[Russia, entrenched in Africa during the Cold War’s violent East-West rivalry, largely retreated from the continent after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in the past two years, Moscow has rekindled relations with Soviet-era clients like Mozambique and Angola, and forged new ties with other countries. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will host a summit meeting between Moscow and African countries later this year.]
By
Eric Schmitt
 |
|
New
recruits for the Central African Republic’s armed forces. Members have trained
with
Russian consultants as part of Moscow’s growing influence across Africa.
Credit
Florent Vergnes/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
|
OUAGADOUGOU,
Burkina Faso — Russia has
been steadily expanding its military influence across Africa, alarming Western
officials with increasing arms sales, security agreements and training programs
for unstable countries or autocratic leaders.
In the Central African Republic, where a
Russian has been installed as the president’s national security adviser, the
government is selling mining rights for gold and diamonds at a fraction of
their worth to hire trainers and buy arms from Moscow. Russia is seeking to
ensconce itself on NATO’s southern flank by helping a former general in Libya
fight for control over his government and vast oil market.
Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir,
brought in Russian mercenaries in January to help shore up his rule against
nationwide protests. And last spring, five sub-Saharan African countries —
Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania — appealed to Moscow to help
their overtaxed militaries and security services combat the Islamic State and
Al Qaeda.
Russia, entrenched in Africa during the Cold
War’s violent East-West rivalry, largely retreated from the continent after the
collapse of the Soviet Union. But in the past two years, Moscow has rekindled
relations with Soviet-era clients like Mozambique and Angola, and forged new
ties with other countries. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will host a
summit meeting between Moscow and African countries later this year.
Expanding Moscow’s military sway on the
continent reflects Mr. Putin’s broader vision of returning Russia to its former
glory. But it also illustrates Russia’s opportunistic strategy to carve out
logistical and political gains in Africa wherever and whenever it can.
“Russia is also a growing challenge and has
taken a more militaristic approach in Africa,” Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, the
head of the Pentagon’s Africa Command, told Congress in March.
The murder of three Russian journalists by
unknown assailants in the Central African Republic, a former French colony,
last year drew attention to the Kremlin’s return to the continent.
The journalists were investigating the
activities of the Wagner Group, a private military force founded by a former
Russian intelligence officer and linked to an associate of Mr. Putin. Russia
said in a statement last year that 175 instructors — believed by Pentagon
officials and Western analysts to be employed by the Wagner Group — have
trained more than 1,000 Central African Republic troops. The country has been
mired in violence since 2012.
“Moscow and its private military contractors
are arming some of the region’s weakest governments and backing the continent’s
autocratic rulers,” said Judd Devermont, director of the Africa Program at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “This engagement
threatens to exacerbate current conflict zones.”
Late last year, the White House revamped its
economic and security policies toward Africa — including plans to increase
access to financing for projects on the continent — and administration
officials have fanned out on the continent to drum up support for the plan. In
March, in Luanda, Angola, John J. Sullivan, the deputy secretary of state,
warned that “Russia often utilizes coercive, corrupt, and covert means to
attempt to influence sovereign states, including their security and economic
partnerships.”
Under the Trump administration, the Pentagon
has shifted focus to confronting global threats, largely from China and Russia,
and away from fighting terrorist organizations. In December, John R. Bolton,
President Trump’s national security adviser, described the new strategy in
Africa as a “great power” competition and counterbalance to China and Russia.
The Kremlin, Mr. Bolton said at the time,
“continues to sell arms and energy in exchange for votes at the United Nations
— votes that keep strongmen in power, undermine peace and security and run
counter to the best interests of the African people.”
But many African nations appeared
unconvinced. Some two dozen abstained in December on a motion by the United
Nations General Assembly that condemned Russia’s annexation of Crimea and urged
Moscow to withdraw its troops from the Ukranian peninsula.
The United States military has a relatively
light footprint across Africa.
About 6,000 United States troops and 1,000
Defense Department civilians or contractors work on a variety of missions
throughout Africa, mainly training and conducting exercises with local armies.
Moscow cannot compete with American foreign aid
or China’s sweeping investment efforts on the continent. But analysts said
Russia is driven by both opportunity and necessity to advance in Africa.
Russia is seeking more strategic bases for
its troops, including at Libyan ports on the Mediterranean Sea and at naval
logistics centers in Eritrea and Sudan on the Red Sea, according to an analysis
by the Institute for the Study of War, a research organization in Washington.
Last year, Russia signed agreements on
military cooperation with Guinea, Burkina Faso, Burundi and Madagascar.
Separately, Mali’s government has sought help from Moscow to combat terrorism,
despite the thousands of French troops and United Nations peacekeepers who are
stationed in the country.
Thirteen percent of Russia’s total arms exports
in 2017 were sent to Africa, according to the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute. Russia is courting arms deals across Africa by promising
timely deliveries and flexible terms — a strategy that analysts said is most
successful when pitched at states that have few alternatives to develop defense
agreements with other partners because they have been isolated by the United
States and other countries in the West.
Nearly 80 percent of all Russian military
sales across the continent are to Algeria, a longtime customer, Pentagon
officials said. Tunisia, an ally of the United States, also has close
intelligence, counterterrorism and energy ties to Russia. And Burkina Faso took
delivery last year of Russian-made military transport helicopters and
air-launched weapons.
Egypt, a staunch American ally, is also
becoming a solid customer of Russian weaponry. Egypt signed a deal in late 2018
for $2 billion worth of Russian SU-35 fighter jets, the Moscow-based newspaper
Kommersant reported in March.
“Russia has military-technical cooperation
programs with a number of African countries, and helps them equip national
military forces with modern weaponry,” the Russian Embassy in Washington said
in a statement. “All these undertakings are carried out in keeping with the
applicable international norms and rules.”
The ties between Russia and the Central
African Republic have drawn particular attention in the West. The two countries
signed a military cooperation agreement last year, and Wagner Group mercenaries
began showing up in Central African Republic.
“Russia has bolstered its influence with
increased military cooperation including donations of arms, with which it has
gained access to markets and mineral extraction rights,” General Waldhauser
said in March in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. “With
minimal investment, Russia leverages private military contractors, such as the
Wagner Group, and in return receives political and economic influence
beneficial to them.”
The United States Treasury Department two
years ago imposed sanctions against the mercenary company, which is also known
as PMC Wagner, accusing it of recruiting and sending soldiers to fight
alongside pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of
Ukraine. Recruits from the company have also been sent to Syria, where scores,
and possibly hundreds, of them died in February 2018 during a firefight with
American forces.
Two weeks ago, the Russian deputy foreign
minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, discussed prospects for broadening cooperation with
President Faustin-Archange Touadéra of the Central African Republic. The
increased aid would include “the training of national personnel, and the
strengthening of security and stability in this friendly African country,” the
Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on its website.
The announcement drew a cool response days
later from senior French officials. “We feel very much concerned by the growing
Russian influence in a country that we know well, the Central African
Republic,” Florence Parly, France’s minister of armed forces, told reporters on
a recent visit to Washington.
Russia is also seeking new economic markets
and energy resources, in some cases rekindling relationships with countries
that were in place during the Soviet era. Russia has major oil and gas
interests in Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda and
Nigeria, according to the Pentagon.
“They are trying to seize the spoils,” Gen.
Tony Thomas, who on Friday retired as the head of the Pentagon’s Special
Operations Command, said last year at a security conference at the University
of Texas at Austin. “They are very active.”
Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from
Moscow.
