Tag Archives: Isaias Afwerki

Russia in the Red Sea (Part Two): Port Options in Eritrea

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Andrew McGregor

Eurasia Daily Monitor

Jamestown Foundation, Washington DC, November 6, 2023

As Russian military and financial resources are being ground down in Ukraine, Moscow has struggled to maintain progress in some of its wider foreign policy objectives.  Some of these are a revival of Soviet-era goals, including a greater military, political, and economic presence in Africa and the establishment of more warm-water ports along major maritime trade routes. In September, it was reported that Eritrea was keen on expanding military and economic ties with Russia, reiterating its potential openness to hosting a foreign base in the future (Adf-magazine.com, September 5). A Russian base on the Red Sea would provide a southern complement to the small Russian Mediterranean naval facilities undergoing expansion at Tartus and Latakia in Syria. It would also place Russian warships within striking distance of both sides of the Suez Canal.

(UN Cartographic Section)

Control of the southern Red Sea and its trade routes have been highly sought after historically. Located at the north end of the Gulf of Zula, Massawa has a medium-sized, deep-water port that provides a maritime outlet for Asmara. During the rule of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie (1930–1974), Massawa was frequently visited by US warships bringing supplies to the Cold War military base at Kagnew. These visits came to an end with the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution and Mengistu Haile Mariam coming to power. Mengistu was open to the establishment of a Soviet naval base at Massawa, but Eritrean separatists in the area prevented the implementation of such plans. Eritrea’s 1991 victory in its war for independence and the Soviet collapse brought a temporary halt to Russian ambitions in the Red Sea region.

Moscow considers a strong naval presence in the Red Sea as vital to its economic interests in the region. Close to 15 percent of global trade, including Russian oil, passes through this narrow sea headed to or coming from the Suez Canal (Egypt Today, June 6, 2022). In February, Sudan was ready to offer a Red Sea port to Russia in exchange for arms and other considerations. Clashes broke out in April between factions of the Sudanese military, however, and the deal was put on hold indefinitely (Sudan Tribune, February 11).

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki (Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah / Reuters)

Just south of Sudan, Eritrea’s position on the Red Sea provides Moscow with other options. Eritrea has not welcomed Wagner Group personnel on its territory, but its authoritarian dictatorship feels much closer to Russia than the West. The regime of President Isaias Afwerki, the nation’s only leader since independence in 1993, may believe that a Russian military presence on its soil could deter Western efforts at regime change. Eritrea has three primary areas of interest to Russian naval planners: the ports of Massawa and Assab and the offshore Dahlak Archipelago.

Port of Massawa

Vladimir Putin’s efforts to restore Soviet-style “greatness” to Russia has led to a recent revival of interest in Massawa and other potential naval ports on the Red Sea. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov began negotiations to establish a logistical base in Eritrea in August 2018 during Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh’s visit to Sochi (RIA Novosti, August 31, 2018). More recently, in January 2023, Lavrov relayed Moscow’s interest in the Massawa port and airport, insisting that “concrete steps” were needed to protect Russian-Eritrean cooperation from Western sanctions (Interfax, January 27; TASS, January 26). Earlier, the Eritrean ambassador to Russia, Petros Tseggai, had announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Massawa and the Russian naval port of Sevastopol (RIA Novosti, January 8).

The establishment of a Russian military presence in Eritrea is not without its difficulties. A Russian base in Massawa would place foreign military forces only 70 miles from Eritrea’s xenophobic regime in Asmara. As a result, both Eritrea and Russia might prefer setting up a base at Assab, 283 miles south of Massawa at the northern entrance of the Bab al-Mandeb strait. Assab would be attractive to the Russian side largely due to the massive improvements made to the harbor by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) between 2015 and 2019 (Madote, November 5).

Satellite photo of Assab after UAE military withdrawal, February 5, 2021(Planet Labs Inc. via AP)

Eritrea agreed to host a UAE air and naval base at Assab in 2015. Asmara allowed for this due to the increased threats coming from Houthi insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists across the Bab al-Mandeb strait in Yemen. The Emiratis dredged a new channel, built a new pier, and lengthened the airstrip to 3,500 meters. In 2019, the UAE decided to wind down its participation in the Yemen war and began stripping everything out of the port at Asmara, even dismantling barracks and hangars. By February 2021, there was little trace of the UAE’s presence other than the improved port facilities, leaving a potential opening for other foreign powers to capitalize on the port’s modernized infrastructure (Arab Weekly, February 18, 2021).

