Russia’s Imperial Ambitions – A Wounded Bear Stumbles on a Path of Slow Decline

Imperialism is a contentious word. It raises painful memories of sprawling and predatory European colonies in the Global South. In more recent times, critics of the US-led international order condemned Washington’s imperial intrusions in Latin America during the Cold War, as well as its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

However, while some communities remain fixated on past US interventionism, it is Russia’s adventurism that is destabilizing the global order. As Russia advances tortuously in the battlefields of Ukraine on the third anniversary of its invasion, it is worth examining Moscow’s imperial ambitions since Vladimir Putin came to power. For Russia is not the resurgent great power maneuvering to recover its lost grandeur, but rather a wounded empire recklessly managing its decline.

Russia’s imperialism is based on nostalgia, when Moscow ruled over the Soviet Union and its satellite states and was a global superpower. It is distinctly resentful and ruthless, both within its borders and beyond. Centuries of steadfast imperial expansion under czarist and then Communist rule vanished when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s; from Putin’s jingoistic perspective, it was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20^th century.¹ Many Russians and parts of the political class blamed the West, especially the US, for exacerbating the ensuing economic contraction and societal dislocation —the criticisms pointed at the abrupt nature of the shock-therapy reforms proposed by Western economists, and more sentimentally, for gloating on the end of history. Despite early expectations, the political leadership that emerged forwent democracy and a market economy. In retrospect, the transition was too abrupt. Russia had always existed under authoritarian rule; it lacked the institutions, an independent system of checks and balances, and a free and assertive civil society that could have leveraged a different outcome.

Imaginary Agreements, Broken Promises

The West does bear some responsibility. The economic (EU) and military (NATO) expansion into Russia’s sphere of influence stoked Moscow’s insecurities. However, the emergence of a kleptocratic oligarchy with roots in the security and intelligence apparatus was not due to a foreboding of Western encroachment; given the existing conditions, it was the most likely outcome. Despite some initial semantic confusion between the Kremlin and several Western capitals regarding NATO’s eastward expansion, no formal agreement was ever made to prevent it.² Even though the Kremlin accepted it as a fait accompli, the disaccord has been a source of Russian rancor to this day.

In any case, the expansion of the EU and NATO into Central and Eastern Europe was not a deliberate attempt to weaken, and much less exclude Russia. The G7 invited Moscow to join the organization in 1997, though it was suspended in 2014 following the forcible annexation of Crimea.³ There were even discussions, early on, between the US and several major European countries on ways to accommodate Russia into the EU and the structure of NATO.⁴ As a result, Washington considerably drew down its troops stationed in Europe, while European countries reduced their defense budgets. It was Russia that broke a formal agreement, the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, by which Ukraine (as well as Belarus and Kazakhstan) gave up its considerable arsenal of nuclear weapons in exchange for a Russian commitment to respect its sovereignty and existing borders, and to refrain from the threat or use of force.⁵

Central and Eastern European countries pushed for integration into the EU and NATO because they were desperate to free themselves from decades of repressive rule by Moscow. The allure of belonging to the largest area of peace and prosperity in the world, right next door, proved irresistible. Without the umbrella that the EU and/or NATO provided, they would have remained unstable and vulnerable to Russian coercion. To glimpse at what they could have become, look no further than neighboring Belarus and Ukraine if they resisted. The political, economic, and military mergers with the West have since served as bastions. It is these ex-Soviet Republics and satellite states now in NATO which have been the most critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the staunchest supporters of Kyiv.

All the same, the promise of NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine ultimately proved to be a geopolitically reckless initiative. When the pledge was made in 2008, it was intentionally vague and lacked a clear timeline.⁶ Formal discussions of membership never materialized, as accession into the structure of NATO was subject to political, economic, and security requirements that Georgia and Ukraine did not fulfill. Moreover, key NATO members, including the United States and major European powers such as the UK and Germany, eventually came to recognize that admitting either country was not feasible in the short to medium term – particularly in light of Russia’s staunch opposition.

