Russia announces plans for naval base in Sudan

Site on Red Sea coast would give Moscow foothold over one of region's most strategic waterways

Officers of the Russian naval army march past a small anti-submarine ship at a Navy base in the town of Kronstadt outside St Petersburg on April 26, 2014. AFP

Russia says it has reached a deal with the Sudanese government to build a naval base just north of Sudan’s main commercial port on the Red Sea.

The deal gives Moscow a foothold on the coastline of a waterway rapidly growing in strategic significance.

Tuesday's announcement on Russia’s portal for government documents adds it to a growing list of nations that have successfully negotiated for naval bases along the Red Sea’s coastline.

The competition there comes as civil war rages in Yemen and Iranian presence in the area has brought attention to the security of vital shipping lanes and stability around the Horn of Africa.

There has been no official word on the deal with Russia from Sudan, where a transitional government has been in charge since August 2019, after the removal four months earlier of longtime dictator Omar Al Bashir.

Sudan's military has been conducting its dealings with other countries in secrecy.

Last month, an Israeli delegation visited Sudan to inspect military production facilities owned and run by the armed forces. The visit took place amid a total news blackout.

In February, Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, Sudan’s de facto head of state, met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Uganda without informing the civilian prime minister or his Cabinet.

Sudan and Israel normalised relations in October, ending decades of animosity.

Khartoum is looking to the US to help it rebuild ties in the international community.

Sudan is under pressure to secure much-needed assistance from donor nations and international financial agencies to overcome economic woes after decades as a pariah state because of its links to militant groups.

“It is a battle of wills in the Red Sea,” said Sudanese analyst Al Rasheed Ibrahim.

“Sudan cannot isolate itself from alliances and the balances of power. Looking east [Russia and China] could help bring progress to our case with America.”

The US lifted economic and trade sanctions on Sudan in 2017 after more than two decades, but continued to classify the country as a state sponsor of terrorism.

That was in part because of its suppression of a rebellion in Darfur in the 2000s and its links to militant groups.

In October, President Donald Trump announced his decision to remove Sudan from the terrorism list and later sent the decision to Congress for approval.

“Sudan was under siege by America and the West,” Sudanese Chief of Staff Gen Mohammed Al Hussein said recently, when asked about the deal with Russia.

“Throughout those years, Russia and other eastern nations supplied us with arms."

A Russian naval base in Sudan would be Moscow’s second beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union.

Russia in 2017 signed a 49-year lease with Syria for a base in the northern port city of Tartous on the Mediterranean.

The two deals reflect the Kremlin’s increasingly assertive foreign policy under President Vladimir Putin, whose government is subjected to US and EU sanctions over the annexation of the Crimea.

Russia said the base in Sudan would “help strengthen peace and stability in the region” and would not be directed at a third party.

It said the deal was valid for 25 years, renewable for 10-year periods unless one of the two countries objected.

The facility will host as many as four vessels, including nuclear-powered ships, and be home to a maximum of 300 personnel at any given time.

It will provide supplies and routine maintenance to docked vessels.

In return for the dock, which will be north of Port Sudan, Russia will provide Sudan with weapons and military equipment including, according to Sudanese analysts, an air defence system covering the coastal region and the Russian base.

No date has been given for the start of construction.

Ameen Majzoub, a retired Sudanese army general who is now a political analyst, said the deal on the Russian base began with an agreement signed in 2017 by Al Bashir and Mr Putin, possibly to secure Moscow’s good will when Sudan was under crippling US sanctions.

News of the Russian base has divided the Sudanese and could deepen the widening gap between the military and civilian partners of the country’s transitional administration.

“The Russian base poses a danger to the entire region,” said Sheikh El Deen Shado, a professor of international relations at Khartoum University.

“It is something that should have been left for an elected government to decide on.”

Sudan is due to have its first free elections in more than three decades in 2022.