Sudan war complicates Russia's port plans, strains Wagner ties in Libya

Events in Sudan would have perhaps gone unnoticed in Russian society, including by politicians and the media, if Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had not visited Khartoum two months before fighting broke out last week between Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan's army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti. 

Lavrov's was his first visit to the country after a nine-year hiatus, during which he met with both sides in the current confrontation. 

The head of Russian diplomacy reiterated Moscow's commitment to the agreement on the establishment of a Russian naval facility in Port Sudan. The agreement is awaiting ratification by the Sudanese civilian legislature which has now been blocked. This is despite the fact that at the time, as Al-Monitor's source in the Russian parliament noted, "Many in Moscow had already given up hope of an official presence in the Red Sea amid a reshaping of trade logistics due to the conflict with the West and Ukraine." 

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