Two ships, the missile cruiser Varyag and the frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov. Two escort submarines. And a port, that of Tobruk, a few miles from Italy, which has become the terminal for Russian traffic in Libya and Africa. The signal sent by Vladimir Putin with the “courtesy visit” of his fleet to the port of Cyrenaica, the eastern part of Libya in the hands of Khalifa Haftar, is one that cannot be underestimated. Because for some time the United States and the Atlantic Alliance have put the spotlight on the continuous traffic of goods and ships that arrive in the Libyan port from Russian ports. And the arrival of these warships does nothing but certify the fears of Western intelligence about Moscow’s penetration into the North African country.
A strategy that has been going on for years. And that Haftar has no intention of arresting. His armed forces, the so-called Libyan National Army, deliberately publicized the arrival of the Moscow Navy, recalling that this visit served to “strengthen relations between the General Command of the army and the Russian Federation”. And if Haftar has every interest in siding with his old ally the Kremlin, also to put pressure on the recognized government of Tripoli and European and US partners, Putin has every interest in showing himself as a protagonist in the Libyan game. And this despite the fact that the Tsar is certainly busy on many other fronts.
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TEST OF STRENGTH
Moscow has been playing a chess game for some time in which the objective is to show itself capable of pressing on the flanks of NATO and the West. And to do it in different ways and at different latitudes. A continuous “show of strength” to show the world that it is a power capable of projecting itself everywhere: from Ukraine to Cuba, from North Korea to Syria. And in this challenge, Libya has an essential role. First with Wagner and now with the “African Legion” which must replace Evgheni Prigozhin’s mercenaries, Marshal Haftar’s Cyrenaica has for years been the Russian outpost in the central Mediterranean and the summit of Russia’s African strategy. US intelligence has been monitoring for months the cargoes arriving in Tobruk and which are headed not only to the Russian military in Libya but also to Moscow’s forces engaged in the Sahel. And in recent months, Yunus-Bek Evkurov – one of the few deputy defense ministers not to have ended up in Putin’s recent purges – has appeared in Libya several times to make it clear that Moscow’s grip on the east of the country is increasingly stronger. From Benghazi, Haftar’s officials have always denied the hypothesis of the construction of a Russian naval base. The Libyan version seems contradicted precisely by the arrival of the Russian units. That even if they don’t formally have an outpost in Tobruk, they certainly act like hosts.
ALARM SIRENS
For NATO, Europe and Italy itself, the alarm has been ringing for some time. And now there are many signs to take into consideration. During the latest meeting of the United Nations support mission in Libya, UNSMIL, US representative Robert A. Wood confirmed the government’s concern. And Jennifer Gavito, recently appointed United States ambassador to Libya, appeared to be of the same opinion and warned against the growing Russian and Chinese influence in a hearing at the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US Senate. Washington knows that the Libyan chaos is fertile ground for anyone. But what is especially worrying is the influence that the Kremlin is building from the heart of Africa, in the Sahel, up to the coasts of the Mediterranean. After the coups in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, Putin managed to take the place of the West (in particular France and the USA) in one of the hottest regions of the world. At the beginning of the year, rumors of a Russian base in the Central African Republic became increasingly insistent. And Libya can be the gateway not only for its mercenaries, but also for all traffic directed towards the Sahel. Or coming from the Sahel. Haftar, who is also an interlocutor for Italy, is a fundamental pawn for the stabilization of Libya and for controlling the routes of migrants and all the dark trafficking that proliferates between Africa and the Mediterranean. But the increasingly accentuated presence of the Russians can change (a lot) the cards on the table. Putin risks having in his hands not only a base to control the southern flank of NATO, but also a switch capable of turning on or off a crisis – war but also migration – depending on his wishes. Another front in Moscow’s hybrid war on the West. And this time, a few miles from the Italian coast.
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