[ad_1]
President Vladimir Putin issued a decree authorizing the Russian Defense Ministry to sign an agreement with Sudan to create a permanent Russian military base, or “naval supply station” (punktno-tekhnicheskogo snabzenya material). The location of the new naval facility will be close to Sudan’s main commercial port, Port Sudan, where several patrol boats that make up the Sudan Navy are also based. The basic agreement will have a duration of 25 years, with a possible extension for another decade, by mutual agreement. The Russian naval garrison will be about 300 strong, with armed guards to provide security. All Russian personnel stationed locally will enjoy full foreign diplomatic immunity. The base will be able to dock up to four warships, “including nuclear powered ships.” Russia will not pay rent to the Sudanese authorities, but has apparently agreed to send pro bono some military supplies and weapons to Sudan under a separate additional agreement. Moscow will organize and pay for the construction work to establish the base, including the housing, warehouses, naval maintenance facilities and docks. In addition, Russia will provide anti-aircraft defenses to cover both its own base and nearby Sudanese naval assets in Port Sudan. The draft agreement does not mention any Russian air bases in Sudan other than the announced naval supply station, but Russian planes will apparently be able to use Sudanese airspace. A large international airport is located south of Port Sudan, and Moscow could be allowed to use it. The number of Russian military personnel in Sudan may rise above the initial 300, according to the draft agreement (Interfax, November 16).
During the Cold War, the Russian army and navy were present in South Yemen, at the entrance to the Red Sea, when this former British colony was ruled by a Marxist regime. Furthermore, Russian troops under the guise of military advisers were deployed in Ethiopia when that country had a Marxist regime. The Russian army in Ethiopia was involved in fighting anti-government rebels, mainly Tigrayans, and insurgents seeking independence in Eritrea. The ships of the Russian navy were deployed on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea (then part of Ethiopia) and participated in the fight against the rebels. By 1991, when the Cold War and the Soviet Union were coming to an end, the Ethiopian regime collapsed, Eritrea gained independence, and the Russians withdrew from the region. Russia had withdrawn from South Yemen before, when that country was plunged into a bloody civil war. Now Moscow is back, establishing a military foothold in a region it considers strategically important (Novaya Gazeta, November 19).
In recent years, Moscow has spread its influence across Africa; but the base in Sudan is naval, so it is more about projecting force beyond the continent towards the maritime shipping lanes of the Red Sea that connect Asia and Europe, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf and the Ocean. Indian. The United States maintains a strategically important base on the British Overseas Territory of Diego Garcia Island (Indian Ocean). And the 5th US Fleet is based in Manama, Bahrain. The headquarters of the United States Central Command (USCC) and the United States Air Force Central Command (USAFCC) are located at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. US carrier strike groups enter and exit the Suez Canal and traverse the Red Sea from bases on the east coast of the United States to the Gulf region and vice versa. Sometimes, American ships launch cruise missiles and airstrikes on Middle Eastern targets directly from the Red Sea, which until now has been considered relatively safe. According to Russian military experts, the new base in Sudan will be a welcome extension to existing Russian naval and air bases in Syria that have now been expanded to house “dozens of warships, [and] provide maintenance and supplies along with air support, ”according to Russia’s defense minister, Army General Sergei Shoigu (Interfax, November 17).
The draft agreement with Sudan mentions the possible presence of nuclear-powered warships, but the only Russian surface nuclear power ship at present is the Pyotr velikiy (Kirov class), which, apparently, is not fully operational. The ship has not recently deployed out of the Barents Sea while waiting for its sister nuclear cruise ship, the Admiral Nakhimov, to finish a long and expensive reform (remont) in Severodvinsk. After the Nakhimov ends his remont and is operational, Pyotr velikiy apparently programmed to take his place to undergo a remont in turn. The plan to start building (before the end of 2020) Lider-class nuclear-powered super-destroyers of up to 20,000 tons of displacement, armed as heavily as Kirov-class cruisers, but sleeker and stealthier, has been shelved indefinitely due to to lack. money, low oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic. There does not appear to be any Russian nuclear-powered ships available to be based in Sudan anytime soon (Novaya Gazeta, November 19).
Russia has not built any destroyers since the early 1990s, when several Sovremenny-class ships were exported to China. As such, the Russian navy has no operational destroyers today. Furthermore, Russia has struggled to equip new frigates with engines that, before 2014, were produced in Ukraine, now a hostile country. Russia has been expanding its naval forces by building different types of corvettes and small missile ships. Many of these ships are equipped with 3С-14 universal vertical launch tubes, allowing them to fire different nuclear-capable Kalibr anti-ship or long-range cruise missiles (see EDM, May 4, 2017, August 1, 2017, July 29, 2020). With a nuclear-tipped missile, a Russian corvette alone could potentially destroy a group of American carriers, Diego Garcia, or any other strategically important target. Russian admirals are forced to use these small ships as a strategic asset, but in reality, these small ships have limited navigability, weak air defenses, and carry a limited supply of long-range missiles. To pose a credible strategic threat in the Indian Ocean, this Russian mosquito fleet absolutely needs a base in the region to resupply and rearm. Therefore, it is possible that the clause on nuclear-powered ships in the draft base agreement is actually a cover story to allow Russia to covertly deploy nuclear weapons at the Sudanese base to place them aboard corvettes in times of crisis (Novaya Gazeta, November 19).