What Could Have Been

Perhaps Moscow could have taken a different path. A prosperous, confident, and inclusive Russia could have reconciled with its erstwhile confederates and forged a different, mutually constructive relationship. The Kremlin need not feel threatened by EU and NATO expansions. One could even argue that membership in both organizations served to stabilize Russia’s western borders, as they posed no direct threat to Moscow’s security. A country at ease with the strengths of its political and economic systems, its history and culture, need not feel threatened by encroachment. On the contrary, its allure would attract voluntary security alliances and economic partnerships with neighboring countries and beyond.

This, alas, was not the case in Russia, with its long history of authoritarian rule and failed economic models. Coercion, not attraction, was the recipe for its centuries-long expansion. Under the reactionary rule of Vladimir Putin and the Siloviki⁷—the powerful group of ultranationalist securocrats that constitute his innermost circle—Russia took a different turn. Democratic governance, an open and inclusive society, and free market prosperity represent an existential threat to the survival of the Russian regime.

NATO’s expansion rekindled Russia’s innate strategic insecurities. As Moscow began to recover from the turmoil of the 1990s, largely due to a global commodity boom that filled state coffers, it became increasingly assertive and antagonistic towards the West. The gambit has been centrifugal, revanchist, and often brutal. When Putin came to power in 1999, he launched the Second Chechen War to retake the breakaway republic (the First Chechen War had led to de facto independence). The scorched-earth tactics that were used to defeat an insurgency by separatists from the small Muslim ethnic group were reminiscent of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with indiscriminate bombings and attacks on civilian populations, large-scale massacres and disappearances, torture, looting, and sexual violence, that amount to war crimes on a massive scale⁸ and crimes against humanity.⁹ Russian security forces razed the capital, Grozny, as well as many towns and villages. Estimates of casualties vary wildly because Russia did not disclose them. The war is over, but not the oppression; Chechnya is now ruled with an iron fist by Ramzan Kadyrov, a pro-Kremlin warlord whose regime is, in turn, accused of widespread human rights abuses.¹⁰

Vassals, Not Allies

Once the internal situation stabilized and Putin’s grip was secure, a reinvigorated Russia attempted to restore what it deems its rightful place in the near abroad (a reference to the independent states that emerged after the dissolution of the Soviet Union). Moscow considers it has a prerogative to shape developments in its periphery for historical, geopolitical, and cultural reasons; moreover, the Kremlin continues to perceive this vast assortment of lands as a buffer vital to its national security. But unlike the voluntary security alliances and trade partnerships that prevail among democracies from North America to Europe and Asia-Pacific, Moscow is more inclined to domineer its neighbors. Vassals, not allies, serve to assuage its geopolitical and geo-strategic insecurities. This grim history of subjugation alienated many of the former Soviet republics and satellite states, but the caution appears to have gone unlearned by the Kremlin. Just as before, Russia cannot offer its near abroad a viable model—an alternative to the shared affluence of the EU or the inclusive security of NATO. The onward expansion of EU membership and the accession of Finland and Sweden (the latter despite a centuries-old history of neutrality) to NATO are sobering testimonies to Russia’s failings.

The eclectic array of tools the Kremlin has used to influence its periphery include sustained efforts to weaken pro-democracy color revolutions (Georgia and Ukraine), outright invasions (Georgia in 2008, to support the breakaway enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia), invasion and annexation (Ukraine in 2014, when unmarked Russian troops took over Crimea), support for ethnic Russian separatists (eastern Ukraine, Transnistria), the stationing of Russian troops and nuclear weapons in strategic locations (Kaliningrad), military garrisons (Transnistria), temporary interventions of its security forces to shore up friendly authoritarian regimes facing mass protests (Belarus in 2020, Kazakhstan in 2022), attempts to lure back countries through closer economic and military integration (Belarus), the creation of largely toothless regional economic (Eurasian Economic Union) and security (Collective Security Treaty Organization) associations, and diplomatic mediation and the sending of peacekeepers (Nagorno-Karabakh, from 2020).

