In September 2023, photos of a military parade celebrating the success of the Gabonese coup d’état briefly circulated across global media. Amongst the scenes of tanks in the streets and celebrations outside government buildings, two flags flew in the background: the Gabonese and the Russian. While increasingly close-knit relations between China and a number of African nations have alarmed Western media and leaders, similar diplomatic advances by Russia have flown under the radar. Through deepening economic, diplomatic, and security relationships with a number of African states, the Kremlin has not only secured political support on the international stage but also maneuvered around the extensive Western sanctions that struck a major blow to the Russian economy following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It appears Gabon could be Russia’s newest partner in crime.
Russia is no stranger to sanctions: The most recent tranche announced by the European Union in June 2024 was the 14th since 2014. However, the packages introduced by the European Union and the United States following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine are unprecedentedly broad in scope. Largely expanding on the sanctions imposed in response to the 2014 annexation of Crimea, the 2022 conflict effectively severed ties between Russian banks and the rest of the financial world, froze assets, restricted exports of technology, and suspended or ended energy dependence on Russia. The Russian economy has nevertheless grown steadily since the invasion, and sanctions on aircraft parts and other technology do not appear to be hindering the country’s military capacity.
Gabon, a small coastal nation 10,000 kilometers from Russia, supplied a staggering $1.5 billion in aircraft parts to Russia in 2023 alone.
Predictably, the Kremlin and its business associates have an extensive record of sidestepping sanctions, predominantly through third-party trade partners who legally acquire prohibited goods and sell them to Russian companies, with a focus on obtaining industrial components necessary for arms manufacturing. The War and Sanctions database, an online platform run by Ukrainian civil servants, lists nearly 4,000 Western-manufactured components discovered in confiscated Russian arms. The majority came from the West indirectly, via Turkey, Armenia, the UAE, and other proxy countries. These proxy states have maintained relative neutrality in the power struggle between Russia and NATO—even Turkey, an uneasy US ally, has faced criticism for its entanglement and dialogue with Russia.
The United States has made somewhat successful efforts to combat evasive practices. In October 2024, for instance, Kyrgyzstan—presumably under pressure from the US government following a visit from US Treasury officials—enacted a ban on foreign companies paying for prohibited goods through Kyrgyz banks unless those firms could prove that the goods would ultimately remain in Kyrgyzstan.
Due to the Kyrgyzstan crackdown and similar suppression against established Russian allies, Russia has increasingly relied on a new partner in West Africa. Gabon, a small coastal nation 10,000 kilometers from Russia, supplied a staggering $1.5 billion in aircraft parts to Russia in 2023 alone. This is more than 7 percent of the country’s total GDP and more than 75 percent of all aircraft parts exported to Russia that year. These included 15 US-made aircraft engines acquired and resold to Russia by Ter Assala Parts, a mysterious company whose sole beneficiary is an unnamed Kyrgyz citizen. Notably, these exports only began this past August after a military coup established a new, autocratic junta government and Gabonese relations with the West deteriorated. Economist Igor Lipsitz, asked for comment by the Moscow Times, called the operation a “complicated criminal scheme.”
Gabon’s entanglement with sanctioned Russian goods goes beyond aircraft parts. The nation, home to only 2.3 million people, saw its ship registry rapidly expand sixfold to more than 100 ships after the intensification of Western sanctions on Russia. About 70 of these ships have “obscure ownership” and are almost certainly being utilized by Russia and Iran to move oil under sanction. This is not a new practice: Gabon is merely the newest member of Russia’s “shadow fleet” of ships sailing under the flags of other countries. Since 2022, more than 1,400 ships are thought to have ceased legal shipping operations to illegally transport Russian oil instead. To avoid enforcement of US sanctions, Russia’s oil tankers periodically rotate which “flag of convenience” they fly—that is, which country they claim to originate from. Since the beginning of the war, around 50 ships belonging to the Russian shipping titan Sovcomflot switched from using Liberia’s flag to Gabon’s. As demand for Russian oil has grown in China, India, and other non-Western nations, Russia’s dark fleet has expanded to meet the market: The fleet now makes up 10 percent of all the oil shipped by sea.
The European Union and the United States appear to have a blind spot when it comes to the covert trade of sanctioned goods. Russia’s economic and security efforts in Africa may pale in comparison to China’s gargantuan Belt and Road Initiative, but the Kremlin is undoubtedly expanding its economic network to work against Western sanction efforts. In order to effectively put pressure on the Kremlin and sever the supply of sanctioned goods, the West should pay closer attention to the sinister nature of Russian economic efforts in Africa.
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