Via Bloomberg, a report on how Russia is competing for influence – and money – in diverse, yet depleted waters:

The Great African Expedition launched from the Baltic port of Kaliningrad in August 2024. An orchestra played “When the Saints Go Marching In” and a priest blessed the crews with holy water. Officials rang a bell. Among them were the son of Vladimir Putin’s judo partner, and Russia’s deputy prime minister.

Three ships left over the next few months. The Atlantniro, a square-towered, 62-meter-long research ship, departed for Mauritania. A few days later, the Kruzenshtern, a four-masted training ship, headed south to Morocco. Another research boat, the Atlantida, then set off in early November to take the long route around Africa to Mozambique.

The expedition was ostensibly a scientific mission ordered by Putin himself: to help African allies map out their stocks of fish. But Kremlin officials have made no secret of their desire to increase Russia’s maritime access as global powers compete for influence and lucrative new troves of resources.

Under heavy sanctions following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia stepped up its courting of African governments with offers of military cooperation, weapons, grain and fertilizers. It’s also targeted the continent with soft power initiatives and tapped into anti-colonial sentiment. Fishing adds another dimension.

The industry represents several billions of dollars of hard currency to Russia, which is modernizing its fleet and searching for new waters to work in. Africa, with its over-fished but under-policed seas, only makes up a small fraction of Russia’s income at the moment, and it wants more.

The Kremlin is seizing the chance, portraying Russia as a trusted partner to African coastal communities that say European Union, Chinese and other international vessels have shut out local fishers, critically depleted their waters and threatened livelihoods and local economies.

In several countries where the Great African Expedition docked, negotiations for commercial access and deals followed. In the final months of the project, Moscow secured an agreement to fish in Morocco’s waters and is working to finalize one with Sierra Leone.

“Like we’ve seen with gold and other minerals, diamonds, and to some extent oil and gas, Russia sees an opportunity to expand its fishing in African exclusive economic zones,” said Joseph Siegle, senior research scholar at University of Maryland in College Park who studies Russia’s influence in Africa. “It’s certainly ramping up its interest in Africa.”

---

Fisheries form a large part of economies in many African countries, making data on fish stocks a highly coveted strategic asset, but few governments have resources to conduct regular searches. West Africa, meanwhile, has become the global epicenter of illegal fishing, losing up to $9.4 billion a year to unreported and unregulated catches, according to estimates from the Financial Transparency Coalition.

Putin said African “friends” asked him for help, and he obliged. In a congratulatory letter to eventual expedition participants, he said it would help ensure food security for the continent.

Officials have emphasized the mission’s collaborative nature, with local African researchers joining on board. The expedition has built, they say, on scientific exchanges during the Cold War. Back then, the Soviets supported the anti-colonial struggle in Africa and countries in the Communist bloc would regularly send experts to African states while granting scholarships to students to attend Soviet universities.

“Almost everywhere we find understanding and our long-term connection with these countries,” said Konstantin Bandurin, who runs the Atlantic division of the marine research institute that helped coordinate the expedition. “Many heads of institutes were trained in the Soviet Union and have good memories,” he said in a video call during the mission. “We recently held negotiations with Cameroon, and the director there spoke to us freely in Russian.”

---

During the Soviet era, Moscow controlled the world’s largest fishing fleet, with thousands of trawlers providing protein for citizens while generating valuable non-ruble income.

Today, the fleet is outnumbered by that of China’s, but it’s building new-generation vessels capable of processing its catch on board. In Africa, Russia sees a chance to secure access to food and open up markets for exports, according to one recently retired high-ranking Russian diplomat.

It also sees an opportunity to use this emerging cooperation to discuss other sensitive issues like military and political cooperation, the former diplomat said on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media.

“Our fishery companies are interested in cooperation on the African continent and they’re doing investments,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Bloomberg News. ”They’re going to continue to invest.”

The expedition’s surveys will help orient Russia’s commercial ships toward Africa, Bandurin said by email. “The scale of the Russian presence may well be significantly increased,” he said. Ilya Shestakov, the head of the country’s fisheries agency Rosrybolovstvo (and son of Putin’s childhood friend and judo partner), declined to comment via his press office.

The global seafood trade is valued at more than $160 billion and consumption is poised to surge 80% by the middle of the century because of emerging markets and Asia. Thanks to demand there, Russia’s fish exports are set to reach $6 billion this year, helping to offset restrictions in Western markets.

---

In May, the EU sanctioned two of Russia’s fishing companies over espionage and sabotage activities, while Norway also denied them access to its ports and waters and fishing licenses. In the US, President Donald Trump renewed his predecessor’s ban on Russian seafood imports.

“Particularly now, seafood is also one of the valuable sources of economic fuel to the war,” said Frode Nilssen, professor at the Arctic University of Norway and author of a book on Russia’s role in the global food trade. “Russia needs hard currency.”

The task of the Kruzenshtern, a grand, century-old vessel given to the USSR by Germany as war reparations, was mainly public relations. A few weeks after leaving Kaliningrad, it docked in the Moroccan port city of Agadir for a photo opportunity with the local Russian community and diplomatic corps.

The Atlantniro and the Atlantida, however, are equipped with oceanographic, acoustic, and other advanced scientific instruments that lets them survey the seabed and conduct detailed studies of fisheries. Over the year, the two ships plied the waters. Hairtail, cleaver, redfin sea bream, barracuda, scorpionfish, silver John Dory and young schools of West African horse mackerel were logged in regular updates on the mission’s Telegram channel.

Gaining access wasn’t always straightforward. The Atlantniro reached Senegal in June, less than a year after the country’s fishing agreement with the EU ended.

