A year ago, following Donald Trump’s return to office, Vladimir Putin praised the US President for his “pragmatism” and personal efforts to mend relations with the Kremlin.
Speaking to members of Russia’s intelligence agency, he said “the first contacts with the new American administration give us some hope”.
A year on, Putin’s hopes have been dashed. Instead of a new era of US-Russia relations, he has watched on impotently as an emboldened Trump has wielded US power in the pursuit of aggressive foreign policy goals across Latin America and now the Middle East.
If hard power is, as Sir Keir Starmer said at last month’s Munich Security Conference, the “currency of our age”, Russia is finding itself in a much-weakened position.
Nowhere can Russian weakness be seen more clearly than in the Middle East. Putin’s most important regional ally, Bashar al-Assad, was ousted in Syria and fled to Moscow. Russia’s relationship with Israel suffered as it strengthened its military ties with Iran. And, despite signing a 20-year strategic partnership agreement with Tehran, Russia did little concrete to support it during the US-Israeli bombing of key Iranian nuclear and military targets last year.
The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday was another major setback. Putin hypocritically said that his killing was a “cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law”, ignoring the recent events taking place in Ukraine.
Israeli and US forces launched a massive missile attack across Iran on Saturday (Photo: Atta Kenare/AFP)The Russia-Iran relationship was not a formal defence alliance. Putin was never going to intervene militarily to protect the regime, and he has long resisted Iranian pleas for more sophisticated weapons. In fact, the strength of the so-called Crink (China, Russia, Iran and North Korea) “Axis of Resistance” has been greatly exaggerated.
Still, Moscow and Tehran had a pragmatic, transactional partnership based on a shared ideological hostility to the US. Russia’s unwillingness or inability to respond to the current attacks, beyond offering sympathy and mediation, will not be lost on Iran, its other partners or indeed on Russians themselves.
Moscow may still gain some tactical benefit from a rise in the price of oil, or the US getting bogged down in another war. But this will be cold comfort for its latest strategic reversal, especially if the Iranian regime collapses and is replaced with one more aligned to the West.
Russia already believes that the international order is breaking down and that the US is willing to coerce any state seeking to pursue an independent foreign policy. Putin and Russia’s leadership has feared a decapitation strike by US air power for decades.
The killing of Khamenei will only further confirm those fears.
Anti-regime protesters in Amsterdam expressing support for the latest US-Israeli strikes on Iran (Photo: Mouneb Taim/Getty)One influential Russian foreign policy voice, Fyodor Lukyanov, has already said that “negotiating with the Americans is almost pointless, the real question is either capitulation or a sham in preparation for a military solution”.
In fairness, Trump’s strategic disdain for Russia was made clear in last year’s National Security Strategy. Portraying Russia as a declining regional power, it called for re-establishing strategic stability and not, as Putin had hoped, a co-equal role in a multipolar world.
Despite some positive comments towards Putin from Trump, his presidency has shown the weaknesses of the US-Russia relationship. The New START strategic nuclear weapons treaty lapsed on 5 February without replacement, despite Russian concerns. Trump has neither abandoned Ukraine nor cut Europe loose.
Blame for Russia’s strategic weakness can be placed squarely on Putin’s shoulders, with some help from the US and Europe. Following his disastrous decision to invade Ukraine four years ago, Russia has suffered catastrophic military casualties and severely damaged its economy.
Russia has severed its relations with Ukraine, ruptured its relations with Europe and has been forced to go cap-in-hand for support to China and North Korea. Meanwhile, Nato has enlarged and Europe has raised its defence spending and has remained largely unified against the threat from Russia.
Russia has also lost ground in Central Asia and southern Caucasus at the expense of China, the US and Turkey.
Putin is re-learning some tough lessons about the US’s strengths and his own weaknesses.
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Given his weaknesses elsewhere, it’s likely that Putin will double down in Ukraine, framing it as a necessary war to defend Russia from Western aggression. There might also be more nuclear sabre-rattling.
But ultimately, Putin knows that he’s been played, and that he looks weaker than ever.
John Foreman CBE is a retired Royal Navy officer and served as a UK defence attaché in both Moscow and Kyiv.
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