... recommended that they are reviewed together in order to obtain a better understanding of everything.
Andrew Korybko:
The Geostrategic Challenges of Russia’s “Ummah Pivot”
Russian Interests
North Africa: Becoming the Libyan Power Broker
In North Africa, Libya is the scene of intense competition between Turkey on the one hand and Russia, Egypt, the UAE, and France on the other. Russia must therefore seek a compromise solution that prevents either side from becoming dominant, with Russia playing the kingmaker role if possible (perhaps through a mix of creative diplomacy, energy partnerships ...
... and Turkish diplomatic efforts, the former of which were
reportedly
aided by private military contractors (PMCs) while the latter were assisted by a
direct military intervention
at the request of the internationally recognized government in Tripoli.
Egypt has sought to secure its national interests by
backing
Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA)
alongside
its Emirati patron, though the Turkish intervention halted its advance on the capital last year. Russia’s stance is a bit ambiguous: on the one hand, it
supports
the internationally recognized government allied ...
... developing gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 2015, Italy’s Eni discovered the gigantic Zohr field in Egypt, a major Arab state, which allowed Cairo to break the vicious circle of its dependence on imports and to cover its own demand for gas. Egypt now
produces
about 311 million cubic meters of gas and 700,000 barrels of oil daily (from the deposits in the Western Desert adjacent to Libya). However, in January 2020, gas production also started on Leviathan, the largest field in the Levant Basin located on Israel’s stretch of the shelf, and this marked the start of deliveries of Leviathan-produced gas to Egypt. Noble Energy, which ...
... conditions, it will become even more difficult to apply for natural gas production in the territorial waters of other countries. Cairo supports the troops of Haftar. Egypt is interested in an early end to the war, in the establishment of full control on the Libyan-Egyptian border, and the elimination of all Islamist groups operating in Libya, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
In November 2019, a memorandum of military cooperation was signed between Tripoli and Ankara. On January 2, 2020, the Turkish parliament ...
... limited support for the GNA (including small shipments of weapons and sending several drones to the battle ground starting in May 2019) helped Libya’s governmental forces take Gharyan, the LNA’s principal base in the vicinity of Tripoli.
Unlike Egypt or the United Arab Emirates, Russia boosted its standing in Libya, in spite of the field marshal’s failures. First, Haftar’s military weakness and defeats made the LNA more dependent on Russian support. In January 2020, a phone call from Cairo or Abu Dhabi was enough to convince the field marshal to leave ...
... national security. Egyptian Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel Aal
said
that Egypt will not allow pro-Turkish terrorists to control Libya. Besides, he also accused Turkey of wanting to colonize parts of the Arab world.
Egypt
deployed
part of the troops on the Egyptian-Libyan border. The media
reported
that the border with Libya was crossed by Abrams tanks and Mi-24 combat helicopters. It is also worth remembering that in the province Matruh, near the border with Libya, there is a large Egyptian military base named ...
...
of the wall will be merely 1 km, while the length of the border between the two states is more than 1,100 km.
Nevertheless, the government controlled by Khalifa Haftar is demonstrating a willingness to tackle the problem of arms smuggling across the Libyan-Egyptian border. Additionally, Khalifa Haftar proved that he would rather fight terrorist groups than negotiate with them. The terrorist threat posed by militants in Libya is a serious security challenge in Egypt, so Cairo supports Haftar in the Libyan ...
... Africa Command (AFRICOM) may have withdrawn its personnel from Tripoli and Misrata, it is entirely possible that they will return to Libya and resume interaction with their former partners.
Russia continues to maintain relations with both sides in the Libyan conflict. Despite the increasingly pro-Haftar bias in the Russian approach, Moscow, unlike Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, has not crossed the red line and continues to be regarded as a partner by the Government of National Accord. The problem lies in the fact that the three Russian structures that are currently working on the Libya track the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,...
... has claimed between 200,000 and 500,000 lives. As many as 70,000 people have lost their lives as a result of two civil wars in Libya. And the Yemeni Civil War counts several thousand among its victims, with the humanitarian catastrophe it is leaving in ... ... never-ending fear of violence.
Terrorism has become a part of everyday life in the “calmer” countries in the region, Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey. While the number of victims of terrorist attacks in these countries is hardly comparable to the numbers of lives ...
