Russia-Eritrea Strategic Alliance

 PIME Asia News published on 11 March 2024 an article titled "The Strategic Alliance between Russia and Eritrea" by Vladimir Rozanskij.

This article describes the increasingly important relationship between Russia and Eritrea in recent years.

Russian Gold Smuggling Out of Sudan

 CNN with the assistance of the Dossier Center published on 29 July 2022 an investigative piece titled "Russia Is Plundering Gold in Sudan to Boost Putin's War Effort in Ukraine."

Russia is routinely running gold smuggling flights out of Sudan with the assistance of Khartoum's military leaders.  In return, Russia is supporting Sudan's beleaguered military leadership.  

African Support for Russia Slips Since 2014 Invasion of Crimea

 Chatham House published on 7 March 2022 an analysis titled "UN Vote on Russia Invasion Shows a Changing Africa" by Aanu Adeoye, Mo Ibrahim Foundation.  

In 2014, more African countries abstained and fewer condemned Russia's invasion of Crimea than was the case in Putin's invasion of Ukraine.  While Russia subsequently established close security relations with a few African countries such as Mali and the Central African Republic, except for Eritrea they abstained in the recent UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia.  

Russia Struggles to Build Influence in South Africa

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published on 16 December 2019 a study titled "Nuclear Enrichment: Russia's Ill-fated Influence Campaign in South Africa" by Andrew S. Weiss, Carnegie Endowment, and Eugene Rumer, Carnegie Endowment and former US intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia.

The authors argue that Russia today offers little in the way of practical assistance for helping South Africa, which has less than one percent of its trade with Russia. Moscow's close relations with former South African President Jacob Zuma, a Soviet-trained intelligence operative, resulted in an ill-fated nuclear power deal and was based on corruption. This relationship has been largely reversed by South Africa's strong civil society and system of checks and balances.