Russia has always seen Egypt as a major regional player in the Middle East and North Africa. Its strategy towards the most populous Arab country and the region since 2014 exhibits several parallels when compared to the Soviet Union’s approach between 1955 and 1967. The Soviet Union leveraged Egypt as a strategic entry point into the region, capitalizing on Egypt’s need to cover the military and developmental aid denied by the West in times of regime crises. Years later, Russia adopted this approach once again, using Egypt as a key foothold in the Middle East and North Africa.
Between 1955 and 1967, military and economic ties between Moscow and Cairo rose against the backdrop of ongoing tensions between Egypt and the United States. After Washington turned down Cairo’s request for military and economic aid in 1955, Egypt turned to the Soviet Union and secured a major arms deal with Czechoslovakia and developmental aid from the Eastern Bloc. Similarly, in 2014, when Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi assumed power and faced a deterioration in Egyptian-American bilateral relations, Cairo once again leaned on Moscow for military and developmental aid and intensified their collaboration in an unmatched manner since former presidents, Anwar al-Sadat and Hosni Mubarak firmly placed Egypt as a strategic ally of the United States.
Egypt-Soviet Relations Under Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in July 1952 after leading a coup with a group of Free Officers against the Egyptian monarchy. By the spring of 1954, he had deposed then head of state General Muhammad Naguib; outlawed political parties and imprisoned communists; and made himself the prime minister. But Egypt soon faced significant crises, both domestically and internationally.
Despite the armistice agreement signed by Israel and Egypt in 1949, clashes between the two countries’ military troops persisted. In February 1955, Israeli forces, following a series of minor clashes, raided Gaza and killed thirty-six Egyptian soldiers and two civilians. Moreover, twenty-nine military personnel and two civilians were wounded. The outcry in Egypt was deafening. Nasser’s legitimacy was questioned within the army and by the wider public space. To salvage a declared objective of the 1952 coup (the creation of a strong national army) and to deliver on the promise of his government to never tolerate Israeli incursions and humiliations, Nasser reached out to the United States for arms. But at that time, the administration of U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower was wanting Egypt to reconsider its opposition to the proposed U.S.-backed Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO); Egypt was dissatisfied with the conditions that America was placing on military aid and feared foreign influence. Other Western capitals were also dissatisfied with Cairo’s nonaligned foreign policies. The United States and its European allies were pushing for the building of military alliances in the region to combat the spread of communism and Soviet influence. Yet Nasser’s Egypt rejected this U.S. push for alliances and even refused to join the Baghdad Pact announced in February 1955 by Türkiye, Iraq, and Iran—likely because the pact included aspects of the vision for MEDO. Instead, Egypt participated in the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in April 1955, helping articulate the basic principles of nonalignment toward either the Western or Eastern Blocs. Along with the governments of Ghana, India, Indonesia, and former Yugoslavia, the Egyptian government played a key role in establishing the Non-Aligned Movement, which was initially joined by Global South countries and sought to take a neutral stance between the two opposing superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. In this context, Western capitals were dissatisfied with Cairo’s foreign policies and did not offer military aid.
In response, Nasser turned to the Eastern Bloc, and Soviet leaders decided to sell arms to Egypt indirectly. In September 1955, the government of former Czechoslovakia agreed to sell Soviet weaponry to Egypt. The sale of jetfighters, tanks, artillery, and other heavy equipment was estimated to be worth $80 million. The “Czechoslovak Arms Deal,” as it came to be known in Egyptian writings about Nasser’s policies in the 1950s, was a groundbreaking development in Soviet engagement with Egypt. It also marked the Soviet Union’s entry into the foray of great-power competition in the Middle East and North Africa.
