Local Editor
The Russians are reportedly mulling the construction of a military base in Yemen.
According to experts, the construction of such a facility is part of the Kremlin’s geostrategic interests in the region as the Russians work to expand their presence in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The former commander-in-chief of Russian naval forces, Admiral Feliks Nikolayevich Gromov, stated that the construction of a military base in the region was of strategic importance since the Gulf of Aden was the meeting point of main international trade routes.
The Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences suggested that Yemen’s Socotra Island would be the ideal location for such a base.
Socotra is one of the biggest Yemeni islands in the Indian Ocean and lies near the Gulf of Aden, some 350 kilometers from the Arabian Peninsula.
Today, it is at the center of a power struggle between Yemen’s fugitive former president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the United Arab Emirates, which occupied the island earlier this year.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
