On 28 March, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) published a policy brief by senior fellow Tarek Megerisi, titled ‘The bear who came to tea: Russia, Libya and the Kremlin’s playbook for fragile states’. Megerisi focuses on Russia’s return to Libya following a brief deterioration in its position in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution. He argues that the ‘dormant’ Russia-Libya relationship began to resume since Libya descended into civil war in 2014, with Moscow restoring its powerful influence in the Mediterranean country via proxies like eastern commander Khalifa Haftar. Megerisi also identifies ‘weaknesses’ that European states can exploit to curb Russia’s influence in Libya, a major vulnerability on the continent’s southern flank.
Read the full paper here.