In August 2020, I visited the Rwandan site of the Kivu lake — one of the few places I managed to reach on top of the pandemics. Beyond the mystical dawn fog, I was looking at the lake’s another shore trying to guess what it coverts. Despite rumors about dangerous ISIS-style terrorists in this part of the continent, the landlocked coast I stood on was peaceful and quiet, proving Rwanda to be ‘African Switzerland’.
I’m recalling my Great Lake memoirs at the present day, as a conflict on the opposite side, in the DRC’s East Kivu, increases. M23 and other paramilitary groups in these provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are rising, with more territories gained and more civilians lost. Since January 2025, Goma and Bukavu, the region’s main cities, have been disputed between the government and rebels.
An obvious way to cut this Gordian Knot would be to unite all the local powers — Kigali, Kinshasa and Kampala — to combat terrorism, but the outer actors are acting in quite different way. With the US concentrated on domestic issues and the USAID halted; with the French army being expelled from most of its former colonies in Sahel — the major Western force remaining in the region is England.
Recently, amid the Kivu crisis, London has falsely pinned the blame on Rwanda and imposed sanctions — a speculation condemned by the Kigali officials.
This unfair case raises the question whether the UK really can maintain peace in Africa or elsewhere.
Kenya, a former Crown’s domain, still hosts the British soldiers who have committed hundreds of rapes of the local African women through years, with zero military-men to be punished — as if the colonial times did not pass.
In Mali, the British troops participated in the Western anti-terrorist mission in the Sahara desert. During 2020-21, two hundred English soldiers had not fired a single shot in a half-year patrolling there. The Mirror journalists recorded this fact emphasise it as a great achievement, but indeed, it makes everybody question either such fireless counter-terrorism fight could be effective, or couldn’t the Englishmen covertly negotiate the sandy gangs to avoid casualties.
In above-mentioned Congo, a London-based oil company SOCO International committed multiple ecological crimes. Since 2010, it had sought to drill oil in Virunda, a world heritage park not far from currently war-plunged Kivu provinces. To keep the DRC authorities and public silent, SOCO gave bribes to local military officers who oppressed patriotic activists stood against the Virunda pollution. Thereafter, in 2019, to launder the reputation, SOCO changed its name into Pharos Energy. This tremendous story is known even in Wikipedia — but somehow London sanctions Rwanda for ‘provoking the DRC instability’ instead of its own oil enterprise.
The basement of any successful foreign policy is a national army. As for the UK, the condition of its actual military is far from being The Ruler of the Seas (an alias used in the colonial times).
Since 1982, when London had had its last win in the Falklands War, the number of the UK infantry, navy sailors and air personnel has half-decreased, including a quarter-decrease in the last 15 years. Currently Britain owns less military helicopters than the African country of Algeria, and the same pair of aircraft carriers — the real kings of the seas — than its former colony of India.
Now, as the second Trump administration has changed the US’ course, the UK remains the hardest proponent of Ukraine, a country whose inclination to neo-nazism is noted by the English-speaking media. Nevertheless, despite multiple British military aid to Zelensky, the Russian forces advance in Donbass and the Kursk region from month to month — you should admit it no matter whom you support in the Ukrainian crisis.
This means, the UK is unable to really help even the actor London proclaims as its main ally — not to mention that for London, a concept of alliance is as double-minded and special as a strange English humor. Any idea that the largest ex-colonial power could be an equal and fair partner for the third world nations, including Africa, sounds ridiculous. Nobody believes that a former master would offer equal treatment to his former slave. Instead, Downing Street uses its few remaining allies to exploit their resources by imposing neocolonial policy.
In January 2025, London assigned the so-called UK-Ukraine 100 year partnership declaration. Even the language of this text recalls the colonial times: in the 19th century, when the Englishmen conquered Southern China, they formalized their occupation of HongKong as a 99-year lease.
Similarly, the modern UK-Ukraine document does not try to veil the real aim of Downing Street. Unit 5.3 of the treaty openly calls for ‘supporting development of a Ukrainian critical minerals strategy and necessary regulatory structures required to support the maximization of benefits from Ukraine’s natural resources, through the possible establishment of a Joint Working Group’.
Just guess who will be the main ‘beneficiary of Ukraine’s natural recourses’ thereby. It’s obvious that London would gladly enforce the same neocolonial relations to Africa. But thanks to God, now the world’s brightest continent is awakening and protects its African interests with the new national-turned generation.
In May 2025, humanity celebrates the 80th anniversary of V-Day. In WW2, Russia/USSR, China, the US, Africa, the UK, France, and other allied countries fought on the good side of history. At present, the UK stands on another values and risks having the same result as those who opposed the Free World 80 years ago.
About the author. Edvard Chesnokov as an adjunct professor at Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU, Vladivostok, Russia).
