Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Yusuf Sharif told Russian media on Wednesday that an agreement first proposed in 2017 to give Russia a naval base on the Red Sea coast will finally proceed, giving Moscow an opportunity to replace the base it lost in Syria with the fall of dictator Bashar Assad.
Russia’s only refueling port on the Mediterranean Sea was its base in the Syrian city of Tartus, which the Russians built in 1977, abandoned after the fall of the Soviet Union, and reactivated in 2015 when they intervened to prop up the Assad regime.
The Tartus base became much more important to Russia after it invaded Ukraine in 2022 because the Russians wanted NATO to feel pressure along its southern flank and it had plenty of ships stuck in the Mediterranean Sea after Turkey refused to allow them to pass through its territory to reach the Black Sea and join the Ukraine campaign.
Assad…
