Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold talks with Uganda's Foreign Minister Jeje Odongo on Tuesday and will be received by the country's President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.
The Russian foreign minister arrived in Uganda the day before on his first-ever visit.
The meetings will be held in the town of Entebbe, located near the Ugandan capital Kampala. The country's largest airport and the presidential residence are located here.
Promising areas
The sides are expected to focus on discussing promising areas of cooperation between the two countries. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian side sees opportunities for cooperation with Uganda in the construction, development of information technology and cybersecurity, agriculture, medicine and pharmaceutics, telecommunications, operation and maintenance of helicopter technology, and ecology. The common task, as the Russian leader emphasized, is the development of trade and economic ties, increasing the level of trade turnover.
Another promising area is cooperation in the development of mineral resources. During the business mission of Russian business circles to Kampala, it was decided to create a working group on cooperation in the mineral sector within the framework of the intergovernmental commission. With the participation of this commission in April 2018, an agreement was reached on the organization of a national system of identification, assessment and certification of mineral deposits in Uganda to create a comprehensive analytical laboratory with international accreditation.
For its part, Kampala has also expressed interest in closer cooperation with Moscow in petrochemicals and natural resource development. According to Uganda, the two sides could jointly develop the republic's natural resources.
Night Hunter purchases
Moscow and Kampala are actively developing military-technical ties. In June, a military diplomatic source told TASS that Russia is currently executing a contract to supply Mi-28NE attack helicopters (an export version of the Mi-28N Night Hunter) to Uganda. According to the interlocutor of the agency, Uganda has already received the first batch of helicopters, thus becoming the third country in the world to buy Russian Night Hunter and the delivery of all contracted vehicles is expected to be completed in early 2023.
Uganda has previously purchased Russian-made helicopters and aircraft. At a meeting with Putin in October 2019, Uganda's president said that Kampala wants to buy more weapons from Moscow. According to him, the republic is ready to buy arms on a loan basis in order to speed up the delivery process. Museveni added that the republic would also like to localize a facility to repair and maintain Russian equipment to reduce transportation costs.
Peaceful atom and space
Russia and Uganda have been considering the possibility of building a Nuclear Science and Technology Center based on a Russian-designed research reactor. As Rosatom reported, the sides agreed to exchange visits of core specialists and create groups in specific areas. In particular, the agreements imply joint work on creation of infrastructure for nuclear power, production of radioisotopes for use in industry, medicine, agriculture, as well as training and retraining of personnel.
In 2019, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation began implementing the "Science and Education Initiative for Uganda and East Africa" project. The initiative includes four areas: agriculture, minerals, energy (including peaceful atom) and ecology. There are plans to apply this experience to other countries in the future. As part of the project, an inter-university space research and monitoring center is also planned to be established in Uganda.
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Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS