Russia-Latin America: Is El Salvador’s “Cool” Strongman Cozying Up To Putin?

-Analysis-

In early June, Nayib Bukele began his second term as president of El Salvador. After completing his first five-year term, the 42-year-old remains extremely popular in the Central American country, mainly for his successful clampdown on rampant gang violence. He has become a kind of rock star of regional politics, and is at times called a “cool dictator” for mixing a no-nonsense approach to governance with an apparently easy, approachable style.

Unnerving to European observers, he is already being invoked by conservatives keen to crush crime elsewhere in Latin America.

One of the more discreet guests at his inaugural ceremony was the Russian ambassador in Nicaragua and acting ambassador in El Salvador, Alexander Khokholikov. The chief backer of the region’s three socialist regimes (Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela), Russia may also want this new kid on the block as its friend — especially as the millennial president has yet to clearly pick his camp within the global showdown of East and West.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not a stickler for ideological labels. While keen to make Russia a fitting successor to the communist Soviet Union, he would befriend any dictator or aspiring dictator willing to align himself with Russian objectives or showing the slightest interest in doing so. He will happily hug Kim Jong-un, high-five the Saudi crown prince or flatter Bukele if need be — should Bukele contemplate “going rogue.”

Russia and El Salvador: Burgeoning Relations?

While he claims to be against Western imperialism, Putin’s foreign policy is alternately ideological, dogmatic, anti-democratic, nationalist and imperialist — depending on one’s perspective. While China broadly seeks economically profitable relations with any country that does not recognize Taiwan as a state, Putin has actively sought confrontation with the West and liberal democracies.

His ambassador’s presence in El Salvador as guest of honor may be surprising given Russia’s leftist ties in the region, but is hardly coincidental.

Russia is willing to work with any leader with a healthy disdain for democracy.

After the inauguration, El Salvador Vice President Felix Ulloa visited the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, where he stated his country’s interest in boosting bilateral collaborations in energy and infrastructures. For that, Russia would first have to open an embassy, he added, also floating the possibility of a state visit by Bukele or Putin.

Another sign has been Bukele’s failure so far to condemn the Ukraine invasion. Even more sinister was Bukele’s 2014 tweet effectively calling Ukrainians fascists: “In Ukraine, pro-Russians hold elections while fascists shoot at them,” he wrote in reference to the referendum on Crimea’s annexation.

Finally, Khokholikov’s role in this rapprochement suggests Nicaragua may have acted as a bridge. Bukele is not close to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, mainly due to differences in ideology. But his early criticisms of Ortega have now softened in tone to sound like nuanced complicity.

The risk for Latin America

Russia’s attempted seduction of El Salvador reveals at least two points. First, Russia is not just fond of leftist regimes that echo the Soviet Union’s historical allies. It is willing to work with any leader with a healthy disdain for democracy. Second, with this approach, it could also team up with interested elements of the radical or far right. Even Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei, could find an ally in Putin should he seek him out.

Bukele could become Putin’s most valuable ally in the region, given his popularity and growing influence. In contrast to neighboring communist leaders and their legacy of economic failures, Bukele has drastically reduced crime, promised to kickstart the economy and has people listening to him. For now at least, he has prospects.

Bukele has insisted he is not another tropical dictator.

But he has also made a big deal of his democratic credentials, insisting he is not another tropical dictator — let alone a “stooge of imperialism,” as Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called him. So choosing Putin as a friend may become problematic in time, especially if the U.S. President Joe Biden is reelected in November.

This budding relation would also threaten regional democracy. As in Europe, liberal democracy in the Americas is under pressure from the extremes of the left and right, and whatever the labels in this case, another country joining a gang of rogues can hardly bode well for fair and lawful governance.