In an interesting Foreign Policy article written by Lincoln Pigman and Kyle Ortin, the authors argue that Russia's growing involvement in Libya, particularly but not exclusively in support of Khalifa Haftar, stems for the most part from a desire to recover Russia's significant backlog of payments owed under the Qadhafi regime, and to win the political dividends of being able to settle regional crises.
Russia expects to gain three things from its support of Haftar. First, Moscow hopes Haftar will eventually wield enough political power to give Russia pride of place in making economic deals, thus making up for the financial losses — $150 million in profits from construction projects, $3 billion from a Russian Railways contract, up to $3.5 billion in profits from energy deals, and at least $4 billion in arms sales — incurred because of Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi’s fall. With oil production in Libya at 700,000 barrels per day in January and the country’s so-called oil crescent controlled by Haftar’s forces, energy is an especially lucrative area of cooperation. In July, Russian state oil giant Rosneft began purchasing oil from Libya’s National Oil Corp. as part of a yearlong contract meant to be, in the words of one Russian official, an initial step toward the “renewal of contracts concluded under Qaddafi.”
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