A top advisor to Sudan’s General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) who also represents Sudan abroad, warned about the US’ plans for their country. Amjad Farid described the 90-day ceasefire proposal by US Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs Massad Boulos as “putting pressure on us to accept a de facto partitioning of the country similar to the Libyan model.” This followed the US allegedly withholding Burhan’s visa to attend the UNGA after he rejected this plan.
Radio France Internationale recently conducted an interview with Sudanese researcher Suliman Baldo, who’s the director of the US-based Sudan Transparency and Policy Observatory, about the US’ policy. He assessed that the US has decided to confront Burhan, pointing to American media reports about the SAF’s alleged use of chemical weapons against the “Rapid Support Forces” (RSF) rebels led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (”Hemedti”) as well as the State Department’s declaration that both sides are illegitimate.
Baldo concluded that the US wants to “keep Russian influence away from the Red Sea. Russia is one of the arms suppliers to the Sudanese army and is still pursuing plans to establish a military base on the Red Sea at Port Sudan. The Americans do not want to hear about that, nor do the Saudis. That’s why the Americans remain engaged in Sudan.” These interests were analyzed in several pieces at the start of the war in early 2023 that were enumerated in this one here from last month about Russia’s policy thereto.
Pairing Baldo’s insight with Farid’s in light of the US’ ceasefire plan, its new pressure campaign against Burhan over his side’s alleged use of chemical weapons, and the State Department’s declaration that both he and Hemedti are illegitimate, American policy towards the conflict becomes apparent. It aims for a phased regime change in both camps, institutionalizing Sudan’s de facto partition by granting broad autonomy to each side, and having the new national authorities renege on their Russian naval base deal.
Russia’s interests are therefore the opposite: help the SAF obliterate the RSF; retain Sudan’s functional unity; and ultimately implement their long-delayed naval base deal. The first two interests align with the Islamic NATO’s (Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, and Pakistan) and its close Egyptian partner’s, all four of whom provide much more meaningful assistance to Burhan than Russia does for simple geographic reasons, with Egypt at the forefront. Likewise, they’re at variance with the UAE’s interests, which backs the RSF.
This is in spite of Putin describing the UAE as Russia’s “main trade partner in the Arab world” in late 2023 and his close friendship with President Mohamed bin Zayed. Similarly, the Islamic NATO and Egypt are all close to the US, yet the US still opposes Burhan (and Hemedti too despite the UAE’s closeness to the US). Hypothetically, a grand deal could thus see those two remain in power with Sudan’s de facto partition institutionalized and Khartoum finally granting Moscow its naval base, but the political will doesn’t exist.
Each side still believes that they can defeat the other or at least expand their territory before institutionalizing Sudan’s de facto partition, so that being the case, the conflict is expect to continue and intensify till either one side forces the other into a lopsided deal or a foreign state directly intervenes. If Egypt does so at scale in the SAF’s support after Cairo’s historical rival Ethiopia just accused it and Sudan of backing a new rebel alliance, then the two conflicts might merge with disastrous results for the region.
