Later on Thursday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni will meet with the US ambassador to the UN.
Just a few days have passed since Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was in Kampala. Linda Thomas-Greenfield is already there.
President Museveni called Ms. Thomas-Greenfield a “very good friend” and said she is “welcome at any time” in an interview with me on the BBC Africa Daily program.
However, when I asked whether she would bring instructions from Washington, the president was clear that “nobody can give us instructions”.
He told me that Uganda welcomes aid from western powers but insisted the country can survive, even thrive, without it.
The president said there has not been an attempt to influence the country’s position on the war in Ukraine.
One of the 16 African nations who voted against a UN resolution requesting that Russia stop the invasion was Uganda.
President Museveni compared the current confrontation to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when I questioned him about it.
He compared NATO’s position in Eastern Europe to Soviet efforts to station nuclear missiles on Cuba, just a few miles off the Florida coast.
Mr. Museveni stated that Uganda had backed the US in the face of hostility back then and should do the same again.
