Russia and Sudan have agreed on the implementation of the project of the Russian naval base on the Red Sea The authorities of the Republic of Sudan have completed the revision of the agreement on the construction of a Russian naval base on the territory of the country in Port Sudan, located on the western coast of the Red Sea.
This is reported by the Associated Press. "Newspaper.Ru" understood the details of the document.
The Russian-Sudanese agreement on the establishment of a logistics point for the Russian Navy in Port Sudan was signed in December 2020.
During the implementation of this project, the logistics service point (PMTO) will be able to simultaneously receive up to four Russian ships, including those with a nuclear power plant. Up to 300 Russian military personnel will be able to serve at the facility.
In addition, it was allowed to import and export weapons, ammunition and any equipment that is needed for the operation of the base and "performing tasks by warships" through the country's seaports and airports. No fees or other charges will be charged for this. In addition, it was planned to deploy air defense and electronic warfare equipment in Port Sudan.
The agreement between Moscow and Khartoum was supposed to be valid for 25 years and automatically extended for another ten if neither party notifies the other of its plans to stop its operation a year before the expiration of the next period.
As the Associated Press has learned, Russia has agreed to fulfill the latest demands of Sudan, including providing more weapons and equipment. In addition, the Russian side removed all possible concerns of Sudan, in connection with which the country's armed forces approved the deal. Now, AP notes, the deal must be ratified by the country's military leadership, parties and civil society associations.
The geopolitical significance of the base on the Red Sea
As the newspaper wrote earlier.Ru", the Russian base in Sudan could guarantee the security of strategic sea transport routes in various areas of the World Ocean, the expansion of military-political and military-technical cooperation with the countries of the region. The PMTO will also provide rest for the crews, repair and logistics of ships.
The importance of the PMTO of the Russian Navy in Sudan is exceptionally great. It provides open access to the ocean and is located at the crossroads of world trade routes.
The shortest route between the Indian Ocean and the waters of the Mediterranean Sea of the Atlantic Ocean passes through the waters of the Red Sea. This allows water transport to pass in both directions between Europe and Asia without skirting Africa. The most important transport arteries from Europe pass through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, in the direction of Asia and Australia. Whoever has naval bases on the Red Sea can easily take control of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, through which hydrocarbon supplies from the Persian Gulf monarchies flow to the United States and the EU.
Background of the issue
As the newspaper wrote earlier .Ru", the issues of improving the basing of the domestic fleet have always been quite acute on the agenda of the military-political leadership. In particular, at the Potsdam Conference of 1945, the Soviet leadership raised the question that Libya, which was a colony of Italy before the war, which lost this war as part of the axis countries, should come under the control of the Soviet Union. Thus, Moscow would acquire strongholds on the Mediterranean Sea. However, this did not happen.
I must say bluntly that the history of the development of the basing of the USSR Navy is for the most part rich in very sad pages.
Over the years, the USSR Navy had logistics support points (PMTO), bases (PB), naval bases (VMB) in Cuba, Poland, Germany, Finland, Somalia, Vietnam, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya and a number of other countries.
For example, by the mid-1950s, the Soviet leadership came to the conclusion that the Porkalla Udd base in Finland, which had served the Soviet Navy since 1944, should be liquidated: it only irritates the Finns and worsens relations between the two countries, while not having special operational and strategic importance.
The remarkable history of the Vlora naval base in Albania. A brigade of 12 Soviet submarines was based here. In 1961, due to ideological differences between Tirana and Moscow, there was a break in relations between the two states. This was followed by an urgent evacuation of the base. Four Soviet boats, which were under repair at the time, were captured by the Albanians.
At the same time, the country's leadership is not always able to influence the situation. For example, the Berber naval base on the shore of the Gulf of Aden, where the USSR built a deep-water port and the largest first-class runway in Africa, was lost in 1977 as a result of the war between Somalia and Ethiopia.
The Soviet Navy lost the parking of warships, an important communications hub, a tracking station, a tactical missile depot, as well as a large fuel storage and living quarters for 1.5 thousand people at a critical point in the World Ocean.
The runway came under the control of the US military and, until the collapse of Somalia in 1991, was on the list of reserve landing strips for American reusable space Shuttle-type spacecraft.
Two years after the loss of the base in Somalia, the USSR opened the Cam Ranh naval base in Vietnam. It was considered one of the most convenient places to base ships and vessels in the Pacific Ocean. 20-25 Navy ships and vessels, about 40 reconnaissance aircraft, fighters, missile carriers, and anti-submarine aircraft were constantly present at the Cam Ranh Naval Air Station. All this created a real threat to the fleets of other countries in the region from Hong Kong to Malaysia. In 2001, the Russian Federation began the early withdrawal of its military contingent from the territory of Vietnam. The last Russian servicemen left Cam Ranh in May 2002.
In addition, the ships of the Soviet Navy periodically stopped at the PMTO in Angola, Guinea, Tunisia and Ethiopia. Also, ships of the USSR Navy entered Aden and Victoria in the Seychelles, but the Soviet Union did not have a PMTO (PB, VMB) at these points.
The lack of a full-fledged basing system in the area of responsibility of the 5th operational Squadron of the USSR Navy (the Mediterranean Sea) led to a sharp increase in the service life of warships and submarines. Large material resources were spent on the transition to the Mediterranean Sea and back, and, most importantly, the motor resource was spent. These transitions were very long in time.
In some cases, the issues of basing the fleet were so acute that the leadership of the Navy of that time had plans to create artificial islands where it would be possible to place bases and logistics support. The Marine Scientific Committee worked on these plans.
In general, in such conditions, domestic sailors got out as best they could. For example, then they developed such methods of organizing maneuverable basing in the ocean as mobile (drift). In this case, it was envisaged to use floating bases and other support vessels in areas with weak waves and swell, as well as at the edge of the ice.
Or a raid method was used - using deep-sea anchors (own anchors) or heavy raid equipment (raid barrels with anchor arrays weighing at least 75 tons) on raids and banks with depths up to 300 meters with winds up to 6-7 points.
It was also envisaged to use floating ocean platforms installed at depths up to 100 meters. At the same time, sooner or later Russia will face the task of restoring the maritime power of the state. And the Russian navy already needs a well-developed basing system. And the PMTO in Sudan here is just the first step.
The US will be against
The United States is well aware of the exceptional geopolitical importance of any naval base in this region.
The question arises - what should the political and military leadership of Sudan do in the future? Probably, the authorities of the republic from Moscow should make such an offer, which the military and political circles of this state will not be able to refuse.
There are some considerations about this. As the newspaper wrote earlier .Ru", it is simply impossible to "raise" the national army to the modern requirements of a small state in terms of population and economic complex capabilities.
No matter how much money is spent on defense in this case, it will still be small, and it is fundamentally impossible to defend against, for example, the United States. Washington (sometimes together with its allies) in a war with the use of only ordinary means of destruction in a few days will deal with any enemy who, in his opinion, will violate human rights or find some test tube with white powder in time.
There are more than enough examples in our time - Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya. Moreover, the leaders of these states ended their lives either in prison or with a noose around their necks. The era of national armies of relatively small states as an effective tool in defending national interests and sovereignty has finally passed into the past.
Individual small countries and their armies will very quickly burn up in the fire of a modern armed conflict. It is possible to survive in the alleged large-scale wars only if you join a coalition under the leadership of one of the superpowers of our time, possessing all the necessary military capabilities and attributes - from a space group to nuclear and precision weapons.
This seems to have made many heads of State of the Middle East and a number of other African States think hard.
Strategic interest
Of course, today we can say this - but what kind of base is there on the Red Sea, while Russian troops involved in a special military operation have been storming Ugledar and Bakhmut for a month.
As for the difficult military-political and economic situation of Russia, it should be noted that the basic strategy is formed based on the calculation of the next at least 50 years. Today, of course, there are problems in the purely military sphere, and in the development of the country's economic complex. But who knows how the situation will develop in ten, especially twenty, thirty years.
In particular, it is sometimes claimed that Russia does not have so many ships of the ocean zone, and over the next ten years there are unlikely to be more of them, so that this would be enough for active operations in the Mediterranean Sea or the Indian Ocean.
However, even here no one has a clear answer as to what the domestic military shipbuilding will look like in 20-30 years. And the naval base of Russia, let's assume, already exists in a particular region. And its significance in the historically foreseeable period from a geopolitical point of view can be exceptional.
Therefore, a positive resolution of the "basic" issue should be the sphere of exclusive attention of domestic politicians and the military. And in this regard, the statesmen of modern Russia should proceed solely from long-term national interests. Russia has repeatedly tried to gain a foothold in the Mediterranean in the XIX and XX centuries. In the recent past, the aspirations to create naval bases in the waters of the Indian Ocean have not ended with success.
Nevertheless, there is hope that in the XXI century the country will finally establish itself both in the Mediterranean and in the Indian Ocean. And as well as in other sensitive points of the World Ocean, important from a geopolitical and geostrategic point of view.
Mikhail Khodarenok