Italian colonial prison at Nakuru, Dahlak Archipelago (Shabait.com)

The Dahlak Archipelago may also be intriguing to Moscow based on its strategic location. The archipelago consists of two large and 124 smaller islands that sit 35 miles off Eritrea’s Red Sea coast. Only seven of the islands are inhabited and most are far too small to be of any military use. In 1982, US intelligence reported the presence of a Soviet naval facility at Nakuru (or Nocra), one of the archipelago’s largest islands. Other reports of foreign militaries using the archipelago have come out in more recent years. Both the Yemeni government-in-exile and Eritrean dissidents have claimed Asmara gave permission to Iran and Israel to operate military and intelligence facilities in the archipelago, though the Eritrean government has denied such allegations. An investigation of the islands in 2010 failed to find any trace of foreign troops or facilities on the larger islands of the archipelago (Gulf News, April 21, 2010). These allegations resurfaced in 2015 but suffered from a similar lack of evidence (Ahram Online, June 15, 2015). While this means the archipelago is effectively open to the development of port facilities, the Kremlin may shy away from such an expensive and intensive endeavor.

Russian efforts to gain a foothold in region have been hampered by its war against Ukraine and competition with other countries. For example, despite mutual pledges of a “no limits” partnership, Russia is competing with China for influence in the Horn of Africa and wider Red Sea region. Eritrea is growing closer to Beijing in developing numerous infrastructure projects, including improvements to the Port of Massawa (Mfa.gov.cn, May 15). China has operated a naval station in Djibouti since 2017, while France, the United States, and Japan also have military facilities in the small nation on Eritrea’s southern border (Defense.gov, November 5). The fighting in Ukraine and increased international competition for influence in Africa will likely stunt Moscow’s efforts to establish a warm-water port on the Red Sea in the near future, though that does not mean the Kremlin will give up on pursuing this goal altogether.

This article first appeared in the November 6, 2023 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor.

Russia in the Red Sea: The Search for Warm-Water Ports (Part One)

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Andrew McGregor

Eurasia Daily Monitor

September 11, 2023

In recent days, waves of Russian drones have attacked the Ukrainian port of Izmail, a major outlet for Ukraine’s grain (al-Jazeera, September 4). Such assaults on food infrastructure alarm the leadership of drought-suffering parts of Africa reliant on exports of Ukrainian grain and complicate the Kremlin’s efforts to expand Russian influence on the resource-rich continent.

Under the guidance of President Vladimir Putin, Moscow’s campaign is pitting Russian interests in the region against those of the West, a rivalry in some ways reminiscent of the Cold War competition over Africa, though the Kremlin has developed a new and less accountable approach by deploying the private Wagner network of security forces, opinion manipulators and resource development firms. The long-term success of Russian efforts in Africa will depend in large part upon the establishment of a secure Russian naval port, preferably on the African coast of the strategic Red Sea. To create such a port, Russia must address historic foreign policy failures.

When the Suez Canal opened in 1869, it created new strategic opportunities for European powers. Great Britain, with an ambitious mercantile class supported by the world’s most powerful navy, took immediate steps to establish a chain of ports through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, allowing the wealth of its rich Asian dominions to flow freely to the center of the Empire. France and Italy followed, establishing their own bases in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to facilitate access to their own colonies. Imperial Russia, a northern empire in a perpetual search for warm-water ports, was slow to see the opportunities presented by the canal, leaving it to an odd group of privately-backed Cossacks and Orthodox priests to try to establish an African colony in Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden in 1889. “New Moscow,” established on land already claimed by France, was quickly destroyed by a French naval bombardment.

