What Russia’s Proposed Red Sea Naval Station Could Mean for the Sudan War

Earlier this summer it was reported that Sudan’s de facto military government would be reviving an agreement with the Russian Federation, to build a Russian naval logistics station in Port Sudan, on the Red Sea coast.

In exchange, the embattled Sudanese government (SAF) are to receive “unrestricted qualitative military aid”, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has said. 

According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russia’s aspiration of building a Red Sea naval base has been clear since 2007.

The formal agreement dates back to 2017, when the Kremlin struck a deal with the ousted Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir to build a naval base capable of accommodating four vessels and up to 300 Russian servicemen. 

There is still a great deal of uncertainty around both the nature of the proposed naval installation, and the extent of the military support the SAF will receive in exchange. Some have speculated that the military aid will likely consist of weapons, ammunition, diesel fuel, and parts for the SAF’s fleet of Soviet-era warplanes.

In April, Reuters reported that Russia had already begun shipping diesel to Sudan from Primorsk.

But what’s remarkable about this development – whether it has an impact on the conflict itself or not – is that it seems to represent a diametric shift in the Kremlin’s involvement in Sudan.

Before the demise of Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russia was supporting the SAF’s mortal foe the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), using PMC Wagner as a proxy.

Russia’s original motive for doing so is thought to be that the RSF had taken control over many of Sudan’s gold mines, at a time when the Kremlin badly needed gold to evade western sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

Gold has the advantage of being a universally traded commodity that exists within the global financial system and isn’t so vulnerable to fluctuations caused by sanctions. 

Some commentators have theorised that Russia’s change of allegiance is merely an example of the Kremlin playing both sides for short-term material gain. Others hypothesise that the Kremlin’s switching of its allegiance to the SAF represents decisive long-term regional strategy reset; a “re-evaluation period as the Kremlin balances state policy aims against Wagner’s previously more narrow business aims”, as Liam Carr wrote in an ISW report in May.

Both the SAF and RSF have access to Sudan’s gold supplies, but only the SAF (at present) can give the Kremlin a foothold on the Red Sea.

In May, Yasir al-Atta, the Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the SAF announced that a delegation of Sudanese officials would travel to Moscow to “discuss economic cooperation, including mining and agricultural projects”.

It’s also plausible that the Kremlin has decided that an alliance with the RSF is neither prudent nor viable in the long term. The RSF is a fanatical paramilitary group whose main motives are profit and genocide. It’s not clear how such a group could form a coherent government in the event that they prevail over the SAF.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that Russian military aid will turn the tide in the SAF’s favour: it may only serve to protract an extremely bloody war.

“While the impact of Russian assistance depends on the content and scope of the support package itself, it is unlikely to have any transformative effect on the conflict,” research fellow Michael Jones of the Royal United Services Institute told Byline Times. 

“Even if a substantial influx of weaponry and materiel facilitated local breakthroughs across Khartoum or along axes further south, a decisive military victory remains doubtful. […] Russian support would likely simply prolong the conflict; disincentivising the generals from entertaining peace-talks while doing little to substantively redress the overall balance of forces.”

Meanwhile, the wider geopolitical picture is complex, and Russia stands to gain a significant strategic advantage from having a naval operations centre on the Red Sea.

According to Dr Sidharth Kaushal, RUSI’s Senior Research Fellow in Sea Power, a Russian presence in the Red Sea would “bolster the perception of Russian naval power (even a handful of vessels in the region allows it to resemble a globally operational military force), but also raise the costs of interdicting grey/quasi-legal shipping (eg, Russian shipping that violates international sanctions or contravenes environmental safety standards etc).”

That said, it’s still an open question as to whether the Russian naval station will even be built.

Since 2017, the plans to construct a Russian naval station in Port Sudan have been repeatedly shelved and revised.

When Sudan’s ambassador Mohamed Siraj was interviewed recently on Russian state-media, he seemed to downplay the scale of the base envisaged in the agreement, calling it a “logistics support point”.

While he stressed that Sudan was committed to keeping its end of the bargain, he then added that “the only problem is completing some procedural issues”. Siraj did not elaborate. 

But equally, Jones emphasised, “there are a few indications it may be different this time around. […] Senior SAF figures shelved past agreements in part because they risked infringing on support from international donors and key partners like Egypt.”

He added: “With Cairo’s support diminishing in recent months, and foreign direct investment, development funding, and financial assistance from the West off the table after the 2021 coup, there is less cost associated with engaging Russia.

“So although it’s still far from clear whether the base will go ahead given serious logistical and political challenges, there’s a possibility the SAF’s urgent need for equipment and ammunition may make them more receptive to delivering.”

Only time will tell whether Russia’s support for the SAF will endure, but the Kremlin’s will is opportunistic, and changeable.

Given how quickly Russian support materialised, it’s still possible that the Kremlin may reverse their position, depending on how the conflict and the geopolitical atmosphere around it evolves.

“Should the military situation tilt heavily in favour of the RSF, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Russian engagement gravitate in kind – Moscow is ultimately looking to maximise (and preserve) its investments in the region, and as such subscribes to a fundamentally utilitarian logic,” Jones said.