JACQUELINE CHARLES
Updated April 12, 2023, 6:00 PM

The surprising offer from the Kremlin first appeared in a March 2021 tweet. Haiti, the Russian Federation’s foreign ministry’s account said, was entering a new period of “political instability and the largest ever social and economic crisis.”

“Russia is ready to help Haitians restore political stability, maintain internal security and train personnel,” the tweet emphasized.

Three months later, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse welcomed the Russian Federation’s newest and third ambassador accredited to Haiti, Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov. In a June 2, announcement on Twitter, Moïse said the two “discussed the prospects for strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries.”

A month later, Moïse was dead, shot 12 times in his private bedroom in the hills above Port-au-Prince after a group of Haitian Americans, Haitian nationals and former Colombian soldiers failed to kidnap him two weeks earlier when he returned from an overseas trip to Turkey, a visit whose purpose remains shrouded in secrecy.

While Moïse’s brutal assassination exacerbated Haiti’s many problems, it has also plunged the country into even deeper despair with growing lawlessness. The unchecked actions of kidnapping gangs seeking greater control of the Haitian territory not only has the country reeling under unprecedented levels of violence and kidnappings, it has an increasing number of Haitians now desperately looking for help —and allies beyond their borders.

Russia was already trying to use its influence even before Moïse’s July 7, 2021 death. But with the United States distracted by the war in Ukraine and floundering in its attempts to stem the Haitian crisis, Moscow now appears poised to step up its efforts.

A trove of recently released secret U.S. intelligence documents revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s private mercenaries, the Wagner Group, has set its sights on expanding its footprint into Haiti, right under the United States’ nose. While U.S. officials are privately questioning whether Wagner has the bandwidth to deploy any manpower in Haiti, given its losses in Ukraine and commitments abroad, Haiti watchers say they should nevertheless be concerned.

A member of the United Nation Security Council, Russia, which took over the presidency this month, has already demonstrated that it doesn’t miss an opportunity to use the deteriorating security and humanitarian crisis in Haiti to criticize the United States or the international community over their failed policies.

“The Russians, wherever they are, are going to take advantage of whatever perceived weaknesses they see and Haiti is a perceived weakness,” said Luis Moreno, a former acting U.S. ambassador in Haiti. “Putin is growing increasingly desperate and I’m sure he sees an opportunity here to give us a hard time. I’m sure he will.”

Last fall, Russia joined other U.N. members in unanimously agreeing to impose targeted arms embargo, travel bans and asset freezes on individuals in Haiti found to be threatening the country’s security and stability. But two months after the approval of the first U.N. sanctions regime for Haiti, Russia requested a meeting on Haiti where its U.N. ambassador went after the U.S. and Canada.

Vassily Nebenzia accused Canada and the United States of utilizing “unilateral sanctions” against unwanted political figures in Haiti to clear the field by targeting certain political and business figures. Both Canada and the U.S. have been imposing financial sanctions against Haitians, whom they alleged are supporting gangs or involved in corruption.

Blaming “protracted external political engineering” largely for Haiti’s “chronic crisis of statehood, socioeconomic collapse and decomposition of legal institutions,” he hinted at the upcoming uphill battle the U.S. and its supporters may face in trying to get support for a peacekeeping force to Haiti. After failing to get Canada to agree to lead a non-U.N. multilateral “rapid force” to Haiti, Biden administration officials last month told the Miami Herald/McClatchy newspapers that the U.S.’s focus had shifted toward getting a U.N. peacekeeping mission.

“We do have doubts that the option with deployment of an international force may change the situation,” Nebenzia said.

According to the leaked documents, Wagner, which is accused of meddling and destabilizing countries in Africa by the U.S. Treasury Department, was planning on discreetly sending emissaries to Haiti to meet with the government about a private contract to help fight gangs. The time frame of the intelligence report was February, the same month that, according to another document, Wagner personnel traveled to Turkey to purchase weapons and equipment for their forces in Mali and Ukraine.

No discussions with Wagner and Haitian government

A top Haitian government official told the Herald that there has been no discussion between any representative of Wagner and Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has been seeking the assistance of the international community for the deployment of a specialized armed force.

But the source, noting that Henry has no interest in using mercenaries, acknowledged that it doesn’t mean that Russian emissaries may not have been in touch with others in Haiti.

