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Moscow will open its first embassy in Moroni, the capital of the Comoros, in 2025, according to a Russian government directive released on Saturday. 

The island nation had previously indicated its readiness for the move. In March, the Comorian government sent a formal note to the Russian embassy in Madagascar, confirming its support for opening a mission in Moroni. 

“The proposal of the Russian Foreign Ministry, agreed upon with the relevant federal executive authorities and the Comorian side, to establish in 2025 a Russian Federation embassy in the Union of the Comoros (Moroni), is hereby approved,” the document reads. 

Russia and the Сomoros established diplomatic relations in 1976, but Moscow has never maintained an embassy there. Since the Soviet era, Russia’s ambassador to the Comoros has been accredited from the embassy in Madagascar, which has handled bilateral contacts for decades. 

The Comoros has no embassy in Moscow.

The step aligns with Moscow’s broader effort to expand its diplomatic footprint across Africa. During talks at the Kremlin in November with Faure Gnassingbe, first president of Togo’s Council of Ministers, President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia and Togo had agreed to reestablish their embassies in 2026. Togo shut its Moscow embassy in 1999, and Russia closed its mission in 1992. 

Russia reopened embassies in Burkina Faso and Equatorial Guinea in 2024, while missions in South Sudan, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone are expected to follow, with Liberia and the Gambia also on Moscow’s near-term list. 

Speaking with African Initiative in August, Anatoly Bashkin, director of the ministry’s Africa Department, highlighted that Russia intends to continue restoring diplomatic posts shuttered after the Soviet Union’s collapse, as well as establishing new embassies across the African continent. 

According to KP.ru, citing the Russian Foreign Ministry’s press department, Moscow operates 43 diplomatic and consular missions across Africa.