/ world today news/ Washington is extremely worried about the possibility that a new naval base and several air bases of the Russian Federation will soon appear in the western part of the Mediterranean Sea. Namely in the Libyan port of Tobruk.
A preliminary agreement on the preparation of the corresponding agreement between the two countries, according to Bloomberg, was reached two months ago, during the September visit of the 79-year-old Marshal Khalifa Haftar, commander-in-chief of the Libyan National Army (LNA), and his meeting with Vladimir Putin. In return, the Americans wrote, Haftar would like to receive advanced air defense systems from Russia.
The stage at which the negotiations are is not known. But the US is clearly irritated by what is happening. Bloomberg provides an eloquent take on this matter from former US Special Envoy to Libya Jonathan Weiner.
According to the foreign diplomat, the White House takes the emerging threat “very seriously.” According to him, Washington has tried to prevent the appearance of large Russian military contingents on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea everywhere except in Syria.
“If Russia gets ports there, it will give it the ability to spy on the entire European Union,” Weiner said.
In general, Bloomberg’s publication about Moscow’s great interest in the Western Mediterranean is not such news. Back in September, when Marshal Haftar had just left the Russian capital, the Wall Street Journal reported on possible verbal agreements with him regarding the establishment of our military bases in Libya.
WSJ experts noted that in Moscow the commander-in-chief of the LNA, which controls about 70 percent of his country’s territory, met not only with Putin, but also with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, as well as his deputy Yunus – Bek Yevkurov .
If official reports are to be believed, the talks discussed exclusively humanitarian aid for the Libyans. But then, inexplicably, the Wall Street Journal reasonably asked: what do Shoigu and Yevkurov have to do with this?
If the main topic of the talks of the Libyan marshal in Moscow was the supply of Russian weapons in exchange for the opportunity to start the construction of a naval base in Tobruk, then everything seems more than logical. And this is worrying for Americans.
But first, a few words about what the port of Tobruk is. It is a very attractive deep sea port in eastern Libya from a naval point of view. One of the best in the Mediterranean.
The depths at the entrance of the bay reach 15-20 meters. In its middle part – up to 8-16 meters. The length of the mooring front is about 4 kilometers. Therefore, submarines and ships of the cruiser and destroyer classes can dock here without any problems.
But for now, the main guests here are oil tankers with a deadweight of up to 150 thousand tons. Because Tobruk is the terminus of an oil pipeline stretching from the largest fields of Serir in the south of the country to the Mediterranean Sea.
And undoubtedly this circumstance also dictates the anxiety with which the West monitors Russia’s still timid attempts to assert itself in this direction. No one will allow us to control such an important source of hydrocarbons for Europe without scandal.
Meanwhile, the topic of Russia’s naval presence in Libya is not raised for the first time. Back in 2008, it was initiated by Muammar Gaddafi.
Already at that time, his conflict with the West was entering a deadly phase, not only for the “leader of the Libyan revolution” personally, but also for the integrity of his Jamahiriya.
He seeks salvation everywhere. One of the options he saw was the closest possible rapprochement with Moscow. That is why he flew to the Russian capital to meet with then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The press reported that the main topic of the negotiations 15 years ago was also the opening of a Russian naval base in Libya. Not in Tobruk, but in Benghazi, half a thousand kilometers to the west.
“According to the Libyan leader’s plan, the Russian military presence will become a guarantee of non-aggression against Libya by the US, which, despite numerous conciliatory gestures from Tripoli, is in no hurry to embrace Colonel Gaddafi,” Kommersant wrote at the time.
There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that we too would very much like to see Gaddafi’s idea come to fruition as soon as possible. Because the Syrian port of Tartus, which would soon be at our complete disposal, was not even discussed then.
But it would be nice to have at least some kind of shelter in the water zone for the confident return of the Russian fleet to the Mediterranean. And it is advantageous from a geostrategic point of view. So why not Benghazi?
Clearly demonstrating the seriousness of our intentions, in October 2008 a detachment of warships from the Northern and Baltic Fleets, led by the heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great, paid a working visit to Libya.