Moscow’s revanchist policies to protect its security and geopolitical interests have been achieved with comparatively limited resources. It has done so, until the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, by combining low-cost military interventions¹¹ with other tools of national power, such as cyber operations, propaganda, and the spreading of disinformation for political purposes.¹² Moscow has also resorted to more blunt, individualized tactics, such as kompromat (the use of compromising material to blackmail and extort), and assassinations of dissidents and opposition politicians, both inside the country and abroad.

The Yearn for Empire, by Whatever Means

Needless to say, soft power does not figure much in this toolkit. Russia’s stagnant economy and high levels of corruption, the brutal crackdown on civil liberties, and the repressive and demagogic nature of its political system are not appealing features to many. In this regard, contemporary Russia does not differ much from Czarist or Soviet Russia; the yearn for empire is still there.

Under Putin’s reign, Russia is once again pursuing a policy of selected expansion based on the country’s national interests.¹³ The outreach extends beyond its near abroad to parts of Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, to project Russia as a global power again. The tactics used include traditional commercial activities such as arms and fossil fuel exports, covert funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars through front organizations to causes, politicians and parties deemed sympathetic to the Kremlin, and the use of state-controlled news sites such as Russia Today which disseminate Moscow’s positions under the guise of independent broadcasting.¹⁴ The latter has been quite effective in the Global South in promoting Moscow’s positions. Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin has become increasingly brazen in its attempts to destabilize NATO member states through a controversial arsenal of tools that include arson, sabotage and attempted assassinations.¹⁵ More recently it has escalated its hybrid sabotage campaign by sending fighter jets and drones into NATO airspace in a bid to test the alliance’s resolve.

Brutality seems a common feature of Russia’s armed interventions abroad, whether directly or by resorting to Kremlin-linked mercenaries such as the Wagner group. Moscow’s air campaigns in the Syrian civil war in support of the tyrannical al-Assad regime included the deliberate use of cluster bombs and incendiary weapons on hospitals, schools, and refugee camps, and the targeting of civilians and rescue workers. The Russian military killed thousands of Syrians in what Human Rights Watch defined as war crimes.¹⁶ The BBC has also unearthed the actions of shadowy Russian mercenaries fighting in the Libyan civil war, including evidence of suspected war crimes.¹⁷ The footprint of the Wagner Group, now under the tutelage of the Russian defense ministry and renamed the Africa Corps, extends to several mineral-rich sub-Saharan countries, where it props up some unsavory regimes in exchange for the unrestricted exploitation of their natural resources.

With such a gruesome record, it should come as no surprise that Russia has been accused by many Western governments, UN commissions, and human rights NGOs of all kinds of atrocities in its attempt to subdue Ukraine. The magnitude became apparent when Russian troops were forced to withdraw from occupied territories by advancing Ukrainian troops, leaving behind a grisly trail of mass graves, torture, sexual violence, looting, and wanton physical destruction. The Putin regime has targeted civilian areas with indiscriminate bombardments, pulverizing cities and destroying power grids and water infrastructure in a spiteful attempt to demoralize its population. There are also reports that large numbers of Ukrainians from the occupied territories have been forcibly transferred to Russia, with Russian settlers in turn relocating there.¹⁸ They include tens of thousands of children abducted from their homes and subjected to ‘Russification’.¹⁹ While the actions have led to accusations of war crimes, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin and his Children’s Rights Commissioner for the illegal, forced deportation of children.

So Far from God, so Close to Russia

A 19th-century Mexican president once ruefully reflected on his country’s complex relationship with its powerful northern neighbor: “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the US” (in the decades prior, the US had annexed huge tracts of Mexican territory). Today, this could be said of Russia’s near abroad, and particularly of Ukraine.

