Russia’s foreign policy influence in the Middle East after years of war in Ukraine

Despite being involved in a bloody and consuming two-and-a-half-year-long military confrontation in Ukraine, Russia’s influence in the Middle East and Africa does not seem to be moribund or vanishing. While it suffered some significant (even if temporary) setbacks in the Caucasus region—think about the Nagorno Karabakh issue and the establishment of Turkey as a new military and political power in the southern Caucasus region—Russia’s geopolitical clout in the Middle East and in Africa (for instance, by means of the Wagner group in the Sahel region or in Libya) still has its cards to play.

In a new context of international volatility, Moscow’s diplomatic influence is undergoing strategic repositioning due to its ongoing military involvement in Ukraine and its broader tensions with the West. In Russia’s historical oscillation between the West and Asia, as symbolically suggested by its double-headed imperial eagle, Moscow’s increasing tendency towards Eurasian integration in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian crisis means strengthened ties with both China and the Islamic world. These initial considerations turn out to be a prelude in order to better understand the international balances in which the Kremlin is currently navigating. Concerning Russian diplomatic intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and in a general Middle Eastern framework, there are multiple factors that structurally affect Russia’s engagement in the area.

Relations with Israel and with the Jewish world—both at a domestic level and externally in terms of relations with the State of Israel—and with the Muslim world, again both domestically and in terms of bilateral relations with the various Islamic actors in the region, create a framework in which Russia has to operate following a delicate and risky balancing act.

For what concerns the Jewish world, President Vladimir Putin’s Russia has traditionally established good relations with the State of Israel, as evidenced by the Israeli government’s reluctance to provide weapons to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s demands.[i] A cooperative approach has also characterized Putin and Netanyahu’s personal relationship throughout the years, despite certain anti-Semitic remarks made by Russian government officials over the past two years.[ii] This overall positive bilateral relation is also due to Moscow’s military presence in Syria and its tentacles and leverage within Israel’s Shiite axis foes, from Bashar al-Assad-ruled Syria, to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime in Iran. Over time in fact, formal and informal agreements have been stipulated between Tel Aviv and Moscow[iii] in order to coordinate Russian and Israeli military activity in Syria, whether it was aimed against ISIS militias or against Iranian-backed Shiite factions. Last but not least, the demographic dimension is to be considered, especially given the massive presence of Russian-speaking Israelis from the former Soviet Union residing in the State of Israel, estimated to over 1.3 million people.[iv]

On the other hand, the domestic sphere must also be analyzed in order to break down the Kremlin’s policies in relation to the Islamic world: stretching from Tatarstan to the North Caucasus to the very capital of the Russian Federation, where more than three million Muslim citizens live, Russia is home to a growing Muslim community of over 20 million citizens[v], who, moreover, tend to be generally traditionalist and religious, lightly secularized and of Sunni tradition. All the above elements show us the implicit influence that this Islamic-driven reality exerts on the Kremlin’s foreign and internal security policy—let us recall the recent attempted lynching of Israeli passengers at the airport and the recent assault to a synagogue in Dagestan[vi]—and how such influence may still be strengthened in the future due to growing demographic records of the country’s Muslim community. Moreover, Moscow has also been the main geopolitical and military ally for the Shiite powers in the Middle East, especially Iran, regardless of its steady relations with Israel. The controversial invitation of a delegation of Hamas representatives to Moscow[vii], is to be seen in the context of a pragmatic realpolitik, and at the very same time in the persistent grand strategy (or grand attempt) aimed at undermining American interests in the region and, more broadly, those of the “collective West”, as Putin and Russian officials often dub the Euro-Atlantic powers.

A final reflection in order to further explain the intricate geopolitical context so far analyzed is Moscow’s will to once again be seen as a diplomatic powerbroker in international affairs, at least as it was before February 2022. Its international diplomatic clout has been undermined by the difficult political and military campaign in Ukraine (at least temporarily). The emergence and continuation of the new conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip (and perhaps between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah in the near future) certainly plays in Russians’ favor for two main reasons. Firstly, it plays out as a general diplomatic and media diversion from the conflict in Ukraine; secondly, it makes it relatively harder for the U.S. to deliver arms and ammunition supplies to both Kiev and Tel Aviv at the same time.