South Sudan cabinet backs Russia partnership and oil stake deal
The presidency says ministers endorsed a cooperation framework days after Kiir's Moscow trip, where a preliminary transfer of former Petronas oil stakes was signed.
South Sudan's cabinet has unanimously endorsed a strategic partnership with Russia, the presidency said, days after President Salva Kiir returned from a Russia-Africa summit in Moscow at which a preliminary deal on oil stakes was signed.
The decision was taken at an extraordinary meeting of the Caretaker Council of Ministers, numbered 02/2026, which Kiir chaired, according to a presidency statement reported by The Rio Times. Kiir appointed the caretaker cabinet in September after dissolving the transitional government. The presidency did not publish the text of the agreement or say which document the ministers endorsed.
Caretaker Cabinet Affairs Minister Bol Wek Agoth said a committee would set the framework and rules for the cooperation, and that officials would draft a 2027 to 2029 Strategic Cooperation Action Plan with a 100-day start-up programme. The presidency listed oil, mining, health, agriculture, education, infrastructure and information technology as areas for partnership. No start dates were given for those steps.
On 29 October, Petroleum Minister Awow Daniel Chuang and Russian Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilev co-chaired talks in Moscow at which the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding and a letter of acceptance. The papers cover a preliminary transfer of former Petronas stakes in two oil consortiums to Zarubezhneft, a Russian state-owned oil company. Petronas, Malaysia's state oil company, held 40 percent of one consortium and 30 percent of the other before it announced its exit on 7 August 2024. Neither side has stated a price, the size of the stake Zarubezhneft would acquire, or a completion date.
The two consortiums, Dar Petroleum Operating Company and Greater Pioneer Operating Company, run Blocks 3 and 7 in Upper Nile State and Blocks 1, 2 and 4 in Unity State and Ruweng. Officials of Nile Petroleum Corporation, the state oil company, attended the Moscow talks. Kiir also met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, and told the summit that South Sudan welcomed Russian investment in agriculture, petroleum, mining and tourism.
Oil provides most of South Sudan's revenue, and who holds the fields shapes both state income and politics. Elections are due on 22 December 2026. The UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan told the General Assembly's Third Committee on 27 October that the vote risked a constitutional coup, that opposition leader Riek Machar was detained and on trial, and that his party was excluded.
The Moscow summit drew representatives from 48 African countries, Africanews reported. Russia pledged in 2019 to lift annual trade with Africa to $40bn; Africanews put the current figure at about $29bn.
Speaking on an Africanews debate programme, Beverly Ochieng, an associate director at the consultancy Control Risks, said Russia's relationship with Africa would remain strategically important but economically limited compared with the involvement of China and the European Union.
How the reports differ
Africanews led on a studio debate about whether Russia or Africa gains more from the relationship, and it carried the trade numbers: a 2019 pledge of $40bn a year against a current figure of about $29bn. The EastAfrican and TradingView both filed under the headline "Russia in Africa and the terms of strategic partnership", the TradingView version credited to Zawya, with no further detail in the text they carried. The Rio Times alone reported the South Sudan cabinet's endorsement, the 29 October Moscow signing, the Petronas percentages and the 22 December election date, attributing the cabinet account to a presidency statement. Only The Rio Times noted that no price or stake size has been published.
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