Russian mercenaries and the Sudanese conflict: the geopolitical significance of Sudan's strife

Russian private military contractor, Wagner, is believed to be supporting Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo, who is in conflict with Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, with Russia's support. While Sudan's northern neighbour, Egypt, backs al-Burham, Russia's involvement and supply of weaponry to both sides raises concerns, writes

Cyril Odukoya

SUDAN has been plunged into despair by the conflicting ambitions of two generals. Having conspired together in the military coups of 2019 (which removed the dictator, Omar al-Bashir) and 2021 (which removed the replacement transition government), now Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo have turned against one another.

Which general to back in this fight? The prevailing view of western governments is neither. That, in part, explains why western intervention has been limited to scrambling to evacuate their diplomatic staff and expats, leaving the Sudanese to fight it out amongst themselves.

American and European strategic indifference to Sudan’s fate is understandable. Neither al-Burham or Hemedti represent anything laudable. Both are implicated in the misery of Darfur, a conflict that led President Omar al-Bashir to be charged with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. There are no “good guys” — let alone “our guys” —in this war.

Yet, other powers aren’t so dispassionate. Understanding who stands where in the conflict between the warring generals is to grasp why the outcome of Sudan’s strife matters to geopolitics.

As Sudan’s northern neighbour, it is natural that Egypt has an interest in who wields power further up the Nile. Cairo backs the general-incumbent, al-Burham. But what is really worrying analysts is Russia’s involvement.

In theory, Moscow can’t lose: both sides are tooled-up with Russian kit.

Indeed, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute calculates that 87 per cent of Sudan’s armed forces’ weaponry comes from Russia. Additionally, credible reports — denied in Russia — suggest that Hemedti’s army, the so-called Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has been supplied via the Wagner Group with surface-toair missiles and that it is Hemedti that Moscow is backing.

Can the Russian private army contractors, Wagner, possibly be active in as many places around the world as is claimed? It may seem like analysts who fear its spreading tentacles are inadvertently doing backhanded PR favours to it and its chief, Yevgeny

Prigozhin. For his part, Progozhin denies his group’s involvement in the Sudanese conflict, maintaining that reports to the contrary “are nothing more than an attempt at provocation” and that his mercenaries have not been active there for a couple of years (in 2017, they helped Omar al-Bashir put down his opponents).

But, alongside its combat roles in Syria and Ukraine, Wagner has successfully embedded itself in resource rich African countries. In Sudan’s case, that resource is gold. Sudan is Africa’s third largest gold producer and Russia needs it to prevent the depletion of its sanction-constrained reserves so that it can stay financially secure whilst prosecuting its war in

Ukraine.

Wagner’s regime-support for al-Bashir in 2017 provided companies linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin with the reward of Sudanese gold mining and smelting rights. The main entity is Meroe Gold Limited (whose parent company is Progozhin’s M Invest) which smelts gold at al-Ibaidiya, northeast of Khartoum. As an investigation by Le Monde and Organized Crime and Corruption (OCCRP) helped uncover, the Sudanese government granted Meroe unusually generous terms, waiving what would legally have been the Ministry of Minerals’ mandatory 30 per cent share in the company.

Taking a cut of the resources in return for no-holds-barred and no-questionsasked muscle for corrupt African regimes is a lucrative business strategy for Wagner. Its mercenaries answer the security needs of West African governments like Mali that lost confidence in France’s protection (the feelings in the Quai d’Orsay, ultimately, were mutual). In Sudan, gold production has benefited greatly from the Russian concession (even if Sudan’s own coffers has not seen the full benefit). Unnamed Central Bank officials in Khartoum quoted by the Wall Street Journal estimate that around 70 per cent of Sudan’s gold ends up in Russia.

How does it get there? Officials on the ground and flight tracking show numerous planes (at least sixteen between January 2021 and July 2022 according to CNN) allegedly carrying smuggled gold between Sudan and Russia. There have been repeated flights between Port Sudan and the Russian airbase in Latakia, Syria — from where it can then travel on into the Russian Federation.

There have been efforts to disrupt this loot route. Only weeks before General Hemedti’s RSF turned its guns on the national armed forces, arrests of Russian nationals on gold smuggling charges had been made — a doubtless disquieting development for those with a self-interest in keeping the Russian relationship sweet.

But airfreighting gold to Russia via Syria is not the only supply line open to Moscow. Gold is also believed to be smuggled overland across Sudan’s border to the Central African Republic where Faustin-Archange Touadera's government is protected by about a thousand Wagner mercenaries.

There is also the Wagner protection across Sudan’s north-western border where it is supporting Khalifa Haftar, a Libyan warlord who the US Department of Defence suspected in 2020 was backed by the United Arab Emirates. Only days before the fighting in Sudan began, Wagner supplied Hafter with more arms. Hafter — like the officially neutral UAE — is perceived to favour Hemedti’s RSF which has operated from bases in Libya’s and the Central Afrcian Republic’s neighbour, Chad.

In Washington there is mounting exasperation about the extent of the UAE’s friendly attitude towards Moscow (the UAE refused US entreaties to condemn Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in the UN Security Council and backed OPEC’s decision not to ameliorate rising oil productions by boosting production; highlevel meetings between Abu Dhabi and Moscow have continued unabashed and unabated and the three UAE-registered aviation companies have been hit with US sanctions for allegedly transporting arms to Russian and Wagner entities).

Certainly, the war in Ukraine has not greatly hindered Dubai’s economy which has become a place of financial asylum for Russians with money and assets from where they can more easily re-register their trading operations. It should not be a surprise that so much of the Russian oil sold to Indian refineries is priced in Emirati Dirhams. As an important regional gold market, Dubai is perfectly placed to be exploited as a Mali and Sudanese gold laundromat, turning bars into dollars. If Russian reserves do not seem as depleted by sanctions as the Ukraine’s allies would wish, then the role played by North African mined gold in finding ways to Moscow’s coffers provides at least a part of the answer.

Why might Russia have an interest in disturbing a situation that has been so helpful to it? The falling out between the two generals may not have been its doing, but it nevertheless has to adapt to the consequences. General Hemedti was in Moscow, furthering Sudanese relations, on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and whether or not Putin and Prigozhin really have anything to fear about General alBurham cutting Russia off from Sudanese gold reserves they appear to regard Hemedti as the better bet.

Whoever, ultimately, occupies the presidential compound in Khartoum, one of the decisions to be made concerns the agreement to provide Russia with a 25-year (and renewable thereafter) lease on a naval base at Port Sudan. The port is already the subject of a recently agreed multibillion UAE investment plan and offers huge economic and strategic advantage for shipping out the resources not just of Sudan but the landlocked countries beyond, including the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

The deal — which requires signoff by Sudan’s currently non-existent legislative assembly — permits Russia to fortify the base with 300 Russian soldiers and dock four warships at any one time, giving Moscow a port on the Red Sea. It is a prize Putin will want to secure once the battle of the generals ends with one of them still standing.