Russia lavishes praise on ‘legend’ Mugabe
What you need to know:
- The Russian delegation met President Mugabe at his rural home outside Harare where he also rallied to Moscow’s defence in the fight against Western sanctions.
HARARE, Wednesday
Visiting Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has lavished Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe with praise describing him as ‘ a legend, an historical figure’ after the two countries sealed a $3 billion platinum mining project.
Mr Lavrov is leading a high powered Russian delegation to Zimbabwe that attending the commission of the platinum mine on the outskirts of Harare.
The project has been described as the largest single foreign investment in independent Zimbabwe.
Mr Lavrov said the launch of the joint venture project between Zimbabwe and Russia showed Russia’s commitment to its relations with Harare.
“There is no coming back to uni-polar world, bi-polar world, the future of the world could only be multi-polar otherwise the world system would not be sustainable and Africa is one of the pillars of the evolving world system and Russia would always be with Africa and today we got a confirmation from President Mugabe, a legend, an historical figure that Zimbabe and Africa will always be with Russia,” he said.
The Russian delegation met President Mugabe at his rural home outside Harare where he also rallied to Moscow’s defence in the fight against Western sanctions.
“Those who imposed sanctions on Russian president Vladimir Putin have done so on us as well,” he said. “These are the evil men of our world those who go and act in defiance of international law, imposing sanctions never approved by the United Nations.”
The government says the investment levels on the platinum project would reach $4.2 billion in the next 10 years.
Zimbabwe has the second largest known platinum reserves in the world after South Africa but they are largely untapped.
The deals with Russia come hard on the heels of President Robert Mugabe’s visit to China last month where he signed several agreement with Chinese investors for infrastructure projects.
However, Zimbabwe’s economy is on a tailspin and the long term investment deals have failed to convince Zimbabweans that President Mugabe’s government has a solution in sight for the crisis.
