Russia pushes North African trade area as Ukraine sanctions bite

August 19, 2023 A few days after hosting the second Russia-Africa summit in Saint Petersburg at the end of July, Russian President Vladimir Putin called a cabinet meeting. At that meeting, he said that Russia and four North African countries — Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia — were working on a free trade area that would be integrated into the Eurasian Economic Union, an economic bloc comprising Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Russia's trade with Africa is low and heavily concentrated in four countries: Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and fellow BRICS member South Africa. In 2022, Russian-African trade amounted to…