Destruction of the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Hands of the Japanese, 1905

The diplomatic crisis that followed sapped Russian enthusiasm for African adventures, though Cossack missions continued to reach the Ethiopian emperor, who controlled what is now modern Eritrea, including the Red Sea ports of Massawa and Assab. By the time of the Russo-Japanese War, the significance of Russia’s failure to establish a Red Sea or Indian Ocean port was exposed when its Baltic fleet was forced to make an 18,000-mile voyage to the Sea of Japan without resort to proper coaling and repair facilities. The lesson of the exhausted fleet’s total destruction by the Japanese when it finally arrived was understood by the Soviets, who focused on the establishment of warm-water ports to support naval operations in the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia in the 1960s and 70s.

The collapse of the Soviet Union brought a temporary end to Russia’s presence overseas, but the neo-Soviet ambitions of Vladimir Putin have revived the campaign to expand Russian military and commercial influence in Africa. Key to this is the establishment of a port on the strategically important Red Sea, the two most likely hosts being Sudan and Eritrea, nations that are similarly at odds with the West.

Khartoum was engaged in talks with Moscow over the establishment of a Russian naval base on Sudanese territory up to the outbreak of clashes between rival wings of the Sudanese military in April 2023. Now, with the ongoing turmoil within the country, Moscow’s focus has shifted to Eritrea, a stable but totalitarian state accused of significant human rights violations and crimes against humanity.

Eritrea is currently ruled by 77-year-old President Isaias Afwerki, and has not had an election since achieving independence in 1993. In terms of both prosperity and civil freedoms, the country ranks near the bottom in both categories; many citizens are reliant on remittances from Eritrean expatriates to obtain basic necessities. Many of the expats have fled Eritrea to escape mandatory conscription for indefinite periods and other hardships. Even so, the regime’s agents abroad continue to try to control their lives through taxation, threats to family members and other measures.

In the early years of its independence, Eritrea enjoyed a congenial relationship with the United States. However, tensions arising from the 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia led to a rift with Washington and a shift away from democratic norms and regional cooperation in favor of xenophobic sentiments. All economic failings of the regime are attributed to the existence of UN and US sanctions, promoting anti-Americanism in a country with little access to independent news sources. Eritrea is thus viewed in Washington as a destabilizing influence in the Horn of Africa and a possible partner of both Russia and Iran. Moscow now favors removing the UN sanctions on Eritrea, but doing so will require the support of nine members of the Security Council, including all five permanent members.

Eritrea has repaid this diplomatic support by being one of only five countries to vote against the March 2022 UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, joining Syria, North Korea, China and Belarus. During a visit in January to by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, his Eritrean counterpart, Osman Saleh, blamed the war in Ukraine on America’s “reckless policy of hegemony and containment that they have pursued in the past decades”  (Ministry of Information – Eritrea, January 27).

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki

Eritrea’s relations with Russia have intensified of late; having never made a trip to Moscow since independence, Afwerki has already made two this year. A major topic of discussion has been the establishment of Russian naval facilities on Eritrea’s 700-mile Red Sea coast. The prime candidates for such facilities include the ports of Assab and Massawa.

During a July 28 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the second Russia-Africa Summit, Afwerki described Russia’s role in Ukraine as resistance to a NATO plot to rule the world: “The war declared by NATO on Russia is not only against Russia; its aim is to dominate the whole world… NATO is defunct. NATO does not exist. NATO is in intensive care… I think we need to strategize and I say Russia will have to lead this strategy. Russia will have to design a plan on facing this declared war, not only on Russia, but this is a global war. Everybody should come and join Russia in this strategy, and the sooner, the better” (Kremlin.ru, July 28).

Such enthusiasm for Russian leadership was in short supply at this year’s Russia-Africa Summit, which saw a significant drop-off in attendance by African heads of state: from the 43 who attended the first summit in 2019, only 17 did so this year. The summit came ten days after Russia announced it was pulling out of the UN-brokered deal guaranteeing the safe passage of Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea to Africa. Putin’s pledge to ship limited amounts of free grain to six friendly African nations, including Eritrea, did little to appease those states not on the list.  The contradictions between Moscow’s policy in the Black Sea and its ambitions in Africa were thus exposed in the midst of Russia’s influence offensive in Africa. To move forward with its plans in the Red Sea, Moscow will need to emphasize a Russian option to the alleged threat from the West to non-democratic states like Sudan and Eritrea.