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> ...the United Arab Emirates (UAE) accused of backing the RSF with supplies and mercenaries...
And also helping to launder Hemedti's gold via Dubai. https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflict-resources/ex...
By JumpCrisscross 2025-11-0120:282 reply China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, (EDIT: the UK, indirectly) and Egypt have each also supplied weapons into this conflict [1]. Presumably due to Sudan’s position on the Red Sea. (China and the UAE seem to be alone in supplying the RSF, though.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_civil_war_(2023%E2%80...
The other complication is the surprising contributions of various African countries. Ethiopia had supported the RSF until 2024, and Kenya hosted an RSF conference in Feb 2025. Haftar in Libya supported RSF before the war, but may have changed positions as his Russian backers turned against the RSF in 2024. The RSF also has some ties to rebels in South Sudan as well as in Chad. Chad in particular gave shelter to the RSF at the behest of the UAE, but has also seized arms shipments that were intended for the RSF. Russia as noted was sympathetic to the RSF until mid-2024, when they switched sides.
When the war initially broke out, some articles in The Economist seemed somewhat agnostic between the two sides, noting that both had serious corruption issues and had committed many abuses. But as the war has progressed, the RSF seems to have revealed itself to be the far more vicious faction, and the red E along with the rest of the Western media now sees their advances as a tragedy. Unfortunately, the one constant here is the general failure of foresight among nearly all countries of the global North (whether aligned with the West or Russia) getting involved in Africa. If the brutality of the RSF had been better anticipated in 2023, the current situation might have been prevented.
By bobthepanda 2025-11-021:21 I don’t think there was, or is, a lot of stomach to more serious intervention in Sudan. Libya and Haiti went sideways.
By pdabbadabba 2025-11-0121:091 reply Got evidence that they supplied weapons? GP’s Wikipedia article does not seem to say that they did (apart from an unclear reference to US military aid, which I don’t think refers to US military aid to Sudan specifically).
By victorbjorklund 2025-11-0122:17 says it was not supplied by US/UK but rather UAE.
By JumpCrisscross 2025-11-0120:491 reply I didn’t know British weapons made it to the RSF. Wow. Have American weapons been used in the war?
By kjs3 2025-11-0123:37 It would be very strange if American weapons weren't used in a conflict this big, which is a very different question from "did the US government sell weapons into this war".
How come dubai hasn’t experienced any sanctions yet? They’ve been laundering everything for ages, esp Russian oil. How are they so immune to this?
By JumpCrisscross 2025-11-0120:133 reply > How come dubai hasn’t experienced any sanctions yet?
The UAE has crafted itself as a new Switzerland. (Qatar is trying to copy, but clumsily.)
They buy American weapons and financial assets, making them influential. They’ve also established themselves as a logistics hub in an important logistics channel to the West and Asia. (They also pitch their balancing effect on Saudi Arabia skillfully.)
By vjvjvjvjghv 2025-11-0121:21 Also invested in soccer clubs.
By TacticalCoder 2025-11-020:37 [dead]
> The UAE has crafted itself as a new Switzerland
And whenever someone is talking fondly about UAE that's all you need to know about that person
The comment merely said UAE has become strategically influential in finance, transport (cargo shipping (#5 in world), world's busiest international passenger airport), tourism. Nothing about being fond.
5% GDP growth in non-oil. More diversified than Saudi. #2 globally for being "easy to do business in and with". Top-10 in Global Soft Power Index since 2023 [0], rose from #18 in 2020. Dubai has become a global influencer capital.
Looks like the US is backing UAE as Saudi wanes, and as a regional counterweight.
If we're talking about Switzerland, yes it's a federal republic with semi-direct democracy, but it also happily supplied mercenaries to mainland Europe for several centuries.
By nixass 2025-11-021:31 I never said anything about the OP, just merely adding to his point on what has UAE become
By Brian_K_White 2025-11-0123:591 reply Perhaps, but that comment did not speak fondly about UAE.
One might say your own comment tells everyone all they need to know about you.
By nixass 2025-11-021:32 > Perhaps, but that comment did not speak fondly about UAE.
Where did I say I'm referring to OP? I'm merely adding to his point on what UAE is today
By JumpCrisscross 2025-11-0120:381 reply > whenever someone is talking fondly about UAE that's all you need to know about that person
I’ve heard that line about Qatar, Uruguay, Singapore, Malta, Cyprus, the Maldives, and countless other small states.
I grew up in Switzerland. Folks like to compare themselves to us, mostly due to complete ignorance of our actual history and culture.
It’s true in part and misses the point in others. Geopolitically, however, the observation is sound. Small states need a powerful protector far away or to balance their position between nearby large states. The latter only works in mountainous hellholes and on peninsulas (provided your larger neighbor(s) can’t blockade you; if they can, you need a foreign guarantor with a blue-water navy, of which historically there have only been one or two at a time).
(You know Switzerland is a weapons exporter, right? To the U.S. But also to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Hungary. One could almost say that folks who conclude intent from a place of ignorance communicate “all you need to know about” themselves.)
