SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: Globe and Mail - In Sudan, Russia’s influence is growing

19/4/2022: Globe and Mail - In Sudan, Russia’s influence is growing, by Robert Rotberg

Robert Rotberg, the founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s program on intrastate conflict, argues that attempts from western diplomats to prevent Russia’s “encroachment” upon important global shipping lanes – “especially in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine” - are contingent upon the personal ambitions and enrichment plans of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Himedti, the Rapid Support Forces commander-in-chief and vice-president of Sudan’s military-led ruling Sovereign Council.

Rotberg notes that Himedti affirmed openness to Russian plans to build a naval base in Port Sudan on the Red Sea – “one of the globe’s most active shipping corridors [which] would give Russia agency for the first time below the southern entrance to the Suez Canal and halfway to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean”.