The arms deal marked the first sale of Soviet weaponry systems in the region, and it was made to a key Arab country that was becoming increasingly opposed to American and European foreign policies. Egypt and its Arab allies perceived this development as illustrating the Soviet and Eastern Block’s backing of Nasser’s decision to (1) reject U.S. promoted military alliances in the Middle East, (2) defend national sovereignty and security without compromising independent foreign policy, and (3) avoid submitting to American and European conditions that support for Egypt be tied to its signing of peace agreements with Israel. The arms deal pushed the regional gates wide open for Soviet involvement, especially with those Arab governments that embraced Nasser’s policies of rejecting Western military domination, upholding nonalignment as a foreign policy doctrine, and promoting national independence movements—exemplified by Egypt’s support for the Algerian independence movement in North Africa and various independence movements across the African continent. Moreover, Arab governments that followed the Egyptian path of nonalignment and independence also refused to forge peace with Israel without a just settlement for the Palestinian people and their national aspirations.
The Soviet’s indirect arms sale to Egypt ultimately set a precedent for similar sales and direct deals with the governments of Syria (starting the 1950s), Iraq (following the abolition of the monarchy in 1958), Algeria (in the 1960s), Libya (post-1969), Sudan (after 1967), and North and South Yemen (in the 1970s and 1980s). The Soviet Union established its influence as a great power competing with the United States in the Middle East and North Africa through the sale of arms and stationing of Soviet military advisers in some Arab countries.
The advent of Soviet military influence paved the way for Moscow to develop deeper economic ties with the Middle East and North Africa, again using Nasser’s Egypt as a port of entry. The combination of outright rejections and humiliating conditions that Western governments imposed on Egypt pushed Cairo to seek alternative sources of aid and funding.
To promote his government’s economic ambitions, Nasser placed high hopes on the building of dams on the Nile River to generate badly needed electricity for industrialization plans and wide-scale cultivation of desert land. Nasser aimed to control water resources and river flooding in order to transform the desert into arable land and enhance agricultural productivity. The High Dam project in Aswan captured his imagination, and his government requested technical and financial support from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (lending arm of the World Bank) and from Western countries. Initially, in mid-December 1955, the World Bank agreed to loan Egypt up to $200 million. In the same month, the United States and Britain also pledged $70 million in aid to the High Dam project.
Western governments attempted to leverage this financial assistance to convince Egypt to cancel the 1955 arms deal with the Soviets, but Nasser did not give up on the deal. Moreover, he cemented Egypt’s position as a neutral force as Radio Cairo called on Arab populations to protest the Baghdad Pact. As a result, the United States and Britain later backtracked their commitment and canceled the pledged financing for the project. In a 1957 State Department memo, then secretary of state John Foster Dulles wrote that “through its arms arrangement with the Soviet bloc, Egypt was increasing its dependence on the Soviets and had mortgaged a considerable part of its foreseeable income.” Additionally, Dulles cited Egypt’s political actions such as “recognition of Communist China, its anti-Western propaganda and determination to enter into arrangements with the Soviet bloc” as “disturbing in view of our announced willingness to assist on what was understood to be Egypt’s major project.”
Nasser responded with the nationalization of the Suez Canal in July 1956. This action was a key demand of the Egyptian national independence movement, which Nasser aimed to embody. By taking this bold step, he aimed to solidify his reputation as a nationalist hero in Egypt and beyond. However, Britain and France—the former colonial powers in the Middle East and North Africa and the primary shareholders of the Suez Canal Corporation before its nationalization—used this event as a pretext to launch a military attack on Egypt a few months later. On October 29, 1956, joined by Israel, the three countries launched the Tripartite Aggression, invading the Sinai Peninsula and the Suez Canal region.
The rapid military advancements of the Tripartite troops came to a halt when the United Nations (UN) issued in November 1956 a resolution stipulating an immediate cessation of hostilities. The UN consensus swiftly received more diplomatic power when the Soviet Union issued a series of letters warning the aggressors to withdraw or otherwise face direct Soviet interference in the war. Similarly, the United States also demanded an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of British, French, and Israeli troops. On November 7, 1956, hostilities stopped. In December 1956, British and French troops withdrew from the Suez Canal region, whereas Israeli troops did not complete their withdrawal from Sinai until March 1957.
