Overview
Russia is moving closer to establishing a naval base in the Red Sea, a capability that would enable Russian force projection into strategic waters with access to the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. Reports indicate that Sudan’s military government, in exchange for support, has offered the Kremlin a 25-year naval base deal in Port Sudan. This could enable Russia’s strategic goals in Africa, which include challenging US influence and boosting military sales and commercial interests across the continent and into the Middle East. Moscow seeks to benefit from the perceived retreat of the US and Europe from Africa while challenging China’s growing interests. For Western businesses, a concentration of geopolitical rivalries in North Africa, the Sahel and Red Sea risks increased regional insecurity and operational hazards, politicization of trade and anti-Western policies.
Russian Foreign Policy Interests in Africa
While Russia’s interest in Africa is not new, it is expanding. During the Cold War, Africa was at the heart of the secret war between pro-communist forces and the West. With the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a strategic withdrawal as Moscow focused inwardly. Now, under President Putin, Africa has reemerged as a zone of peripheral interest for Russia.
Moscow has sought to reassert influence as an alternative to Western liberal democracies. As a champion of the new “polycentric world,” Russia is engaged in disseminating anti-Western propaganda, leveraging local elites who seek external sponsorship without democratic strings attached and exploiting African grievances against former colonial powers. Pushing back against Western efforts to isolate Moscow after invading Ukraine, Russia is expanding its paramilitary footprint, engaging in aggressive diplomacy and securing lucrative agreements in the extractive sector, particularly in North Africa and the Sahel, which finance Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Russia has proven particularly adept at leveraging influence through arms deals and defense cooperation. Between 2018 and 2022, Russia was the continent’s top arms supplier (40% of imports of major arms per SIPRI). Of states in sub-Saharan Africa, Angola, Nigeria and Mali were the largest importers, with Russia overtaking China during that same period as the main supplier for these countries. After the coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021, France and the US began limiting defense supplies, and Russia filled the vacuum. As of 2023, Russia had signed military cooperation agreements with 43 African countries.
As part of expanding military engagement, Russia deployed Wagner mercenary forces to bolster pro-Russian regimes, such as the military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Moscow offered unconditional security assistance, insulating military elites from domestic opposition and international pressure, while advancing Russia’s own interests: resource extraction, political influence, and great power posturing. As payment for services, Wagner forces received sweetheart deals to exploit national resources, including gold, diamonds and timber, the proceeds from which were cycled back to the Kremlin. Extractive rents are core to Russia’s transactional interests; some estimates predict that the Kremlin has funneled at least $2.5 billion worth of African gold since 2022 to fund its warfare in Ukraine.
While some analysts see the demise of the Wagner Group as a blow to Moscow’s Africa strategy, in practice it has allowed the Kremlin to deploy its retrofitted Africa Corps, which, unlike the Wagner forces, is fully under the command and control of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (GRU). The Africa Corps is present in the Central African Republic (CAR), Burkina Faso, Libya, Mali and Niger.
Port Sudan Deal: Why Now?
Moscow and Khartoum have been in talks since 2017 on the creation of a logistics support facility for the Russian navy. In 2020, the two countries reached an agreement that included the establishment of a logistics center and repair yard that would host up to 300 naval service and civilian personnel, and accommodate up to four naval vessels, including nuclear-powered ones. Khartoum reportedly leased the land to Russia at that time, under a 25-year contract with an option for decade-long extensions.
The 2020 agreement, although signed, was not executed due to changes in regional and international conditions, including Russia’s decision to back the anti-Khartoum Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the (ongoing) Sudanese civil war. In 2024, Russia switched sides (again) and threw its weight behind the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and Transitional Sovereignty Council after it made significant gains.
The renewal of the port deal now by the SAF (which has regained control over the capital) appears to be an effort to anchor Kremlin support for the SAF while the RSF is stalled in Darfur. From Moscow’s perspective, the port deal has gained higher priority because of its expanding presence on the continent, the need for a more permanent logistics base to support arms transfers and Russia’s Africa Corps, and to securely export commodities. Additionally, Russia has effectively lost the ability to operate out of its only other naval port in the area, located in Syria on the Mediterranean, with the overthrow of the Assad regime in 2024. The new port agreement appears to be mostly the same in scope, with an added mining concession for gold for the Kremlin and a Russian air defense system for the SAF.
Implications for International Security and Trade
The logistics center, if constructed according to the 2020 agreement, will have significant strategic implications for Russia’s geopolitical rivals and for multinationals operating in Africa—both due to the strategic location of the port and what it means for great power competition on the continent. The logistics center will be located near the Sudanese Navy’s main base at Flamingo Bay and just north of Port Sudan, the country’s main coastal port on the Red Sea. This is a strategic location, along major shipping routes in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Port Sudan is the gateway to the Suez Canal, linking the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. From Port Sudan, Moscow would have significant oversight of and potential control over international shipping, including monitoring and interdicting transiting vessels. A naval base on the Red Sea would also enable the Russian navy to conduct operations further afield for longer periods of time and could become a key asset for joint naval operations with China throughout the region.
In the case of increased tensions with the US and NATO member states, Russia could engage in hybrid war tactics in the Red Sea to create a denied area, such as disrupting Europe-bound international shipping. Approximately 14% of global maritime trade and 30% of global containerized trade transits through the Red Sea. Commercial shipping is sensitive to risks of asymmetrical warfare. It has been nearly two years since Red Sea traffic was first disrupted by attacks from Yemeni rebels against vessels transiting the Bab el-Mandeb, and despite a halt to the attacks, transit volumes through the Suez Canal are still trailing historic norms, with major shipping companies continuing to divert traffic away from the route because of higher risk premiums. Carriers have been disinclined to resume normal transits and perform extensive reworking of their networks, including transshipment points, only to have to re-divert if shipping were to come under renewed attack.
The prospective construction of the port also signals the heightened challenges that will come with increased geostrategic competition in Africa, which risks politicizing trade with the West. With great power rivalry increasing on the continent, African countries are either pushed into a delicate balancing act or forced to choose sides. Africa is taking the brunt of US development and humanitarian aid cuts, and the Kremlin is exploiting the situation, spreading anti-Western propaganda and building relationships with African capitals. In some cases, like in mineral-rich Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, Russia’s security assistance has empowered military juntas into power, which subsequently nationalized their extractive industries. In Mali, for example, Russian firms have enjoyed sweetheart deals for extraction, while Western multinationals have faced steep—even exploitative—fees.
More broadly, Moscow and Beijing have an interest in promoting alternative trading terms with the Global South, outside the US-controlled international financial system. Both Moscow and Beijing are pushing the expansion of BRICS into Africa, with Egypt and Ethiopia joining as full members and Kenya and Zimbabwe expressing interest. Algeria, Nigeria and Uganda were granted partner country status as of January 2025. As competition for non-Western markets builds and the global economic system becomes increasingly fractured, Western businesses risk being disadvantaged by non-tariff trade barriers such as requirements to transact in currencies other than the US dollar or to use Russian or Chinese-controlled financial clearing houses.
In sum, the Port of Sudan deal is not just about a port: it is a calculated investment by Russia to project influence, extract rents to fund its wars, increase demand for its overheated defense industry, and strengthen alternative geoeconomic institutions. Moreover, leadership in Africa reaffirms Russia’s familiar great power patterns when it led the Communist world, and therefore is a component of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s legacy.
