Information portal South Front reported the claims that have been circulating for the past couple of days about a possible Russian military base in the breakaway region.
Reports allege that Moscow has been in talks with the self-proclaimed authorities in Hargeisa to build a small air and naval facility in the Djibouti-bordering town of Zeila.
Rumors in the African media about the base spread after the consul in Djibouti, Yuri Kurshakov, visited the republic and inspected the Berber airport, which was used by the Soviet army before the dissolution of Somalia.
According to sources, it would entail the construction of a compact military base for about 1 500 personnel with infrastructure, and include two destroyers, four frigates and two submarines, as well as aircraft of up to 15 fighters and up to 6 transport aircraft.
In exchange, Russia will recognize Somaliland’s independence and invest $250 million in the country’s oil and gas industry. Somaliland believes the “Isaaq genocide” has entitled them to secede for security’s sake.
A United Nations investigation concluded that the crime of genocide was “conceived, planned and perpetrated by the Somali Government against the Isaaq people”. The number of civilian casualties was estimated by the UN at some 100 000, while some reports estimate the total civilian deaths to be upwards of 200 000 Isaaq civilians.
Somaliland has political contacts with its neighbours Ethiopia and Djibouti as well as with South Africa and Sweden.
The UAE is already constructing its own base in Berbera despite not officially recognizing Somaliland.
Russia has only a few bases that are not on its own territory – these are mostly in Central Asia and generally used for the purposes of fighting terrorism and sharing of intelligence data.
At present, military bases that belong to Turkey and the UAE already exist on the territory of Somalia.
Andrew Korybko, a political analyst argues that currently Western forces act as the “gatekeepers” of the strategic Bab el Mandeb chokepoint over EU-Chinese maritime trade.
“This process is occurring in parallel with the expansion of the Gulf Cold War to the Horn of Africa and the international militarization of the Red Sea in making the region one of the most conflict-prone hotspots in the world today.”