Strategically located, Ukraine is the quintessential borderland state. For Russia, it has served as both a geographic buffer to invasions from the West and a strategic component of Moscow’s designs to reassert its historical influence over the near abroad. Ukraine is a stepping stone to Moldova, the Baltic states, and the rest of Eastern Europe. But the country is more than that. No other ex-Soviet Republic had such deep social and linguistic, cultural and religious, bonds with Russia.²⁰ No other people had been so historically intertwined into the fabric of Russian society—so much so that before the 2014 annexation of Crimea and destabilization of eastern Ukraine, its population was, overall, well-disposed towards Russia.²¹ Hence, the distress over Moscow’s willingness to ravage the country; it bodes ill for other potential victims of Russian regional aggression.

The coupling worked well while Ukraine was subservient to Moscow. But when Kyiv began to look West and seek closer ties with the EU and NATO, Moscow’s geopolitical and security anxieties intensified. The Kremlin questioned the legitimacy of Ukrainian statehood, the distinct identity of its people. The ferocity and heroism with which Ukrainians have faced the Russian onslaught seem to have put those issues to rest. Yet Ukraine is vital to Russia’s slighted sense of grandeur. Moscow can ill-afford to back down now and let its erstwhile confederate meander into the Western orbit, even though Ukraine already has, through the diplomatic, economic, and military support that the EU and NATO countries have provided. There is no going back.

The Silence of the Global South

Moscow’s attempt to retake Ukraine by brute force poses a threat not just to Western institutions such as the EU and NATO, but to the rules-based international order. But it is misleading to portray the Russian invasion of Ukraine as an ideological confrontation between democracy and authoritarianism. It is not, as major developing-country democracies from Brazil to South Africa to India have refrained from condemning Moscow, though it is worth pointing out that the handful of regimes that openly support Moscow are among the world’s most brutal dictatorships and ostracized nations.

There are varied reasons why parts of the Global South have refused to chastise Russia: A natural affinity with Putin’s autocratic model and a parallel aversion to the liberal international order; a reluctance to get involved in great power rivalries; historical gratitude for Soviet Russia’s support for colonial-era independence movements; dependence on Russian military equipment, on fossil fuel and food and fertilizer exports; and perhaps foremost the effective use of disinformation through Moscow-sponsored news sites and in social media.

There is a propensity in some Western intellectual and far-right populist circles, and more so in the Global South, to fault NATO’s expansion eastwards for stoking Russia’s insecurities. And yet many developing countries seem unwilling to opine on the widespread, well-documented accusations of Russian atrocities in Ukraine revealed by respected humanitarian and human rights NGOs and UN commissions.²² Or, for that matter, Moscow’s notorious historical proclivity to commit war crimes. Many developing countries were willing to attend an enlarged BRICS summit hosted by Putin in Kazan, Russia, in late 2024, with many more expressing an interest in joining the organization. The summit was considered a diplomatic success for Putin, serving to emphasize that Russia is not diplomatically isolated in the global arena.

The irony is that while some regimes in the Global South remain fixated on antiquated notions of US imperialism (at least until the advent of President Donald Trump’s second term) by blaming the current disarray on Western sanctions against Moscow, it is Russia’s reckless belligerence that caused historic disruptions to global food security.²³ The Kremlin has used food as a weapon of war by destroying Ukrainian agricultural infrastructure, blockading its ports, and seizing and transferring to Russia vast stores of its grain in an attempt to deplete its exports as Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest breadbaskets.²⁴ The ensuing fluctuations in food and fertilizer prices contributed to global food insecurity which mostly impacted low and lower-middle-income countries, many of whom believe Russia’s false narrative of victimhood.

