Dejected Putin Tries to Join the Great Gulf Game

Dejected Putin Tries to Join the Great Gulf Game

Executive Summary:

• Russia is struggling to influence emerging alignments amid U.S.–Israeli strikes on Iran and the rapidly evolving Middle Eastern security dynamics. Moscow is sidelined from key diplomatic initiatives despite seeking relevance in the shifting Great Gulf Game.
• Moscow’s prolonged war against Ukraine has weakened its global standing amid military setbacks, economic strain, and internal tensions. Russia has limited its capacity to project power or effectively engage in parallel geopolitical developments across the Middle East.
• As other states assess their investments in the Middle East amid the reconfiguration of economic flows and security ties, Russia’s diminishing influence, strained partnerships, and unsustainable war-focused economy undermine its ambitions to shape a new multipolar order.

The sustained projection of U.S. and Israeli air power against Iran has disrupted multiple supply chains and traditional political ties. These developments occurred so abruptly that the outcome of the still ongoing conflict will inevitably amount to a profound reconfiguration of security relations in the Middle East. Russia is not quite able to reap instant profits from the turmoil in energy markets, but it is eager to claim a role in the forthcoming realignments, which could be considered the Great Gulf Game. The preliminary contours of these geopolitical shifts can be traced in Pakistan’s attempts to become a key mediator by advancing a peace plan with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and in the United Kingdom’s efforts to build a coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz (MK.ru, April 1; RBC, April 2). Russia is not involved in either initiative, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to facilitate communications between the United States and Iran was turned down by U.S. President Donald Trump, who advised the Kremlin to focus on ending its war against Ukraine (Vedomosti, March 10).

The deadlock in its 1,500-day-long war is eroding Russia’s international position and its ability to partake in the fast-moving transformation of the world system and in the rearrangement of the wider Middle East, in particular. Official discourse continues the narrative of Russia’s steady march toward victory, and mainstream Russian media is compelled to report on successful offensive operations that have brought full control of the Luhansk oblast (Izvestiya, April 2). The reality on the battlegrounds, however, is far different. In the last two months, Ukrainian counterattacks have resulted in net territorial losses for Russia (Meduza, March 31; The Insider, April 3). Putin has stopped visiting military headquarters as he did at the start of the year, and tensions between his court and the top brass, apprehensive about the growing manpower shortage, are increasing under the cover of tightening secrecy (Re: Russia, April 3).

Long-distance Russian strikes on Ukraine continue to follow the pattern of one massive attack a week with lower-volume, disturbing daily raids. This offers no answer to the looming question of the feasibility of the ambitious war goals, which even some jingoist Russian commentators raise (TopWar.ru, April 3). What is strikingly obvious in the interplay between the two wars is that Ukrainian cities are attacked by the same drones that continue to inflict damage to airports and energy infrastructure in Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The information about Russian shipments of drones to Iran is hardly credible, because the whole volume of production at the Yelabuga plant in Tatarstan, built with Iranian know-how, is used for sustaining Russian drone warfare (Voennoe Delo, March 26). Russian manufacturers have modernized the basic Iranian Shaheed-131/136 models, and the transfer of this technology could help Iran break through Gulf states’ air defense systems (Izvestiya, April 3).  

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seeks to capitalize on how  Russia’s strategic partnership with Iran has a strong, even if conveniently camouflaged, military content, and has achieved no small success by signing agreements on security cooperation with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE (RBC, March 27; Gazeta.ru, March 28; see EDM, April 1). Russian commentators denounced his trip, and Iran condemned Ukraine as an accomplice to aggression, suspecting that Ukrainian specialists can efficiently boost the anti-drone defenses (Argumenty i Fakty, March 28; Radio Svoboda, March 30). Putin found it necessary to counter this diplomatic offensive by first calling Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and then greeting Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatti at the Kremlin (RIA Novosti, April 2). He further activated his personal networks through telephone conversations with UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and by calling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with whom he had cordial relations (President of Russia, April 3). Zelenskyy, however, continued his Middle Eastern diplomacy by visiting Istanbul and securing Erdoğan’s agreement to develop security cooperation and to mediate in the peace talks (TASS; RBC-Ukraine, April 4).

The combination of personal ties with engagements through non-Western inter-state institutions used to work for Putin. In particular, Russia’s engagements with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS have portrayed Russia as a key pillar of the multipolar world (Valdai Club, March 30). [1] Iran joined these organizations in 2023 and 2024, respectively, but neither has had any stabilizing impact on the turmoil in the Gulf, disappointing the expectations of some Russian experts (RITM Eurasia, March 31). Pundits in Moscow are keen to examine every new crack in trans-Atlantic relations caused by the two wars of attrition, but remain numb to the apparent lack of communication between Moscow and Beijing (Kommersant, April 2). This disconnect affects even problems that require urgent cooperation, such as the spread of the foot-and-mouth disease epidemic from the Novosibirsk oblast into the PRC (The Moscow Times, April 3). The PRC charts a cautious course in the Gulf and finds common moves with Russia useful only in exceptional cases, such as blocking the resolution prepared by Bahrain at the UN Security Council to forcibly open the Strait of Hormuz (Forbes.ru, April 3).

Oil imports from Russia help the PRC minimize the costs of the war-induced shock in the global energy market. The depth of the economic crisis in Russia, however, is no secret to Chinese experts (Re: Russia, March 31). Even mainstream Moscow opinion suggests that the economic model of prioritizing war-related expenditures at the expense of the oil and gas sector and social programs is unsustainable (Nezavisimaya gazeta, March 29). This weakening of economic muscle renders all pretenses to the role of a major influencer in shaping a new world order irrelevant (Kommersant, April 2).

The surge in Putin’s telephone diplomacy stands in contrast to his apparent reluctance to travel, even within the country, and to his notably reduced public appearances. He may presume that he is on the same political wavelength as the autocratic regimes in the Gulf states, but they increasingly see him as a loser who cannot extricate his country from the unwinnable war. While the PRC positions itself as a major stakeholder in the unfolding Great Gulf Game, and other external actors, such as India, Türkiye, and the European Union, are assessing the scope of their investments in the reconfiguration of economic flows and security ties, Russia has lost all traditional levers of influence. Putin’s best hope for maintaining a modicum of respect in the war-torn region is his communication with Trump, but the substance of this fluctuating dialogue has practically disappeared.   

Note:

[1] BRICS is a loose political-economic grouping originally consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, the PRC, and South Africa.