukraine. In 2016, when there was no Ukrainian dossier, they said that it was Russia that elected President Trump. The European Union, on multiple occasions over the last Six to seven years, said that Russia uses gas as a weapon without giving any arguments for that.
The current food crisis started way earlier when there was a price surge owing to COVID19. “The only connection that we would find between the operation in Ukraine and the current economic crisis is the illegal and aggressive sanctions imposed on Russia because they disrupt all logistic chains,” he said.
He said on the 22nd of July 2022 in Istanbul, a memorandum was signed between Russia and the United Nations. According to this memorandum, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres committed himself to do his best to lift the restrictions on Russia, and hopefully, he will be able to succeed.