The Challenge to the Rules-Based International Order

Moscow’s attempt to conquer a sovereign neighboring nation with which it shares a long, intertwined history, and more so the refusal to acknowledge its very existence, poses a challenge to the sovereignty of nations as a foundational principle of international law and the sanctity of geographical borders. It is the first time in more than three decades, since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, that a regime has tried to subsume an internationally recognized country by force.²⁵ The invasion of Ukraine represents a dangerous return to the right of conquest, an antiquated practice that confers ownership of territory to an aggressor state after acquiring it through force of arms. It thus constitutes a breach of the ground-breaking norm against territorial conquestenshrined in the UN Charter. As the inviolability of statehood and respect for national borders have gained traction, wars over territory between sovereign nations have greatly diminished.

Many countries seem unaware, or unconcerned, about the potential implications to their security of Russia’s belligerence. If unchecked, there is a chance that more powerful states with unresolved disputes could also be tempted to redraw their borders by force. Weaker sovereign states bordering more powerful ones run the risk of being subsumed, losing territory, or becoming vassals. There is already an assortment of territorial and maritime disputes in volatile regions such as the Balkans, North-eastern Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Russia’s near abroad, the African Great Lakes region, and most worryingly, in East Asia involving China’s claims on Taiwan.

The Kremlin’s imperial ambitions threaten to upend a unique era since the end of WWII, described as the most peaceful and prosperous in history,²⁶ when defense budgets declined and human development indicators made huge strides. The Russian military buildup and invasion of Ukraine pose a challenge to the Western-led liberal international order that undergirded this unique period in history. Moscow has on several occasions ominously menaced a tactical nuclear strike on Ukraine. It is reportedly experimenting with a nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon in space.²⁷ Putin’s warmongering has contributed to a spike in global military spending, which reached historic highs in 2024, and at a time when global human development has stalled.²⁸ Countries arming themselves once again bodes ill for international cooperation. Russia’s transgressions pose a threat not just to its periphery, but to all countries that value a rules-based world order, and their sovereignty.

Tanks vs Vodka

Russia’s economy has proven surprisingly resilient to the barrage of Western sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. GDP grew at a rate of 3.6% in 2023 and at 4.1% in 2024, confounding initial predictions of an economic contraction, and even a collapse.²⁹ After the initial operational and tactical failures in Ukraine, the once-feared Russian military machine has been able to reorganize, learn, and adapt from its early mistakes. Moscow might have consequentially shifted the momentum on the battlefield. But while it glows in its apparent capacity to turn the tide of war, the burden of its imperial ambitions in Ukraine has exposed Russia’s structural weaknesses.

Russia’s economy, and its armed forces in Ukraine, have endured because the country is now on a war footing. Despite Western sanctions, its defense industry has been overhauled, a measure largely facilitated by substantial revenues from fossil fuel exports. Russia’s military expenditures have increased exponentially since the invasion, growing by 42% in 2024 over the previous year.³⁰ Defense spending now represents 6.7% of GDP and roughly 40% of the national budget. ³¹ The real magnitude spent on security is higher, as another 30% of the federal budget is classified as secret or top secret.³² However, despite the staggering increase in defense spending, its defense industrial base has been woefully incapable of replenishing the huge amount of key weapons systems destroyed on the battlefields of Ukraine.³³

The volte face marks a shift from two decades of prudent macroeconomic policies under Putin’s reign.³⁴ Russia is on an unsustainable path going forward. Fueling growth through rampant spending threatens to overheat the economy. The fixation on military expenditures is affecting other parts of the economy that will be difficult to reverse once the war ends. While war-related industrial output has increased significantly, civilian production remains stagnant. The war effort is already creating imbalances in the labor market through disproportionately high salaries in the armed forces and in the defense industry.

Fearful of the societal repercussions, the regime seems reluctant to implement the structural reforms that could modernize the economy and empower its citizenry. The subordination of the economy to political and security imperatives will likely cause a further decline in living standards.³⁵ Russia’s crony-capitalist, commodity-driven economy will not be able to deliver on the regime’s geopolitical ambitions. Though sanctions might not have statistically affected Russia’s economy, the lack of access to advanced technology components from the West will, over time, most likely hamper its competitiveness and productivity.

