The number of heads of state attending the second Russia-Africa summit has decreased from 43 to 17 as a result of what the Kremlin described as blatant Western efforts to prevent African governments from participating.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday the West was doing its best to disrupt the summit.

"This absolutely blatant, obnoxious interference by the US, France, and other countries through their diplomatic missions in African countries," the Russian state news agency TASS reported Peskov as saying.  

The two-day summit begins Thursday and ends on Friday in St. Petersburg. Food security in Africa will be high on the agenda.

Some African heads of state will also try to use the event to help mediate to end the war in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to hold separate meetings with each attending African leader, presidential aide Yury Ushakov said as reported by the Interfax news agency.   

"There will be numerous bilateral meetings. Our president plans to meet with each of the African leaders," Ushakov said. "Forty-nine out of 54 countries have confirmed their participation."    

The Egyptian delegation is headed by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi who has urged a redoubling of international efforts to prevent and contain the economic impact of the war on the global economy and developing countries' agricultural, energy, and financial markets, TASS reported.

Egypt, one of the world’s biggest wheat importers, has asked Russia to reconsider its exit from the Black Sea grain-export initiative. The pact that had allowed Ukraine's grain to be exported safely over the Black Sea for the past year.   

South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa will lead an African agenda that aims at brokering a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine.    

Ramaphosa was also part of a group of African presidents - which includes Senegal’s president Macky Sall - who met Putin last month on the same initiative, and are expected to discuss the issue again with Putin as part of an African Union plan.    

Among others attending the summit are Sall, Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni and Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed.

Key absentees include Nigeria’s new president Bola Tinubu and Kenya’s president William Ruto.    

(Editing by Brinda Darasha; brinda.darasha@lseg.com)