Some Haiti observers are increasingly asking whether using private contractors — an idea Moïse was exploring before his death as a solution to the gang crisis —could be an answer, while others are looking to new allies like Russia

Moreno said he doesn’t see Haiti’s embattled government working with Wagner, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department and is led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is accused of stacking his company with convicted criminals and whom U.S. officials have characterized as a Putin crony.

“Any slim lifeline they have to the Americans and the Canadians and the whole NATO would completely go up in smoke,” Moreno said of Henry’s government. “It would be a disaster for Wagner in many respects and it would be even worse for the Haitian people because these guys are brutal terrorists, internationally recognized criminals. It would be ridiculous.”

Nevertheless, Russia is finding support in Haiti despite its ongoing unprovoked war against Ukraine, which has been condemned by the international community as an illegal invasion.

In February, Haitian opposition leader Sen. Moïse Jean-Charles, known for leading protests with waving Russian flags, announced that he was on his way to Russia in hopes of forging stronger ties. Days later, the former senator announced that he had landed in St. Petersburg, the visit coinciding with the commemoration of the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine by the Kremlin on Feb. 24, 2022.

According to surveys conducted by Premise Data, Inc., Haitians are losing patience with the traditional international community over intervening in Haiti and many are expressing a preference that any such intervention be led by Russia. The findings are the results of six surveys conducted between February and March, in which 2,610 responses were gathered, some of which included video, the company said.

A comparison of the data collected in February compared to March, where the U.N. reported that 208 people had been killed in gang-related violence during the first two weeks, showed that while there was still strong support for a Canada-led military intervention in Haiti, 41% of respondents did not believe its deployment of Royal Canadian Naval ships off the coast of Haiti was effective compared to 26% who felt the same about its deployment of long-range military flights over Port-au-Prince.

With Haitians saying they had more trust in international action than domestic efforts, Russia was preferred by 44% of those surveyed, compared to the United States, which was at 19%. Canada had dropped from 23% to 12%.

“With their politicians discredited and security deteriorating, Haitians are looking to the international community for solutions,” the report said. “While they wait for the gradualist programmes offered by Ottawa and Washington to bear fruit, frustration is building, creating a potential for an alternative ally to fill the vacuum.”

Contacted by the Herald, Melik-Bagdasarov, who is based in Venezuela, directed inquiries to the embassy’s page. While his meeting with Moïse before the president’s death raised eyebrows, relations between Haiti and Russia were formalized back in the mid 1990s, when the outgoing government of the late President René Préval decided to establish diplomatic ties.

The first interactions between the two nations date back to 1821, less than two decades after Haiti declared its independence from France. In a bid to thwart any attack by France, Haiti President Jean Pierre Boyer, according to the historian Louis E. Elie, employed a French general, Jacques Boyé, as an intermediary to present a trade treaty to the Russian government on behalf of Haiti.

Those relations lay dormant for decades, but through the years there were Russians and Ukrainians involved in Haiti, investing in casinos and other industries while a small community of Haitians, consisting mostly of students, sprouted up in Moscow.

It wasn’t until the Moïse administration that the relations between the two countries came to the forefront, with Haiti announcing plans for visa-free travel between the two countries and foes of Moïse flying Russian flags at anti-government demonstrations. Similar flags were seen flying last fall when Haitians rallied on the streets against Henry after he announced the end of fuel subsidies and fuel prices rose.

Evan Ellis, a Russian expert and research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, said while he doesn’t believe that Russia has the resources at the moment to expand its footprint beyond the war in Ukraine, it does have the ability to issue symbolic threats against the United States.

“I see Russia is looking for opportunities to stir up trouble,” he said. “I would presume that whatever is going on with Russia is opportunistic.”

Moreno, who has worked as a U.S. diplomat in Colombia and elsewhere in the region, said during the era of the Soviet Union the country carried out destabilization efforts in parts of Latin America. He would not be surprised about a return to its old playbook when it comes to Haiti, “a real Achilles heel of Washington” that is less than two hours from Miami, and where the population is understandably frustrated with Washington’s reluctance to do more to help.

“To sow this kind of unrest and dissatisfaction and animosity toward Washington, of course they’re going to take advantage of it. So of course we should be paying attention to it,” Moreno said.

Then, echoing what even the most strident of U.S. supporters in Haiti also noted about the Russian and Wagner Group interest, he added: “Maybe this will be the wake up call that Washington needs.”

Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald Reporter Nora Gámez Torres and McClatchy’s Senior National Security and White House Correspondent Michael Wilner contributed to this report.