Strategic economic and foreign policy partnership between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Zimbabwe

   Relevance. Zimbabwe and Russia maintain close bilateral relations, with the two countries already cooperating in various sectors, including mining, education and agriculture. The volume of bilateral trade between Russia and Zimbabwe at the present stage of relations is about $80 million.

   The purpose of the study is to study the main directions of the strategic economic and foreign policy partner-ship between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Zimbabwe in the context of overcoming the direct permanent pressure for Russia and indirect sanctions pressure for Zimbabwe from the countries of the "collective" West.

   Objectives: to study the main macroeconomic indicators of the development of the Republic of Zimbabwe, which allow building partnerships with the Russian Federation; to consider the indicators of trade turnover between Russia and Zimbabwe, difficulties in the development of economic partnership and ways to overcome them; to determine the vectors of the foreign policy strategic partnership between Russia and Zimbabwe.

   Methodology. The methods of analysis and synthesis of theoretical and statistical material are based on data from The Global Economy, the website of the Customs Service of the Russian Federation and the website of international statistics Statista.

   Results. The article reveals the potential of Zimbabwe as a partner of Russia. Russia's policy in Africa faces obstacles and problems, for example: the lack of a regional strategy, the weakening of ties with traditional partners, and the formation of new contradictions with individual African countries. Although work is underway to eliminate these problems, it will not be possible to solve them in the medium term.

   Conclusions. The main conclusion is made that Russia's African policy, on the example of relations with the Republic of Zimbabwe, is built along the lines of sectoral initiatives (food security, information technology, healthcare, education), and there is no need to talk about sub-regional interests or formats yet. Most of Russia's initiatives are pan-African in nature.

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