Russia’s Libya strategy threatens Europe

LONDON – Amid the wider instability sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, Libya has risen to the top of the agenda at high-level European talks. The renewed attention at the June session of the European Union Foreign Affairs Council and the recent meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was striking. After all, Libya has long been relegated to the category of foreign-policy blunders that Western governments prefer to forget, together with Iraq and Afghanistan. But Russia’s growing presence in Libya has set off alarm bells among European policymakers. Meloni recently warned that Russian missiles could soon be placed there – just a few hundred miles from Europe’s southern shores – potentially turning the country into a new front in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against the West. While Meloni may have played up sensational newspaper headlines for dramatic effect, her concern was well-founded. Since 2020, Russia has systematically built a network of military facilities across Libya, in what is arguably Putin’s mWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times