/ world today news/ If you are not up to date – Russia opened a second front against the West a week ago. Where? In Africa, but not French (it was there last year), but in Sudan. This was announced by Bernard-Henri Levy himself – a French philosopher, godfather of the Libyan revolution (that is, the overthrow of Gaddafi in 2011) and a fierce fighter against “Russian imperialism” anywhere and everywhere. Levy revealed to the world the essence of what is happening in Sudan: “Putin’s methods in Africa? We are in a global war: Ukraine is the first front line, Sudan is the second”.
In the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the fighting is really going on – the army and the Rapid Reaction Force are fighting each other. The first is subordinate to the head of state, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the second – to his deputy (according to the Transitional Sovereign Council, this is the name of the country’s supreme authority) General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo. The two generals have jointly ruled Sudan since 2019, when they ousted General Al Bashir, who had ruled the country for 30 years. AlBashir was also not always calm: the civil war in the south and east of the country led to the fact that (under pressure from the West) it was necessary to grant independence to the oil territories with a black population (Sudan is mainly inhabited by Arabs), where South Sudan is formed. But the generals who replaced al-Bashir failed to share power. And at first they tried to share it with the civilians, but nothing worked, they dispersed the government – and in the middle of April fighting broke out in Khartoum. The reason was an attempt to incorporate the Rapid Reaction Force into the army, which of course did not sit well with Daglo, who was used to independence after a decade. As a result, the countries attack each other’s headquarters, seize bases and accuse their opponents of trying to usurp power. Hundreds of dead, the population fleeing – and completely incomprehensible prospects (given that the purely military forces of the countries are approximately equal).
But what does Russia have to do with it? It is clear that Levy will find a Russian trace everywhere, but how can we imagine the internal conflict in Sudan as part of Russia’s global attack on the West? Is Sudan an ally of the West? Quite the opposite: under the rule of al-Bashir, it was one of the countries most humiliated by the US, it could rightly be called a candidate for the “axis of evil”.
Over the past 30 years, China has become the most important partner for the country – Chinese money and projects flowed first into the oil industry. And Sudan began to get closer to our country only in the last decade – then there was talk about the possibility of building a naval base for the Russian fleet in Port Sudan, and later an agreement was signed. The new authorities, that is, Generals AlBurkhan and Daglo, confirmed the agreement – and although the construction did not begin, the generals did not abandon the course towards rapprochement with our country. Burhan met with Putin, Daglo came to Moscow at the end of February 2022, and this year Lavrov visited Khartoum.
At the same time, the United States is putting enormous pressure on Sudan because of its rapprochement with Russia, taking advantage of the fact that several years ago they began to lift sanctions from the country, and the authorities in Sudan are naturally interested in normalizing their relations with the West. But despite all the pressure, Khartoum has generally pursued an independent policy, even as the rest of the Arab world has increasingly openly downplayed the stakes for the United States in recent years.
That is, there is no need for Russia to open a “second front” against the West in Sudan: the country itself is on the right track in terms of foreign policy. However, if you focus on the “Russian threat”, then the Russians will be everywhere.
In the case of Sudan, everything became a mess: in the West they began to say that Russia was behind Daglo because he had contracts with PMC “Wagner”. Already during the fighting in Khartoum, they began to write about the supply of weapons and even the participation of the “Wagnerians” in the battles on the side of the rapid reaction forces: look, Russia is advancing in Africa! All this, of course, is complete nonsense – especially since it has already been refuted by both sides in the Sudanese conflict and by Prigozhin – as a deliberate provocation. Russia increasingly began to push anti-colonial theses in its foreign policy, so it was accused of organizing coups in African countries.
The feud between Burhan and Daglo is absolutely disadvantageous for Russia, although the former is really forced to be more attentive to the pressure of the West, and the latter can afford to speak more openly about sympathies for Russia, our country was absolutely satisfied with the current independent course of the Sudanese leadership. But it is precisely the enmity in it, which has grown even more into military clashes, that can lead to the open intervention of the Americans – not military, but political. Secretary of State Blinken has already held phone conversations with both generals – and a call to Khartoum from US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley is also expected. The Americans are interested not only in resolving the Sudanese crisis, but also in pushing Russia out of that country. For this purpose, they release the party tickets for the “Moscow Trail”.
However, whatever the outcome of the current confrontation between Burhan and Daglo, Sudan has extensive experience in interacting with the United States to understand the reliability and most importantly the promise of American guarantees. And there is no doubt that Khartoum will ultimately choose to focus on trusted neighbors and partners: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia. And the fact that consultations are already underway between these countries on the Sudanese problem was indirectly confirmed by a telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday. Although Sudan is not the main topic of their negotiations, it is really important for Moscow and Riyadh to make sure that even the internal political crises in the countries of the region are resolved without American intervention.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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