The Tripartite Aggression sealed the demise of the regional influence of the two old colonial powers, Britain and France. Moreover, the Soviet Union proved its strategic commitment to anti-Western governments in the Middle East and North Africa and was widely perceived as an ally by Arab independence movements. Nasser advanced to become the charismatic and uncontested hero of Egyptian and Arab nationalism and a regional leader of immense appeal. His strategic collaboration with the Soviet Union for national independence purposes was confirmed, and his anti-imperial policies were approved by popular sentiments that swept the region.
Meanwhile, the High Dam project stagnated for years until Moscow decided to fill the vacuum in 1958. It offered Cairo technical and financial assistance to build the dam. Nikita Khrushchev, then premier of the Soviet Union, offered $100 million for the project, and from this point, economic and trade relations between the two countries expanded, shaping Egyptian societal realities throughout the 1960s. Cairo became the capital of Arab socialism as much as it was the capital of Soviet-supported state-led modernization. The High Dam project became the symbol of Soviet-Egyptian strategic collaboration for developmental purposes, just as the successive arms deals with the Egyptian army were the symbol of the Soviet’s endorsement of Nasser’s independent policies in the Middle East and North Africa. In 1964, Khrushchev visited Egypt to celebrate the end of the first stage of dam construction.
The Soviet Union emerged as Egypt’s foremost international partner. For example, Khrushchev provided crucial military aid for Egypt’s intervention in Yemen in 1962; he wrote in his memoirs, “Nasser wished to transport several military units from the UAR to Yemen, but he did not have airplanes. We sold the UAR [United Arab Republic, or Egypt] several Antonov military transports.” According to U.S. government estimates, between 1955 and 1966, the Soviet Union delivered military equipment worth $1.16 billion to Egypt, including Tu-16 jet medium bombers and Su-7 fighter bombers. Beyond the High Dam project, the Soviet Union extended development aid for the Helwan Steel Mill and other factories.
In conclusion, out of necessity, Egypt leaned on the Soviet Union for support in realizing its national independence goals and ambitious developmental plans. Each time Egypt’s demands for arms and economic and trade ties were declined by the United States and European countries or subjected to conditions regarding its foreign policy choices in the Middle East and North Africa, Nasser’s government moved closer to the Soviets. The Soviet Union, in turn, used its engagement with Egypt to establish a foothold in the region, politically, geostrategically, and economically.
Egypt-Russia Relations Since Sisi
Currently, Russia employs a comparable tactic of filling Western vacuums to make inroads in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly with respect to Egypt. Likewise, facing internal economic difficulties and rocky relations with the United States, Egypt has leveraged support from Russia to accomplish its own goals.
From a bird’s-eye view, both countries see each other as important powers in their foreign policy strategies. Since 2014, current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has allowed Russia to position itself as an alternative source of economic and military collaboration; the approach fits right into his strategy of balancing Egypt’s relationships with Russia and the West.
In 2014, when Sisi visited Russia for the first time in Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised that his country would increase bilateral trade, especially with regard to agricultural products. Through promoting other relationships in addition to its collaboration with the United States and European countries, Egypt began to develop closer relations with Russia and China. In a similar vein, as evident from Russia’s latest foreign policy concept and as Putin enters his fifth term, Russia’s foreign policy approach to the region has been informed by a few key interests, ranging from economic development, to anti-terrorism, to political balancing. In the latest foreign policy concept published in 2023, Russia outlines Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Türkiye as key states in the Islamic world to develop relations with; and Russia intends to “deepen the multifaceted mutually beneficial partnership.”
In terms of military collaboration, Egypt has inched closer to Russia amid fluctuating U.S. aid policies. In a strategic recalibration, Egypt has pivoted toward Russia to diversify its foreign military aid sources, actively broadening its military alliances beyond the established partnership with the United States, albeit to a limited degree. Sisi’s ambition to further military capabilities propelled Egypt to become the third-largest arms importer between 2017 and 2021. Between 2016 and 2021, Russia replaced the United States as the largest arms exporter to Egypt, reaching a peak in 2017. The orders included, for example, surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, anti-ship missiles, and combat aircraft. The Egyptian ambition to procure Russia’s most advanced combat jetfighter, the Su-35, was a thorny issue between Egypt and the United States up until the procurement came to a halt.
