Russia’s Return to Africa: A comparative Study of contemporary Russian policies towards Egypt, Algeria and Morocco

This paper, co-authored by Tereza Nemeckova (Metropolitan University Prague), Lea Melnikovova (Metropolitan University Prague), and Natalia Piskunova (Moscow State University) analyses Russia’s recent return to Africa with a focus on the Mediterranean area and assesses three major cases that highlight a post-2010 Russian policy towards the region - Algeria, Egypr, and Morocco . It aims at answering the question if, and to what extent Russia has abandoned its traditional tools of cooperation such as nuclear energy and military cooperation and engaged in new ‘smart’ ones as indicated by former Foreign Minister Ivanov in 2011. Our interest was also to explore motivations on both sides for the rapprochement between Russia and the three countries. This paper builds on three case studies of African countries having the largest trade volume with Russia up to 2019, i.e. Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, and analyses their changing relationship with Russia over the last decade. The results show that Russia has not abandoned its traditional tools but has intensified the use of new ones. The North African region as such has regained significance in Russia’s foreign policy. Bilateral relations with all three North African countries have increased at both political and economic levels recently. Our results show that for Russia, Africa has regained its significance mostly in building new alliances in energy security and defense, traditional areas of Russia’s cooperation. In particular, this applies to North Africa. Russia has recently become the largest arms supplier to Africa, with Algeria and Egypt being the largest importers. Based on numerous arms deals signed recently, this trend will most likely continue. Besides the military, Russia has engaged in numerous energy projects across all three analyzed countries. To attain the goals, Russia has significantly intensified the use of ‘smart’ tools such as development cooperation, and ‘export of education’ in particular. Available data indicate that most in energy policy this proves to be an efficient instrument. As North Africa intersects the rising interests of Russia in Africa and the Middle East, it comes rather as no surprise that all three analyzed North African countries have become Russia’s largest trade partners in Africa. The mutual trade is unbalanced though, with Russia’s dominance in (military) exports. Economic Union most likely contributed to the fact that the mutual trade has significantly increased since 2015. But we should not forget that all three countries represent for Russia important geopolitical and geostrategic partners, too. Egypt in pursuing Russia’s rising interest in the Middle East and also in North Africa, Algeria has gained a new strategic position in Russia’s foreign energy policy aiming to exert pressure on Europe in its energy dependency, and Morocco, despite of posing rather a challenge for Russia due to the persisting territorial dispute with Algeria, showed its willingness to cooperate in many areas (including military and energy) which has become appealing for Russia to reengage and increase its role in the region.