Moscow cultivates neutral image as Libya quakes
Despite the Russians' nominal condemnation of renewed fighting in Libya and continuing contacts with all the major players, Moscow doesn’t want to see Gen. Khalifa Hifter defeated.
MOSCOW — Russia’s deputy foreign minister and Putin’s special envoy for the MENA region, Mikhail Bogdanov, received a phone call April 6 from Gen. Khalifa Hifter, the commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA).
Hifter, the strongman who controls two-thirds of the Libyan territory, ordered his forces April 4 to make a “victorious march” on Tripoli, the capital of the UN-backed government of Fayez al-Sarraj, supported among other groups by powerful Misrata militias.
The mediation effort by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who at the time was in Libya, failed. Following his meeting with the eastern commander on April 5, Guterres tweeted, “I leave Libya with a heavy heart and deeply concerned. I still hope it is possible to avoid a bloody confrontation in and around Tripoli. The UN is committed to facilitating a political solution and, whatever happens, the UN is committed to supporting the Libyan people.”
As the situation remains highly precarious, outside backers of the warring parties are making their own moves.
