ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – Ukraine inaugurated an embassy in Ivory Coast on April 11, a day after opening an embassy in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as Kyiv seeks a greater presence in Africa to counter Moscow’s influence.

“A brilliant new page is being written in the new history of relations between Ukraine-Africa and Ukraine-Ivory Coast,” Deputy Foreign Minister Maksym Subkh said, according to a translation of his Ukrainian speech into French.

The new embassies were the result of “the instructions of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to spread Ukraine’s diplomatic presence in Africa”, he added.

Mr Subkh opened Kyiv’s embassy in DRC’s capital Kinshasa on April 10, amid plans to open several more representations in Africa to bolster support, DRC’s Foreign Ministry told AFP.

He is due to visit Ghana, Mozambique, Botswana and Rwanda to inaugurate embassies in the coming weeks, a representative of the new embassy in Abidjan told AFP.

“This war can seem very far away. But the catastrophic increase in food prices has already impacted the lives of millions of African families,” Mr Subkh said at the opening in the diplomatic quarter of Ivory Coast’s economic capital.

The deputy minister also thanked Ivory Coast for its “support... for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, particularly by voting in favour of key resolutions at the United Nations on the full-scale Russian invasion” of February 2022. AFP