Putin held talks with Biya on 28 July, calling on the West African country to support “a number of Russian initiatives at the UN”.
Biya took the opportunity to consolidate military agreements signed in April 2022, two months after the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
During his speech, the Cameroonian president did not fail to praise Russia’s involvement “in the development of the continent and the fight against crises and terrorism”.
A first-time visitor to Russia, Biya brought his wife, son, and nine ministers, including Finance Minister Louis Paul Motaze and the head of diplomacy, Lejeune Mbella Mbella.
Business and media meetings
Motaze held meetings on the possibility of rehabilitating Cameroon’s defunct oil refinery in Limbé.
He also spoke with Adeniyi Adebayo, Director of Development for Yango, the taxi service and subsidiary of the Russian search engine Yandex.
Cameroonian Economy minister Alamine Ousmane Mey and Trade Minister Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana met with their Russian counterparts to step up their partnership in the fields of energy, agriculture, infrastructure and digital technology.
His son Franck held talks with Cameroonian Justin Tagouh, head of Afrique Média, a pro-Russian television station that takes a very aggressive stance against the West, and a close associate of Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group.
Moscow reaffirmed its ties to Cameroon in the education sector as well, providing more than 50 scholarships to deserving Cameroonian students for the next school year, achieving their 100-scholarship quota.
A Russian education centre with more than 150 school and university students opened in Douala in April.
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