Chris Stephen

The Russian leader must find a new home in the Mediterranean or risk his gains in Africa.

Vladimir Putin’s search for new military bases in the Mediterranean has ended in Libya, a country as factional and complicated as Syria, from which Russian forces have effectively been expelled. 

Without ports and airports to supply it, Russia’s imperial mission in Africa may become as ill-fated as its failed intervention in Syria. The Kremlin has installed mercenaries in a growing number of mineral-rich countries deep within the African continent. But supplying those units is far from easy.

Hence the need for bases within reach of Russia. The Kremlin’s movement of men and equipment from Syria to Libya since the fall of Bashar Assad in December is not just an evacuation, but also a pivot from the Middle East to Africa, the one continent where Moscow still has leverage.

Flight trackers have logged daily journeys by military transport planes from Russia’s Syrian airbase at Hmeimim to three bases in Libya since mid-December  

Meanwhile, a flotilla of four transports sailing from Russia into the Mediterranean is thought by some analysts to be delivering heavy equipment to Eastern Libya, which is run by the pro-Russian warlord, Khalifa Haftar. The ships, ostensibly heading for Syria in mid-December, hit the headlines when one of their number, cargo vessel Ursa Major, blew up and sank shortly after transiting the Straits of Gibraltar.

Then on December 29, ship tracking site Itamilradar reported another of the transports, Sparta, cut its transponder signal off the east Libyan coast. Four days later the transponder, which all merchant ships carry in international waters, was switched on again, triggering suggestions it had delivered equipment to eastern Libya in the interim.

The prospect of Russia amping up its presence in Libya has set off alarm bells on the other side of the Mediterranean, with Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto comparing Moscow’s redeployment from Syria to Libya with the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis.

“Russian ships and submarines in the Mediterranean are always a concern, and even more so if instead of being 1,000km away they are two steps from us,” Crosetto said.

Russian forces have already been in Libya for nearly a decade, their presence dramatically underlined in 2016 when warlord Haftar was invited for a full-dress military visit aboard a Russian aircraft carrier cruising off the coast.

Moscow has provided troops, equipment, and strike planes for Haftar, commander of the forces of Libya’s eastern government. From 2014, it was locked in a civil war with a rival Western government in Tripoli, itself armed by Turkey. A UN-brokered 2020 ceasefire ended the fighting but the two sides remain at loggerheads in a divided country. 

Libya would be a rich prize for either Russia or Turkey, as it contains Africa’s largest oil reserves. Russian oil giant Rosneft already has a hefty deal to buy and re-sell Libyan oil.

More importantly, with the loss of its Syrian bases, Libya remains the only feasible transit hub to supply Russian mercenary units across Africa. The most noted of these groups is Wagner, renamed the Africa Corps after an abortive coup against Putin by its late leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. 

It operates in Sudan and Central African Republic, and Moscow’s influence is growing. A group of three sub-Saharan states, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, have banded together after the armies of all three seized power, and are looking to Russia for support. Mali recently expelled French forces, while Burkina Faso hired another Russian mercenary group, the Bear Brigade, to provide security for its leaders.

Russia needs not just Libyan airbases, but a port to take heavy lift cargo. Moscow’s deputy defense minister Yunus-bek Bamatgireyevich has been making shuttle visits to Libya for the past two years seeking permission to build a naval base similar to the one it is now evacuating at Tartus in Syria.  

Tobruk, near the eastern border, is the favored option for the Russian navy, although it could also open a base at the eastern capital, Benghazi, already used by Libya’s diminutive navy. There is speculation in Libya that Russia may choose a deep water anchorage midway between the two at Susah, which is already slated for development as a container port. 

Whatever the chosen site, a warm water port is key, not just for Russia’s Africa operations but globally. Its main naval bases are either icebound (Archangel, Murmansk), remote (Vladivostok), or easily blocked. In the event of war, its Baltic Fleet would be bottled up by NATO closing the Kattegat. Turkey has already prevented the Black Sea Fleet from reaching the Mediterranean by closing another choke point, the Bosporus, citing the Montreux Convention preventing its use by belligerent navies.

Haftar has yet to give Russia the green light for a naval base, and that probably reflects US pressure. Washington, like most Western powers, backs Haftar’s rival, the Tripoli government. But that backing is conditional because Tripoli also supports Islamist militias blamed by US investigators for the killing of America’s Libya ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi in 2012. 

Additionally, in the highly atomized chaos of Libya, Western powers sometimes find Haftar useful. In 2019 Tripoli allowed rebel groups opposed to Chad’s French-backed government to base themselves in southern Libya. So Paris turned to Haftar. He launched an offensive in southern Libya and the rebels fled back to Chad. By luck or design, French jets were waiting as the rebels crossed the border, inflicting devastating air strikes.

All of this means Western powers would rather charm than threaten Haftar. Even as he courts Russian ministers, he is also being visited by US officials, hoping to convince him that Washington is a better long-term partner than Moscow. 

Haftar, meanwhile, may be entertaining doubts about getting too close to Russia. Its planes and mercenaries are useful, but allowing a naval base may be too high a price if it comes at the expense of antagonizing Washington. 

For one thing, Russia’s prestige is sinking. Putin has been made to look a fool with his Ukraine invasion, an invasion that has seen Russia’s once-mighty tank force wrecked by NATO-supplied weapons. Now Moscow has tasted another humiliating defeat in Syria, its forces there too puny to prevent Assad from being ousted by Turkish-backed rebels. 

The 83-year-old Haftar must also consider his future. He is a US citizen, a reward after he led a CIA-funded Libyan rebel group decades ago. He and his family have extensive and growing property interests in Virginia, which could be frozen, along with his bank accounts, if Washington were to put the general on its sanctions list.

Until now, Haftar was able to keep both Washington and Moscow happy, but Russia’s urgency in finding a naval base may now compel him to make a difficult choice.

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Chris Stephen is a former Moscow correspondent for The Scotsman and The Irish Times and a former Libya correspondent for The Guardian. His book, The Future of War Crimes Justice, was published last year by Melville House (London and New York).

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