ABIDJAN, April  11, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Ukraine inaugurated an embassy in
Ivory Coast on Thursday, a day after opening an embassy in the Democratic
Republic of Congo 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.
                   
Subkh opened Kyiv's embassy in Kinshasa on Wednesday amid plans to open
several more representations in Africa to bolster support, DR Congo'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," 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" from February 2022.