Meloni urges NATO to focus on Africa amid growing Russian influence

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni believes NATO needs to focus more on Africa and the Global South, as Russia could increase its presence in eastern Libya following the collapse of an allied regime in Syria, she said at a news conference on January 9, Reuters reported.

Meloni said that over the past two years she has raised the issue of Russia’s presence in Africa with her allies and called on NATO to strengthen its presence on the continent.

“We are very focused on our eastern flank, not realizing that all the flanks of this alliance are potentially vulnerable, especially the southern one,” the Italian Prime Minister said.

As the agency recalled, last month the Kremlin said that it was negotiating with the new rulers of Syria regarding its bases and was not going to withdraw troops from there.

Therefore, Italy fears that it may try to strengthen its presence elsewhere.

“After the fall of the Assad regime, it is reasonable to believe that Russia is looking for other (sea) outlets, and it is reasonable to believe that one of these could be Cyrenaica,” Giorgia Meloni stated.

Cyrenaica, in eastern Libya, is under the control of commander Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA), which over many years developed ties with Moscow.

Earlier, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that Russia and Iran were complicit in the crimes of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and his fall showed that they were “unreliable partners.”

In early December, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that events in Syria show that countries that have a strategic partnership with Russia can rely on it only as long as they are useful to Putin.