By idiotsecant 2025-11-0120:542 reply I think the connotation of 'being Switzerland' has less to do with the modern state of Switzerland and more to do with the ... Unsavory things Switzerland has historically been a part of.
By esseph 2025-11-0121:10 It's way more basic than that if you ask the average person. "Swiss neutrality/ banking"
By kakacik 2025-11-0121:22 Most of them are patently incorrect, and most of those don't even care to educate themselves since they keep repeating cheap stuff they heard from other bright people and that's it. How many heard about accepting refugees despite being literally surrounded by axis and facing starvation of their own people (how many nations would do that including yours), or not-so-secret massive collaboration with western allies while on surface acting as neutral ie Campione d'Italia, and so on and on).
They were neutral in WWII like ie Spain was, think a bit what does it actually means. Not participating in conflict in any way. So they accepted both jewish and nazi gold or art, and everybody's else. If you want to understand why some of that was kept around after the war maybe reading about numbered accounts would enlight you. If you actually care to understand history as it happened.
Hitler had plans to conquer Switzerland after dealing with Russia, he was aware that they were 'most free and most armed nation in the world', fiercely independent and taking them would cost him dearly not only due to terrain.
Literally nobody had come out of WWII with properly clean slate, you just need to dig (not even deep) to find abhorable stuff on everybody, to different volume of course. Swiss have no problem acknowledging their mistakes, much more than most other nations.
By harrall 2025-11-0123:48 They are stable and predicable. If you lend them some money, you can expect to still have it next year.
Not calling Dubai the devil but you could make deals with the devil if the devil was known to religiously fulfill his contracts.
There are a lot of places where you don’t know whether their currency or political system could be rocked next year.
By ponector 2025-11-0121:25 And Qatar is sponsoring and hosting Hamas. Everyone looks the other way, where billions of dollars are.
By nradov 2025-11-0120:30 The UAE is pretty good at playing both sides so they always come out ahead. They act as a key diplomatic intermediary and host a major US military base which is essential to projecting power in the region.
Just wanna plug the most thorough and useful video I've seen on the history of this conflict. The US, Russia, and many other players are more heavily involved in this conflict than is often discussed in media. It breaks down the specific ways many international players are profiting from the conflict and helps makes sense of the motives driving it
By Wazzymandias 2025-11-0123:511 reply It's not a conflict, it's a genocide
By culi 2025-11-020:46 Yes ofc. The RSF is just the rebranded Janjaweed which were legally classified as having committed genocide. But they never faced any international consequences and here they are committing genocide once again. It's also a major conflict though as the SAF is the major oppositional force fighting against the RSF. SAF was the military that took control after a democratic revolution pushed out the dictator Omar al-Bashir
Sudan is the 3rd largest producer of gold in Africa but it remains the poorest country in Africa because the companies that exploit those resources are never Sudanese.
The RSF got their weapons by acting as mercenaries for the UAE to fight against the Houthis in Yemen. Fighting as a mercenary is pretty much the only reliable source of income for many people in the country.
From wikipedia :
On examination of photos and videos of weapons used in the conflict that were posted on social media, the rights group identified that companies registered in China, Iran, Russia, Serbia, and the UAE were associated with the weapons provided to RSF.[96] Human Rights Watch reviewed images of show crates with markings indicating they were manufactured in 2020 and initially acquired by the UAE Armed Forces in through a contract with Adasi, a subsidiary of UAE-based weapons manufacturer Edge Group. A January 2024 report by the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan deemed the UAE's alleged support to the RSF as "credible"
According to Business Insider, "The two generals helped Russian President Vladimir Putin exploit Sudan's gold resources to help buttress Russian finances against Western sanctions and fund his war in Ukraine."[108]
By culi 2025-11-020:55 Yes, to clarify the primary international players:
Russia: initially supported the RSF, then at one point was trading with both sides, and in 2024/2025 fully switched sides to back the SAF
Iran: stayed out of it until 2024 when it finally backed the SAF which caused a major turning point in the conflict
UAE/the US: the main player responsible for RSF's rise. It hired out RSF mercenaries to fight the Houthis in Yemen. At one point there were more than 40,000 RSF mercenaries (mostly between the ages of 14-17) in Yemen. It continues to be the primary funder of the RSF
Israel: the RSF buys surveillance tech and weapons from Israel
Saudi Arabia: the largest smuggler of (illegally acquired) gold from RSF. A major source of funding for the RSF
China: doesn't directly deal with either side but Chinese-made weapons were found in the hands of the RSF mostly through the UAE reselling them. The SAF also has some Chinese made weapons through Russia and Turkey
tl;dr: it's a very complex disaster but international players simply don't have an interest in ending it. The SAF is the main opposition to the genocidal RSF, but they are also uninterested in maintaining the democracy that the people fought for and the sides backing the SAF (mostly Iran, and now Russia) are likely hoping to continue their exploitation of gold if they defeat the RSF
By cm2012 2025-11-0121:55 Modern Belgian congo
