As Syria falls, Russia sets sights on Libya’s strategic prize

Russian forces have bolstered their presence in Libya as Moscow’s international focus shifts from Syria to the Sahel.

As per Special Eurasia on March 5th, Russia has been expanding its military footprint in areas such as Libya.

The primary focus has been on establishing presence at the Maaten Al Sarra airbase near the Sudanese borders.

This strategic positioning represents a potential alliance with the Libyan National Army (LNA) under the leadership of Khalifa Haftar.

For Russia, Libya offers a crucial opportunity to expand influence into the Mediterranean and across Africa after losing their Syrian partnership, which collapsed with the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on the 8th of December 2024.

The timing of this pivot suggests Russia had anticipated Assad’s weakening position and had been preparing alternative pathways to maintain regional influence.

Russia’s use of Assad’s regime served as an ideal strategy to secure their regional influence while simultaneously using Syria as a proving ground to showcase their advanced weapons systems and demonstrate their military capabilities to the world.

This intervention originally started on the 30th of September 2015 in defence of Assad’s fight against opposition, such as the Islamic State in the Syrian civil war.

Yet now with the fall of Assad, it appears Russia is making moves away from Syria, recalibrating their influence into Libya.

This relationship has been building for some time as Russia has had previous involvement in Libya.

The Wagner Group, which is linked to the Russian government, has been present since 2019 and played a role in supporting Haftar’s failed offensive on Tripoli that same year.

The mines used killed a minimum of three Libyan deminers, according to Human Rights Watch.

The appeal of Libya does not stop in the military. It appears as a valuable asset for its energy resources, which is the largest in Africa, providing oil resources plus its sales of arms to the Libyan regime would be likely with Haftar in power.

According to the Arab Weekly, reports suggest that a Russian cargo plane left the Hmeimim base in Syria, heading to Libya.

The equipment in the satellite images was of key military standard with images of dismantled Ka-52 helicopters and S-400 missile systems.

This is not a minor matter as it has been serious enough for the Italian Defence Minister Crosetto to express concern: “It’s even more alarming when they are just two steps away from us instead of a thousand kilometres away,” per Defence News.

This should be the pressing matter in Russia’s move into the Sahel and specifically Libya.

Russia, if it can create a proxy in the eastern region, gives itself access to the Mediterranean Sea for its naval operations; the ability to access sea routes, energy corridors, and undersea cables allows for Western infrastructure to be left vulnerable to attack.

With the situation taking place in the Ukraine war and the EU on the 4th of March announcing 800 billion Euros in the Rearm project, the West and its allies will not want any further strengthening on the Russian side or room for escalation.

With the West’s previous failures in Libya, particularly America’s abandonment after helping dismantle Colonel Gaddafi’s regime, a stark realisation emerges: Western powers squandered their opportunity to develop Libya as a strategic ally that could have strengthened their influence across Africa.

This pattern of intervention without sustained commitment created the very power vacuum that Russia now looks to exploit.

Special Eurasia, Human Rights Watch, Arab Weekly, Defence News