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Ghana Soviet Union
In January 1958, Ghana and the former Soviet Union opened
diplomatic relations. According to many Western observers, Moscow
planned to use Ghana as a base to extend its influence and
communism throughout West Africa. Nkrumah, on the other hand, hoped
that close relations with the Soviet Union would enable him to
diversify Ghana's sources of military assistance. Ghana temporarily
achieved its goal; Moscow, however, failed to establish a communist
foothold in West Africa.
The two countries maintained a multifaceted military
relationship. In 1961 Ghana purchased eight Ilyushin-18s on credit
at more than US$1.5 million each. High operating coats forced the
Ghanaian government to return four of these aircraft to the Soviet
Union and to transfer the other four to Ghana Airways. Two years
later, Moscow presented an Mi-4 helicopter to Nkrumah as a personal
gift. In 1965, after a year of internal unrest and several
assassination attempts against him, Nkrumah concluded an arms deal
with the Soviet Union for the purchase of weapons for the
Presidential Guard. The shipment included twenty-four light
artillery pieces, twenty-one medium mortars, fifteen antiaircraft
guns, twenty heavy machine guns, and a large amount of ammunition.
Apart from these military sales and the gift of a helicopter,
the Soviet Union deployed an array of military, security, and
technical advisers to Ghana. In 1964, for example, Soviet crews
manned four patrol boats based at Tema; according to anti-Nkrumah
elements, these patrol boats cruised the coast of Ghana and carried
arms to opposition groups in nearby countries. By early 1966, the
Soviet Union had begun construction of a new air base near Tamale
in northern Ghana. Soviet instructors worked at secret Bureau of
African Affairs camps, at the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute
in Winneba, and at numerous other security and military training
facilities. Additionally, at least seventy-six Ghanaian army
officer cadets attended military schools in the Soviet Union. Ghana
Young Pioneers also received training at Komsomol schools in the
Soviet Union.
After the downfall of the Nkrumah regime in 1966, up to 1,100
Soviet personnel were expelled from Ghana. The new government broke
diplomatic relations with Moscow and terminated all military
assistance agreements. In the following years, Soviet-Ghanaian
cooperation was minimal. In the mid-1980s, Ghana unsuccessfully
petitioned the Soviet Union to reactivate some of the projects that
had been abandoned after Nkrumah was overthrown. In late 1986,
Ghana's National Secretariat of Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution reportedly signed an agreement with the Soviet Union for
assistance in training national cadres. At the end of the 1980s, an
unknown number of secret service personnel and commandos received
training in the Soviet Union. As of late 1994, there was no
indication that Ghana and Russia, the most powerful of the
successor states of the former Soviet Union, had concluded any
military assistance agreements.
Data as of November 1994
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