After considering seven Russian requests, the government granted one-month access to its waters on condition the expedition shares the data and works with local researchers, according to Ismaila Ndiaye, an official at the fisheries ministry.

Senegal’s own research boat broke down a few years ago and hasn’t been replaced. But local officials decided not to publicize the arrival of the Russians. The presence of foreign vessels, even for purely scientific purposes, so soon after the demise of the EU accord “could be misinterpreted,” Ndiaye said.

---

Fishing communities in Senegal are dealing with the consequences of foreign vessels, be they Chinese, European or the last time they arrived from Russia.

In Joal-Fadiouth, about 100 kilometers down the coast from Dakar, almost everyone depends on fishing: the fishermen, their families, factory workers, truck drivers, even the tailor. At a wharf just north of the town, young men in raincoats and flip-flops rush to unload the day’s catch of silver dorade, red mullet and white grouper from brightly painted wooden pirogues.

The catch has been drying up in recent years. Destructive methods like bottom trawling, or scooping out small species like sardinella for fish meal, have all but exhausted supplies vital for local communities. Business has slumped at the town’s last remaining frozen fish factory, its last competitor shutting down earlier this year. “If this continues, in five years you will no longer see any fishermen,” said Abdou Karim Sall, a former fisher in his 50s. He became a beekeeper, while his son followed thousands of others by risking the dangerous passage to Europe via the Canary Islands.

Today, more than 50% of fish stocks in the waters spanning the Strait of Gibraltar to the mouth of Congo River are deemed to be at biologically unsustainable levels, a potential food security risk in the area, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.

Sall remembers when Russian factory ships came in 2011. They were enormous vessels that churned up the waters to attract fish to their nets. “It was like a vacuum cleaner,” Sall said.

The boats had been given access to Senegalese waters by the government under then-President Abdoulaye Wade, and fishers joined protests that ultimately forced him out. Wade’s successor campaigned on a promise to end the fisheries agreements and expelled the Russian fleet after he was elected.

Today, shipping data shows hundreds of boats off the coast of West Africa, many from China and European countries, many subsidized by their home governments.

The EU has tried to make the management of its distant fleets more transparent via so-called “sustainable fisheries partnership agreements,” which combine annual payments, funding for policing and research, and monitoring of vessels.

Of the 11 agreements currently in force, nine are with African countries. Critics argue that the deals don’t take into account the needs of fishing communities. European vessels have been found fishing outside the official authorizations, switching flags to local nations to avoid scrutiny and operate beyond their licences.

---

In the past year, Europe’s relationship with some African maritime countries has soured.

In June, Gabon announced that it was ripping up its fisheries partnership with the EU after 18 years due to its “lopsided” nature. The long-standing agreement with Senegal ended in November 2024 because of EU complaints over unauthorized fishing. (For years, local fishermen had raised concerns about illegal practices by foreign fishing vessels.)

“There’s real frustration with regards to how the EU is doing business,” said Dyhia Belhabib, principal investigator on fisheries at Ecotrust Canada, who has researched the exploitation of West African fisheries for more than a decade. “The frustration is there, the spot is free, the Russians are going to take it.”

The Great African Expedition intersected with what Will Brown, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, calls “a vast ecosystem” of pro-Russian information channels and social media influencers.

After Gabon’s decision to end the deal with the EU, Africa Reloaded – an anonymous YouTube channel identified by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab for its pro-Kremlin and anti-Western news content – posted a video hailing the end of “the age of quiet exploitation” rippling across the continent.

Indeed, Russia got commitment from Sierra Leone for 40,000 tons of fish a year and up to 20 Russian vessels, just months after the African government imposed a temporary ban for small-scale fishermen in a bid to revive fish stocks. Unions and marine researchers say overfishing and weak regulation of the fisheries sector has put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk.

The Great African Expedition’s scientists found stocks of several “highly commercial” species, according to Sheku Sei, an official at the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.

Talks on a deal are ongoing. Sierra Leone wants Russia to invest in ports, new vessels and ice-making machines to support local fishers. Sei said he hopes Russia will fly the Sierra Leone flag on its ships, letting the country claim its tuna quota and boost its fishing rights.

In Morocco’s waters, the expedition’s scientists found “good population health” for mackerel and sardines. In October, Shestakov signed a new deal with Morocco’s Foreign Affairs Minister Nasser Bourita, allowing Russian vessels to operate along the “entire Moroccan Atlantic coast,” according to Moroccan state news agency MAP. Russian authorities said the catch will be greater than in the previous deals.

Some environmental campaigners are concerned. After China and Iran, Russia ranks as one of the riskiest for tackling illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, according to the IUU Fishing Risk Index.

“The Russian fleet has never been particularly well behaved wherever they operate,” said Steve Trent, chief executive officer of the Environmental Justice Foundation, a nonprofit that works to expose environmental and human rights abuses in fishing. “They tend to work in darkness with very little reporting on their activities.”

Bandurin, the Russian official, said the expedition’s task was to collect the most “objective and adequate information.” “If we observe that some reserves are not in a very stable state, perhaps we will prepare some proposals for their rational exploitation,” he said.

---

In Senegal, authorities declined to comment on whether a deal with Russia was in the works. But for locals on the coast, recent developments raise concern over the potential return of a fleet they thought the country had gotten rid of for good.

Sall, who once kidnapped the captain of a Chinese fishing vessel as a protest against overfishing, helped to organize demonstrations against the old Russian deal. He met the news of the Atlantniro’s arrival with a combination of anger and resignation. “We thought the battle was over,” he said. “Letting them return would be a disaster.”