An Empire No More

Despite the Kremlin’s bravado, Russia is a declining power. Disgruntled and increasingly autocratic, Putin has squashed any domestic political challenge to his reign. His formula includes closing down foreign NGOs on grounds of national security, as well as the few remaining independent domestic NGOs and media outlets that could scrutinize his rule. The centralization of power threatens to create a political vacuum when his undisputed rule eventually ends. Most scenarios point to a continuation of some form of authoritarian rule.³⁶ Russia’s history is one of centralized and heavy-handed authority to control its many components and disparities. Democracy in such conditions is unlikely to emerge.

The current focus on the militarization of the economy and the continued emphasis on the commodity sector is not a recipe for future economic growth, let alone prosperity. The hydrocarbon sector is a case in point. Although the departure of Western energy companies did not have the expected impact on production,³⁷ Russia’s continued reliance on hydrocarbon revenues in an era of price volatility and a global energy transition is risky. Russia is already lagging in advanced technologies such as AI and quantum computing, and in automation in production, fast becoming the true measure of great power aspirations. Its global economic standing will at best stagnate in the mid-to-long term, and most likely decline.

Moreover, the underperformance of its military hardware on the battlefields of Ukraine will probably affect its arms exports—Russia is the world’s second-largest arms exporter. And for all of the Kremlin’s rhetoric of a no-limits strategic partnership with Beijing, it is increasingly clear that Russia is the minor partner. Moscow’s growing dependency on China for access to technology and trade (the balance of trade is overwhelmingly in Beijing’s favor) runs the risk of converting Russia into a vassal of the Middle Kingdom. The Communist regime, so susceptible to historical transgressions to its territorial integrity, might one day remember that in the mid-19th century, imperial Russia annexed all of Outer Manchuria, a huge area the combined size of France and Spain, from a weakened Qing dynasty.

It’s the Population, Stupid

Yet population trends represent perhaps the biggest challenge to the Kremlin’s great power ambitions. Russia’s demographic woes began amidst the societal chaos following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then, low birth and fertility rates, an inadequate healthcare system, and high mortality rates among males due to unhealthy lifestyles and alcohol addiction have led to a gradual demographic decline. The working-age population fell from roughly 90 million in 2006 to less than 80 million in 2023.³⁸ Long-term trends are worrisome for the Kremlin.

This demographic decline is not linear. While the ethnic Russian population is decreasing, the share of the non-Slavic and Muslim communities is growing. By 2050, Muslims, many of whom live in the strife-ridden North Caucasus, will represent a third of the total population, according to conservative estimates, a development that will impact both domestic and foreign policy.³⁹ Fear of this growing ethnic imbalance is one reason the Kremlin has sent a disproportionate number of non-Russian ethnic minorities to fight, and die, in Ukraine.⁴⁰ It is politically more expedient to send these minorities to war than the urban ethnic Russian elites that constitute the backbone of Putin’s support. Moreover, labour migration will not compensate for Russia’s demographic decline. Most migrants now come from Central Asia and are unskilled and unable to integrate into Russian society, more so now with the rise of violent xenophobia spurred by far-right nationalist movements (with a nod from the state).⁴¹

The pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and an exodus of mostly young and educated Russians have exacerbated Russia’s demographic ordeal. Moscow’s mishandling of (and attempt to cover up) the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in between 1.2 and 1.6 million excess deaths, in what may have been the highest mortality rate in the world.⁴²

According to some estimates, more than one million Russian troops have been killed or wounded since the invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.⁴³ Though the Kremlin has temporarily been able to boost recruitment through high salaries and other perks, the struggles to replenish such a staggeringly high casualty rate will be felt over time. The dead and seriously wounded today are the absent fathers, workers, and taxpayers of tomorrow. Even before the war, Russia suffered from a high gender imbalance, with 120 females older than 18 for every 100 males, a development that will bring an assortment of societal problems.⁴⁴

With such alarming statistics, it is credible to argue that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was partially due to the need to replenish Russia’s demographic plight by forcibly incorporating the millions of ethnic Russians in the annexed regions to the motherland.⁴⁵ Not to mention the abduction of large numbers of Ukrainian children with the purported intention of making them Russians. Russian citizenship is being imposed upon these subjugated Ukrainians.

