THREAD: Amid all the fascination with Russia’s inroads in Africa, why are we overlooking the case of South Africa? It’s a fascinating story of Kremlin overreach, predatory behavior & Cold War ties that we dug into for Carnegie’s #GlobalRussia project: carnegieendowment.org/2019/12/16/nuc… 1/ 
During Jacob Zuma’s ill-starred presidency (2009–2018), the Kremlin sought to wrest a geopolitically significant state out of the West’s orbit and to create a partnership that could serve as a springboard for expanded influence elsewhere in Africa. 2/
Moscow’s strategy was multifaceted, capitalizing on well-established close ties with Zuma, a former ANC senior intelligence official with extensive Soviet bloc connections. The Soviets were key allies during the anti-apartheid struggle and active throughout southern Africa. 3/
Putin and other senior Russian officials pursued a series of initiatives, such as the inclusion of South Africa in the BRICS grouping and the launch of an ambitious nuclear construction deal worth $76 billion. 4/
The controversy arising from this massive $76 billion nuclear power plant construction deal triggered strong pushback and legal challenges from South Africa’s institutional checks and balances, civil society groups, and independent media. goldmanprize.org/recipient/mako… 5/
The Russian national security establishment sees civil nuclear power as an important tool for projecting influence overseas while creating revenue streams for intellectual/technical capabilities inside Russia itself. Yet such cooperation is often a two-edged sword. 6/
Costly nuclear projects like the one in South Africa typically make little economic sense for the purchasing country. Heavily subsidized projects pursued mainly for geopolitical reasons also risk saddling Russia’s nuclear power monopoly Rosatom with large financial burdens. 7/
The sustainability of Moscow’s embrace of South Africa was always questionable due to its paltry tool kit and truly miniscule economic footprint (0.4% of South Africa’s foreign trade). Why did no one in the Kremlin figure this out? 8/
Ongoing investigations of high-level corruption during the period of so-called state capture under Zuma shed remarkable light on how the Kremlin operates in Africa and other parts of the world. 9/
Policymakers can learn a great deal from examples of Russian overreach, strategic missteps like South Africa. They help put the Kremlin global activism in a much broader context, highlight Russia’s limitations, and illuminate the key ingredients for pushing back successfully END/
