Moscow invited the leaders of all 22 Arab League states to its first Russian-Arab summit, set for October 15, 2025. Five days before, the Kremlin announced a postponement. According to Bloomberg, only Syria's president and the Arab League's secretary-general had agreed to come. Why did Russia lose the Arab world?
By mid-2025, the jihadist group JNIM controlled vast areas from central Mali to northern Benin, with some six thousand fighters. It runs Sharia courts, collects taxes and protects villagers, so many locals see it as a lesser evil than the army. Its emirs now call Russia, which backs Mali's junta, the new crusader.
After losing its bases in Syria, Russia turned eastern Libya into its main foothold, flying in troops and building up airbases. But in April 2025, Haftar's army signed a defense deal with Turkey, Moscow's rival for influence in the region. Will Ankara now push Russia out of Libya altogether?
In April 2025, Sudan's Rapid Support Forces seized an airstrip at the Al-Atrun oasis in Darfur and pushed toward Libya. A route to the border would let them receive weapons from Marshal Haftar and export the gold that funds their war. Russia has dealt with both sides, trading weapons for access to Sudan's gold.
Mali, a former French colony, has turned away from Paris and toward Moscow. Russian instructors, many of them Wagner veterans of the war in Ukraine, now help its army fight insurgents. In return, Moscow is eyeing Mali's gold, uranium and lithium. Is this sovereignty or a new dependence?
In 2025, Sudan's army drove the Rapid Support Forces out of Khartoum after two years of civil war. The war has displaced 14 million people inside Sudan, and more than three million have fled abroad. Behind the two generals stand foreign powers chasing gold and a foothold on the Red Sea.
On February 12, Sudan's foreign minister announced a deal with Moscow on a Russian naval base in Port Sudan. But his government, at war with the Rapid Support Forces, no longer even controls Khartoum. And after its losses in the Black Sea, does Russia's navy still need a base so far away?
In 2017, near Sudan's Abu Hamad gold mine, Wagner mercenaries reportedly shot dead at least 73 protesters, including children. Prigozhin's firm mined gold with near-forced labor and mercury, helping Omar al-Bashir evade sanctions. Now Sudan lies in ruins after a civil war that has displaced 11 million people.