Evidently, Egypt leverages its relationship with Russia whenever suitable and without risking a protracted crisis with the United States and European countries. Concurrently, Russia harnesses its relationship with Egypt, the region’s most populous country, to regain and reinforce its influence in the Middle East and North Africa. And in doing so, Russia has challenged the established influence of the United States. Military cooperation and aid have been traditional Russian tools in this regard. In speaking about bilateral relations with Egypt, Russia’s foreign minister said, “We continue to expand our strategic partnership in all areas, including the economy, trade, and the investment sector. . . . Military and military-technical ties occupy a very important place.”
It is important to contextualize Russian-Egyptian military cooperation against the backdrop of unsteady U.S. assistance to Egypt. In 2013, the administration of U.S. president Barack Obama suspended military aid to Egypt, but then changed its policy in 2015 and sent twelve F-16 fighter jets, twenty missiles, and up to 125 tank kits to Egypt. (While U.S. aid was suspended, Russia and Egypt signed a preliminary arms deal in September 2014, worth $3.5 billion.) Similarly, in August 2017, the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump withheld about $195 million and denied $100 million aid to Egypt, citing human rights concerns. A year later, however, Washington authorized $1.2 billion military aid for Egypt, including the amounts previously withheld. The administration of President Joe Biden allowed most of the allocated U.S. military aid to go through for Egypt in 2023, withholding only about $85 million.
In its FY2024 budget, the Biden administration proposed a bilateral aid package for Egypt totaling $1.4 billion, mirroring the amount allocated by Congress in the preceding year. For the United States, military cooperation with Egypt enables unhindered access to the Suez Canal and a vital role in larger regional security, especially in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Meanwhile, Egypt continues to leverage its relationship with Russia to secure arms sales and to pressure the United States into maintaining its aid commitments. Russia, on other hand, is aware that it will not replace the United States but takes advantages of arms sales for economic benefits and to disrupt American influence in the region.
Regarding expanding economic ties, in 2022, Russia was the sixth-largest source of Egyptian imports, a position that has remained relatively stable since 2014. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s share of total Egyptian wheat imports has increased, rising from 50 percent in 2021 to 57 percent in 2022. Russian foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in Egypt between 2014 and 2022 were insignificant compared to American and European FDI in Egypt, according to data from the Egyptian central bank. Between 2021 and 2022, Russian FDI net flow was $34 million, just shy of Jordanian FDI in Egypt during the same period, for example; and while the Russian FDI net flow increased to $122.6 million in 2023, this was less than one-tenth of the European Union’s FDI net flow ($1857.2 million) that year.
Beyond trade, the two nations’ most significant collaboration has been over the construction of a nuclear power plant. Long before the El Dabaa project, Egypt has been interested in purchasing a power reactor from the United States. In 1974, Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat struck a deal with the United States for eight reactors. However, the deal never came to fruition because “the United States introduced new conditions in the late 1970s that Egypt found unacceptable.” Russia offered to help Egypt bring its nuclear power plant ambitions to life after a decade of uncertainty. In 2008, under Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Egypt and the American company Bechtel signed a $180 million, ten-year contract for designing and consulting on the country’s first nuclear power plant. But as talks stalled between the two sides, Egypt eventually dropped Bechtel as a partner. In 2017, Sisi and Putin signed a deal on Egypt’s first nuclear plant, with a loan from Russia. The El Dabaa project aligns perfectly with the Egyptian government’s hope to expand power generation capacity. The nuclear power plant also marks the largest economic cooperation effort between the two countries since the Aswan High Dam.
