On March 21, the US charge d’affaires and the ambassadors of the United Kingdom and Norway in Khartoum issued an unusually strongly worded statement criticizing Russia’s presence in Sudan to mark the first month of the invasion of Ukraine. In particular, the diplomats, known as the Troika, condemned the activities in Sudan of the Wagner Group, a shadowy private military company close to the Kremlin, and deemed it a local example of the global threat that in their view Moscow poses to the country and the continent.
In their joint statement, the Western diplomats specifically accused the Russian contractor of being involved in illicit activities in Sudan connected to gold mining and in spreading disinformation on social media — actions that they consider to be undermining the respect for the rule of law and good governance that the Sudanese people have been fighting for since the onset of the 2018 Revolution. The diplomats acknowledged that Khartoum has the sovereign right to decide on its own its foreign relations, but they warned that they will keep supporting the Sudanese people “as they strive to fulfill [their] aspirations.”
The message, condemned by the Foreign Ministry of the contested Sudanese government, shows that relations between Moscow and Khartoum, which have strengthened since last October’s military coup, and the presence of the Wagner Group in the country have again come under the West’s spotlight as they try to isolate Russia following the invasion of Ukraine and at the same time keep up the pressure on the Sudanese generals.
“One of the impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that Russian activities around the world are now under greater scrutiny. [And] it has been the worst kept secret in Sudan that Wagner operatives were working here and supporting the military,” Kholood Khair, managing partner of Insight Strategy Partners in Khartoum, told Al-Monitor. “It’s just a function of greater oversight from the international community on how close the [Sudanese] military is to Russia and what that could mean for this region but also what it could mean in terms of strengthening Russia vis-a-vis its activities in Europe,” she added.
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