Issue No. 126

Russia in the Horn: Opportunism in an Age of Disorder

In the past months, a number of unsettling images and videos have emerged from the Russian frontlines in the Ukraine war. Within the horrors of the grinding "kill zone," where kamikaze drones strafe the sky for any signs of movement, yet another concerning dimension has emerged—the use of African recruits by Moscow in the conflict, often under false pretences. Particularly drawn from Kenya, many reportedly believed they were signing contracts to work as drivers or security guards, only to be shipped to the front lines upon arrival. Such activities are illustrative of several issues, including Russia's relationship with countries in the Horn of Africa, one shaped more by opportunistic realpolitik than genuine partnership.

There is little doubt that Moscow likes to present itself as a genuine partner of the Global South, a campaigner for reforming a world order underpinned by US hegemony. Much of its messaging, too, relates to the days of the Soviet Union, when the USSR supplied newly independent and revolutionary states across Africa with military hardware and patronage, including Ethiopia and Somalia. But reports of abuse and discrimination pervade the deployment of these young men to the frontlines, with many videos revealing Russian officers taunting African recruits—one particularly haunting video appears to show a black man with a mine strapped to his chest. Despite the rhetoric of strategic partnerships and Moscow's celebration of African neutrality over the Ukraine conflict, the treatment of these men is revealing.

But Russian presence in the Horn of Africa remains somewhat haphazard and ephemeral, ranging from limited engagement with US-aligned Kenya to the more overtly warm ties with Eritrea. Russian naval visits to harbours in Djibouti and Eritrea in 2023 and 2024, respectively, fuelled expectations that military cooperation might resume, especially with Asmara, though no substantial new arms deliveries have been confirmed and no major new defence cooperation agreements have been signed with Horn states. Still, President Isaias Afwerki has often basked in the glow of his preferential treatment from Moscow, coming at a time when the country was widely regarded as a pariah. Such Eritrean isolationism, though, may soon be at an end with Washington as well, with Asmara now engaged in discussions on normalising relations with the US—facilitated by Cairo. Yet across the region, states are not passive recipients of Russian overtures; rather, governments in Asmara, Addis, and Khartoum have all, in different ways, sought to instrumentalise Moscow—whether to offset Western pressure or extract security and economic concessions.

Still, unlike the riven Gulf, Moscow is an equal-opportunity partner in the Horn, ignoring the deteriorating Addis-Asmara relations to consolidate ties with Ethiopia across a number of sectors as well. In 2024, as part of Addis Ababa's aspirational "sea access" drive, Ethiopia and Russia agreed on a naval cooperation pact, and Russia has supported institutional capacity-building, including naval training initiatives. Last year, too, bilateral progress was made in developing Ethiopia's nuclear energy capacity, with Russian state-owned Rosatom playing a central role. But while these are not trivial developments, they remain far more limited to the scale of financial patronage emanating from the Gulf, or the institutional depth of Chinese economic engagement.

But nowhere is the predatory logic of Russian engagement more explicit than in Sudan. Active in Sudan since 2017, the Wagner Group secured lucrative gold mining concessions in exchange for political and military support to Omar al-Bashir, and subsequently evolved into a key player in Sudan's civil war, funnelling weapons and support to elements of the Rapid Support Forces. Moscow's security sector and defence industry, on the other hand, has facilitated closer ties with the Sudanese army as well, supplying the forces with a broad range of weapons. And since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia is reported to have obtained significant revenues through mercenaries-for-gold schemes across Sudan, Mali, and the Central African Republic, helping to fund its war while circumventing Western sanctions. Sudan has even become a direct site of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, with Ukrainian special forces activity in Khartoum targeting Wagner-linked networks—a remarkable second-order consequence of a European land war playing out in the rubble of an African capital. In this respect, Sudan is a node within a much wider war economy linking African resource extraction directly to the financing of conflict in Ukraine.

Sudan, too, has been central to Moscow's aspirations for a military base on the Red Sea, with repeated forays culminating in an agreement for a logistical base with the Sudanese army last year. Following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, Syria's new government terminated the treaty granting Russia its only foreign naval base at Latakia, severing Moscow's critical link between the Mediterranean and Africa. But such was the agreement over the logistical base that was soon rebuffed by the Sudanese Armed Forces' larger sponsors, particularly Saudi Arabia, leaving Russia's plans to emulate the American, Chinese, and French bases in nearby Djibouti on ice. Moreover, within Sudan and across Africa, Africa Corps-- the rebranded remnant of the Wagner Group-- remains much diminished, without its founding commander and without the propaganda machine that underpinned it. Though it still holds some mines and strategic interests, it is a far cry from the expansionist, deniable wing of Moscow's strategy in Africa than it once was.

The use of African soldiers on the frontlines is revealing as well for the scale of the Russian losses in Ukraine; now estimated to be well over a million casualties. And as a result of the conflict, there are substantial structural limits to Russian ambitions in the Horn, a theatre which ranks far below others in terms of strategic significance. Moscow's resources are heavily constrained, with little economic capacity to offer beyond arms sales and security assistance — unlike Chinese promises of infrastructure and trade. In turn, the opportunistic ambition of Moscow has consistently exceeded its capacity, with transient influence the result rather than enduring ties. 

Russia is just one of several revisionist powers seeking to adjust the terms of the existing order— and rather ironically, the principal architect of that order's demolition is now Washington itself, dismantling the post-World War II instruments of financial and military supremacy it spent decades constructing. What is emerging is not fully legible, but geo-kleptocracy, transactional power, and unrestrained violence are a landscape in which Russia has considerable experience navigating. And in the Horn of Africa and Red Sea, external powers have grappled for the leverage that littoral geography provides over global commerce and military projection for centuries; a dynamic surely only set to intensify with the upending of globalised energy networks and corridors. 

Even so, Russian presence in the Horn remains what it has largely always been: not a returning Soviet superpower, not a coherent ideological project, but a strategically opportunistic actor operating within a disordered system. But there will always be a space for guns—and for the right price, Moscow will keep turning up.

The Horn Edition Team