Nigerian Civil War

===Soviet Union===
The [[Soviet Union]] strongly backed the Nigerian government, emphasising the similarity with the Congo situation. Nigeria's need for more aircraft, which the United Kingdom and the United States refused to sell, led Gowon to accept a Soviet offer in the summer of 1967 to sell a squadron of 17 [[MiG-17]] fighters.{{sfn|Stremlau|2015|p=79}} The British-trained Nigerian military tended to be distrustful of the Soviet Union, but the Soviet ambassador in Lagos, Alexander Romanov, a gregarious and friendly man as well as a shrewd diplomat, established an excellent rapport with Gowon and persuaded him that accepting Soviet weapons would not mean subjection to the Soviet Union.{{sfn|Stremlau|2015|pp=79–80}} The first MiG-17s arrived in Nigeria in August 1967 together with some about 200 Soviet technicians to train the Nigerians in their use. Though the MiG-17s turned out to be too sophisticated for the Nigerians to use properly, requiring Egyptian Air Force pilots to fly them, the Soviet-Nigerian arms deal turned out to be one of the turning points of the war. Besides establishing an arms pipeline from the Soviet Union to Nigeria, the possibility that the Soviet Union would gain greater influence in Nigeria led the United Kingdom to increase its supply of arms to maintain its influence in Lagos while ruling out the possibility of either the United States or Britain recognising Biafra.{{sfn|Stremlau|2015|p=80}}

The Soviet Union consistently supplied Nigeria with weapons, with the diplomatic disclaimer that these were "strictly for cash on a commercial basis". In 1968, the USSR agreed to finance the [[Kainji Dam]] on the Niger (somewhat upriver from the Delta). Soviet media outlets initially accused the British of cynically supporting the Biafran secession, then had to adjust these claims later when it turned out that the United Kingdom was, in fact, supporting the Federal Government.<ref name="Stent1973">[[Angela Stent]], "The Soviet Union and the Nigerian Civil War: A Triumph of Realism", ''Issue: A Journal of Opinion'' 3.2, Summer 1973.</ref>

One explanation for Soviet sympathy with the Federal Military Government was a shared opposition to internal secessionist movements. Before the war, the Soviets had seemed sympathetic to the Igbos. But Soviet Prime Minister [[Alexei Kosygin]] stated to their chagrin in October 1967 that "the Soviet people fully understand" Nigeria's motives and its need "to prevent the country from being dismembered."<ref>Levey, "Israel, Nigeria and the Biafra civil war" (2014), p. 273. "From 1967 to 1970, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Poland sold Nigeria twelve L-29 Delfin training aircraft, forty-seven MiG-15 and MiG-17 fighter jets, and five Ilyushin-28 bombers, two of which Egypt transferred to Lagos. This constituted a virtual about-face in Soviet policy, because, until the secession, Moscow had evinced both admiration of the Igbos and sympathy for their plight. The Soviet Union chose pragmatism, in the form of alignment with federal Nigeria, over the ideological (if not idealist) alternative of support for Biafra."</ref>

Reportedly, the war substantially improved Soviet-Nigerian diplomatic and trade relations, and [[Moskvitch]] cars began to make appearances around Lagos. The USSR became a competitive importer of Nigerian [[Cocoa bean|cacao]].<ref name="Stent1973"/>