Moreover, Russia has been suffering for some time from a brain drain of mostly educated young people. Up to five million may have left between 2000 and 2020.⁴⁶ The steady trend intensified since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with up to one million Russians fleeing the country. While thousands are returning (mainly due to a lack of opportunities abroad), the combination of a stagnant economy and a brutal regime will tempt others into permanently resettling abroad.⁴⁷

Such demographic developments, difficult to revert in the short to mid-term, mean that Russia will likely not have enough young men to maintain the preparedness of its armed forces (There are approximately 6.5 million Russians in the 20-24 age cohort compared to 12.5 million in the 30-34 age one)⁴⁸ nor the sufficient workforce to propel economic growth and cover the increasing costs of pensions and social security; nor the intellectual capital to innovate; nor the manpower to explore and exploit the vast wealth of its Arctic region and protect the depopulated, strategic, resource-rich Far Eastern provinces. Russia simply does not have the demographics to support the Kremlin’s great power ambitions.

A Wounded Bear

How the regime manages the disparity between its great power aspirations and the reality of its dwindling status will affect its near abroad and the wider Eurasian world. Russia is the only country from the defunct Warsaw Pact not in the EU or NATO. Belarus is the only country from the former USSR squarely in Russia’s orbit. From the South Caucasus to Central Asia, the Kremlin’s influence appears to wane.⁴⁹

Russia is a midsize, commodity-exporting economy. The other major source of foreign exchange, arms exports by its vast military-industrial complex, is facing declining sales, most recently due to sanctions, supply chain issues and, foremost, concerns about quality and reliability after the disappointing performance of its weaponry in the battlefields of Ukraine.⁵⁰ There is no sustainable political or economic model going forward. It has no coherent narrative to export beyond that of a disruptor and aggrieved antagonist of the liberal international order.⁵¹ The Kremlin’s incitement of nationalism and patriotic fervor by portraying the war in Ukraine as a civilizational struggle against the West cannot bring back Russia’s lost sense of imperial grandeur.

But it is a mistake to trivialize its future. Russia is the largest country in the world, spread over eleven time zones and bordering fourteen countries from the Baltic to East Asia. It is a commodity powerhouse in everything from fossil fuels to rare earths, from grains to fertilizer. It possesses the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. The structural realignment of the government budget toward defense spending plies it is militarizing society for a future of confrontation.⁵² Once the war in Ukraine ends, or diminishes in intensity, the Kremlin faces stark choices: if it reduces defense spending, it risks a recession and social unrest; whereas continued military spending at current rates will impact economic stability, stifling growth and the civilian sector.⁵³ The danger to European security is that the Kremlin might maintain its belligerent predisposition by keeping its oversized army and using it as a coercive tool to extract economic resources from its neighbors, as well as sanctions relief.

Moreover, Putin’s denunciation of a decadent, woke liberal West and exaltation of conservative Christian values his regime supposedly embodies resonates among MAGA Republicans and European far-right parties.⁵⁴ Its assertive, illiberal nationalism is enticing to undemocratic regimes. Most worryingly, it appeals to Donald Trump’s America First vision of the world. Yet, while the Kremlin might glow in the belief that a new era of great power politics and spheres of influence will restore its rightful place in history, the truth is that Russia lacks the wherewithal to fulfill its ambitions. For all the bluster, Putin cannot Make Russia Great Again.

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