SAINT PETERSBURG, December 12. /TASS/. Russia expects to open an embassy in Burkina Faso by the end of the year, and an embassy in Equatorial Guinea in the near future, said Vsevolod Tkachenko, head of the Africa Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

He made the comments on the sidelines of an international conference titled "Africa Seeks Solutions," which is being held at St. Petersburg’s Empress Catherine the Great Mining University.

"In the immediate future," he told TASS, when asked when Russia plans to open embassies in the two African countries.

"We expect that technically we will be able to open an embassy in Burkina Faso, I hope by the end of this year. We are now already sending a group of our diplomats there to solve organizational issues," the diplomat said.

With respect to Equatorial Guinea, Tkachenko said there are technical issues that remain to be solved.

"Everything depends on solving purely technical things that need to be provided to the staff: This includes housing, furniture and equipment. The building needs to be adapted to the needs of our embassy. All this requires decision-making, financing. This is what we are doing now as we are forming a team," he went on to say

In August, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed orders to resume the operation of Russian embassies in Equatorial Guinea and Burkina Faso in 2023. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the move will significantly reinvigorate work with African countries in the political, business and humanitarian fields, as well as in the area of culture and tourism.

The Africa conference

The International Congress Africa Seeks Solutions is taking place at St. Petersburg’s Empress Catherine the Great Mining University. On the African side, participation was confirmed by a total of about 1,000 people from more than 25 countries, including more than 100 heads of leading universities, representatives of executive and legislative branches and major companies. The conference’s participants are discussing the issues of increasing economic integration; development of laws in the area of resource extraction with an emphasis on government regulation; development and implementation of a unified system for assessing the expertise of specialists.