On 27 October 2023, the same day the Brotherhood Alliance issued a statement announcing Operation 1027, their military operation “aimed at eradicating the military dictatorship that the entire Myanmar population is united in opposing”, the National Unity Government’s (NUG) Ministry of Defence stated that they would “join forces with the Brotherhood Alliance in Operation 1027. We will actively engage in the required operations to collaborate effectively in their endeavours.” The NUG’s rather ambiguous statement seems to imply that Operation 1027 was not their initiative. It most likely was not, and it could hardly have been a coincidence that fighting erupted shortly after China had begun a crackdown on the scam centres operating from sanctuaries near or in more or less the same areas as the heaviest fighting took place.
Now, the problem has been dealt with, and the Chinese must be very pleased with the outcome of the Brotherhood Alliance’s campaign. But it would be too simplistic to look at Operation 1027 as a Chinese conspiracy, or to underestimate the antijunta sentiments and determination of the Brotherhood Alliance, the allied Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and local People’s Defence Forces (PDF) to fight for what they believe in. Resistance is everywhere, in the ethnic minority-inhabited frontier areas as well as in central Myanmar, and it is homegrown and genuine. But the importance of the China factor should not be overlooked. The SAC is universally hated and large parts of the country are ablaze, and that has also provided China with a golden opportunity to intervene more directly in Myanmar’s domestic affairs. China, the only country with a foot in every camp, has once again managed to act as peacemaker. Several ceasefire agreements have been reached in northern Shan State and, in April 2024 in Rakhine State as well. But those have been short-lived and there seems to be no end in sight for the most intense civil war Myanmar has experienced since the years immediately following independence in 1948.
Beijing’s long-term objectives remain the same: to exploit Myanmar’s natural resources and, most importantly, to secure the so-called China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) which gives it strategic access to the Indian Ocean. To achieve those goals, China has always played all sides in Myanmar’s internal conflicts and it is therefore not, it should be remembered, in China’s interest to see the emergence of a strong, peaceful, democratic and federal Myanmar. As long as Myanmar is weak, China can play official games of being a “friendly neighbour” and “peacemaker
and, at the same time, use a carrot-and-stick approach with whatever government is in power: trade coupled with investment on the one hand and indirect support for the ethnic armies on the other. If Myanmar ever became exactly that – strong, peaceful, democratic and federal – China would be the first to lose. The leverage China has today inside Myanmar would be gone. But then China does not want to see the situation get totally out of hand either, because that would mean serious instability in the frontier areas and, most likely, an unwanted flood of refugees across its border.
Apart from China, the only other major country that has close relations with the SAC is Russia, a new player to be reckoned with on the Myanmar chessboard. The friendly relationship that has been established in recent times between the militaries of the two countries was clearly shown when a group of Russian and Myanmar officers met for a party in Yangon on 31 January 2021. The mood was festive and the vodka flowed freely. They were celebrating the opening of a military high-tech multimedia complex in which the children of Min Aung Hlaing have a financial interest. But they also toasted the coup that was going to be launched in the morning. The troublesome civilians who had raised questions about arms purchases from Russia and tried to interfere in military affairs in other ways would be dealt with once and for all.
In June, Min Aung Hlaing, who was on a visit to Moscow, told Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu that, “thanks to Russia, our army has become one of the strongest in the region”. A year later, foreign minister Sergey Lavrov visited Naypyitaw and said that his government was “in solidarity with the efforts aimed at stabilising the situation in the country”, thus using the same expression as the SAC does to justify its attempts to crush the resistance. Thus, Russia has been blunter and far less diplomatic in its relations with the coup-makers than China, which is playing its cards much more carefully.
Cooperation between Russia and Myanmar began in the 1990s, when the Myanmar military sought to diversify its sources of procurement in the hope of lessening its dependence on China. Boycotts and sanctions had made it impossible to acquire military hardware from the West, so the ruling generals turned to Russia. They knew that Moscow would not be concerned about human rights violations and the suppression of pro-democracy movements, and, consequently, Myanmar became a lucrative market for the Russian war industry.
Russia sold its first consignment of four MiG-29 jet fighters to Myanmar in 2001. That sale was followed by another ten MiGs in 2002. In 2006, the state-owned Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG, now restructured as the United Aircraft Corporation, opened an office in Yangon. The Myanmar Air Force has also acquired at least nine Russian-made Mi-35 Hind helicopter gunships, as well as twelve Mi-17 transport helicopters. The Hinds, used during an offensive against the KIA in 2012–13 and in Kokang in 2015, are now in use all over the country against the various forces opposing the rule of the SAC.
Russia has also sold heavy machine guns and rocket launchers to Myanmar and, before the Russians launched a full-scale military operation against Ukraine in February 2022, Russian-made tanks and armoured personnel carriers were obtained through arms dealers in Kyiv. Not surprisingly, the SAC came out in support of Russia’s invasion. In an interview with the Burmese language service of Voice of America shortly after the invasion, SAC spokesperson General Zaw Min Tun cited the reasons for the junta’s stand on the issue: “Number one is that Russia has to consolidate its sovereignty. I think this is the right thing to do. Number two is to show the world that Russia is a world power.”
Moreover, the Myanmar military has sent personnel to training facilities in Russia, including the Omsk Armor Engineering Institute, the Air Force Engineering Academy in Moscow, the Nizhniy Novgorod Command Academy and the Kazan Military Command Academy. Others have been serving as cadets with the Russian Air Force. Probably as many as 5,000 Myanmar officers, soldiers and scientists have studied in Russia since the early 1990s, more than from any other Southeast Asian country.
Furthermore, in 2007, Russia signed an agreement to build a nuclear research reactor in Myanmar, but construction has yet to be started and may not ever materialise.8 But the plan was revived in February 2023 when Min Aung Hlaing met with Alexey Evgenievich Likhachev, director general of the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, or Rosatom, somewhere near Yangon to inaugurate what was called a “nuclear power information centre”. It was described in the media as a step toward developing atomic power to fill energy shortages in Myanmar.
As another sign of the growing friendship between the two militaries, Russian officers have been guests of honour at Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day celebrations in Naypyitaw. Among the most prominent is deputy defence minister Alexander Vasilyevich Fomin, who, on 27 March 2021, attended the event dressed in his full colonel-general attire. Fomin was back in Naypyitaw in March 2024, and then ostensibly to visit religious sites in the new capital.
Min Aung Hlaing and other military leaders may not yet be welcome in China, but they have paid numerous visits to Russia. Min Aung Hlaing was there only a few months after the coup, and Ko Ko, the SAC-appointed head of its election committee, went to Moscow in March 2024 to observe the presidential election. While in the Russian capital, he met Central Election Commission chairwoman Ella Pamfilova and, rather ominously, they reportedly “discussed bilateral cooperation in electoral processes”.
On the soft power side, the Russian language is being taught at Yangon University of Foreign Languages and there is a Russian cultural centre in the old capital as well. There may not be many people in Myanmar who are eager to study Russian, but Moscow’s schemes for closer links with Myanmar’s military leadership were helped when the West turned its backs on Myanmar in the wake of the forced exodus of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingyas in 2017. Russia and China have in their capacity as permanent members of the UN Security Council consistently used their veto powers to block any attempts to take action against the iron-fisted rule of the Myanmar generals.
Excerpted with permission from The Golden Land Ablaze: Coups, Insurgents and the State in Myanmar, Bertil Lintner, Context/Westland.