Russia agreed to provide funding for 85 percent, or $25 billion, of the total construction cost, at a time when Egypt was recovering from acute foreign exchange shortage and few foreign countries indicated interest in providing entire power plants. Moscow also agreed to supply nuclear fuel for the plant for sixty years and to handle the transfer and storage of depleted nuclear fuel from the reactors, further tying the two countries together. Most recently, Egypt has confirmed that the trial operation will begin by late 2027, and the plant will provide 7.2 to 7.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas each year at its full capacity. The El Dabaa will include four light-water reactors for electricity production, each with a 1,200-megawatt output.
For Russia, the nuclear power plant in Egypt is yet another example of the success of its nuclear exports’ schemes. These exports agreements not only generate revenues for Moscow but also lead to deep diplomatic engagement in the long term because construction of nuclear power plants requires a prolonged Russian presence. In Türkiye, Russia has been constructing a 4,800-megawatt facility in Akkuyu since 2010, and when completed, it will be the first nuclear power plant in the country. In 2012, the United Arab Emirates and Russia signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement, potentially opening the door for future contracts with Russian companies to provide nuclear technology or construct reactors. In 2015, Russia signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, although no significant developments have resulted from it. Recently, in March 2024, Russia’s Rosatom state-run energy corporation and Algeria’s Ministry of Energy and Mining agreed on a road map to collaborate on peaceful nuclear energy applications in Sochi, Russia.
These examples and others illustrate Russia’s contemporary strategy of leveraging Egypt as an entry point into the Middle East and North Africa. But the strategy is not all together new: it mirrors the Soviet Union’s historical approach, which capitalized on Egypt’s internal challenges and strained relations with the United States. Like before, the contemporary dynamic has also fostered a mutually beneficial and highly opportunistic relationship for Egypt, which seeks to balance its foreign relations and diversify its military and economic partnerships. Faced with fluctuating U.S. aid policies, Egypt has, once again, turned to Russia for military cooperation and economic support.
Soviet and Russian Continuities
In conclusion, under Nasser, especially between 1955 and 1967, the constant rejection of Egyptian demands for military and development aid by Western powers pushed Cairo closer to the Soviet Union. When faced with instability at the Egypt-Israel borders and domestic economic conundrums, Nasser’s government sought to leverage Soviet aid to fulfill its ambitious military and industrial plans. For Nasser, these plans were integral to meeting the country’s national independence aspirations, such as the strengthening of military capabilities and the construction of the Aswan High Dam. The Soviet Union, filling the vacuum left by Western powers, increased its influence in the Middle East and North Africa through military, economic, and developmental support for Egypt. This alliance not only provided Egypt with much-needed resources, but also enabled the Soviet Union to establish a significant geopolitical presence in the region and gain entry to other Middle Eastern and North African nations.
In taking a different policy approach, Sadat and Mubarak pursued several significant deals with the United States during their presidencies. But these deals did not come to fruition and eventually prompted Cairo to once more turn to Moscow. Since 2014, Sisi has aimed to diversify his country’s military and economic alliances by hedging its bets between different superpowers.
Russia, seizing the opportunity to fill another vacuum, has adopted the Soviet Union’s historical tactics to expand economic ties and influence in the region. Amid inconsistent U.S. aid, Egypt has increasingly relied on Russia for military support and economic investment, exemplified by the pivotal El Dabaa nuclear power plant project.
Examining the historical and contemporary dynamics of the Russian-Egyptian relationship is essential, as it reveals how regional players leverage great power rivalries to their benefit, thereby influencing the larger geopolitical environment. Egypt’s strategic use of its relationship with the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s served to leverage its national independence and developmental goals in a difficult regional and international environment. Today, Russian-Egyptian collaboration represents a prime example of how a traditional U.S. ally can navigate and exploit competition between major powers to secure military and economic advantages. By aligning with Russia occasionally, Egypt not only mitigates the impact of fluctuating U.S. support but also extracts concessions and benefits from both the United States and Russia.
In this series on Russia in the Middle East and North Africa, Carnegie scholars and external experts analyze how Russia has used various foreign policy tools to mount a recent comeback in the region after years of absence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contributors to the series also examine the impacts of Russian policies on questions of peace, security, and democratic development in the Middle East and North Africa.