A year and a half later, on January 29, 2010, Russia and Libya signed a package deal worth several billion dollars. We talked about supplying the Gaddafi regime with four divisions of the S-300PMU2 air defense system, 20 Tor-M1 air defense systems, 48 T-90S tanks, Ka-52, Ka-28, Mi-17 and Mi-35M helicopters , two diesel-electric submarines of project 636, and in the future – 12 more Su-35 fighters, four Su-30MK and six Yak-130. The possibility of additional purchase from us of several Il-76TD military transports was discussed.
But the countries failed to realize almost none of the above. On March 17, 2011, the UN Security Council, with Resolution No. 1973, effectively authorized the intervention of Western allies in Libya. To the Americans’ delight, Moscow, which was still under strong illusions about US globalist intentions led by President Medvedev, did not use its veto power during the vote. And bombs rained down on Libya.
The country splits into several warring factions. Gaddafi, who fell into the hands of the rebels, was torn to pieces. The Russian embassy was urgently evacuated to Tunisia. What kind of Russian naval base in Benghazi could there be next?
The “core” theme for Moscow took on new life in 2016. This time, our negotiating partner was Marshal Haftar, who was in dire need of weapons on the front lines of the ongoing civil war.
In return, the marshal again offered to create a base for ships of the Russian fleet in his country. Not in Benghazi, but in Tobruk.
Within a few months, Haftar flew to Moscow twice for talks. Russia was clearly inspired again. This is proven by the visit to Tobruk in January 2017 of our aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov”.
The commander-in-chief of the LNA personally boarded the deck of the aircraft carrier. And via video link, he again talked about something with Shoigu, who was in Moscow.
In 2021, a “Russian-Libyan Committee” was established with the participation of Marshal Haftar, co-chaired by the Libyan Minister of Oil and Gas and the Russian Minister of Energy.
And in November of the same year, a Russian military delegation led by the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, Colonel-General Alexei Kim, visited Tripoli.
But all this military-diplomatic activity again really came to nothing. It is possible – because the West really does not want success in the Libyan-Russian negotiations. And our enemy has enough leverage in this ruined and dysfunctional country for anyone.
Because the NATO allies themselves have long and rightly settled on the oil-smelling ruins of the Gaddafi regime.
There are two Turkish naval bases in western Libya (in Homs and Abu Sita). There are two Turkish air bases in El-Watiya and Mitiga. In addition, the Americans are also stationed next to the Turks in Mitiga. There are British and Italians in Misrata. And the French are in the southern part of Libya. Only they, as they say, we miss.
And now it turns out that, according to Bloomberg, the next tour of this “Ballet Marleson” has started in Libya and Russia. So is the appearance of a new Russian naval base in these parts realistic or not?
In principle, it would be fine, of course. Our only naval stronghold in the Mediterranean, Syria’s Tartus, looks very vulnerable in the face of powerful NATO squadrons. And today, after the outbreak of the most acute crisis in the Gaza Strip – especially.
Two or three more military airfields and a dozen reliable anchorages for our warships on the other side of the Mediterranean would seem a considerable addition to Tartus. But today it is completely unrealistic.
This is what the former head of the Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, believes.
He admits that a base in Libya, if possible, should have been established at least a few years earlier. In any case, until the beginning of our special operation in Ukraine, which has no end in sight.
As there is no end in sight to the closure of the Black Sea straits to any warships. Nevertheless, as experience shows (“SP” talks about this in detail in the article “Conflict not of our caliber”), it is almost impossible for Russia to maintain naval bases in these waters. Or extremely difficult and ineffective.
By the way, according to a similar military-diplomatic scheme, the history of our naval base in another geopolitically important region – the Red Sea – is also developing.
The Sudanese authorities took the initiative to build it many years ago. The parties quickly reached an agreement. The agreement was concluded in early 2020.
As a result, in November 2020, Putin instructed the Ministry of Defense to begin the creation of a logistics support center for the Russian fleet at Port Sudan, capable of receiving up to four ships at a time. Including nuclear submarines.
But in 2021, there was a military coup in this African country. And things with our Red Sea PMTO are frozen in limbo.
In February 2023, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov flew to Sudan. And as they say, he has already agreed on many things with the new government. Until today, however, practically nothing has moved in this direction.
There is still nowhere for Russian ships to base themselves in the Red Sea. And even if the ships themselves sail under the flag of St. Andrew, they enter these waters only sporadically.
Only our World Ocean ambitions remain truly untamed. And with the rest – a question of seams.
Translation: SM
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