The Trump Administration has taken a number of foreign policy decisions which, in the aggregate, appear to play to Russia’s advantage. These actions have weakened transatlantic relations, reduced support for Ukraine, and launched a war with Iran that has increased Russia’s oil revenues. However, the results are not as beneficial as Moscow probably hoped, largely because they are coming too late. This analysis identifies how these developments, compounded by the Russian military’s poor performance in the war with Ukraine, are eroding Russia’s power.
There is a strong argument that Russia should be careful what it wishes for, and that the Trump Administration’s reputation as a threat to world order is, in many ways, beginning to exceed Russia’s. In stealing Russia’s thunder, Washington has managed, at least for now, to knock Moscow off balance at a time when Russia’s foreign policy failures far outnumber its successes. Had some of the Trump administration’s actions come years earlier, Russia would have been better positioned to exploit them. However, this is no longer the case.
Transatlantic rifts’ negative consequences for Russia
Over the course of his 26 years in power, Putin has gradually shifted towards vigorously condemning NATO expansion and unilateral US actions for undermining global security. Russia has employed tactics intended to undermine transatlantic and intra-European ties, thereby weakening NATO and European unity. Russia has actively courted NATO’s most obstreperous members, like Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey and Viktor Orban’s Hungary; exploited the anti-EU sentiment expressed by right-wing leaders and political parties; brandished nuclear threats; and engaged in acts of sabotage to intimidate Europe and keep it from countering Russian military aggression.
Putin has justified these efforts variously by asserting the need to restore Russia to civilisational greatness; blaming Russia’s political and economic problems on external forces, thereby fuelling resentment and paranoia towards the West; and claiming that Russia will ultimately erode the resilience of Western democracies and outlast their resolve. This toxic combination has served Putin well in terms of preserving regime security. It is therefore natural that Moscow would celebrate the Trump Administration’s political and economic attacks on NATO and the EU, including the withdrawal of US troops and other support from NATO member states.
The apparent retreat of the United States from its 80-year-old leadership role poses unprecedented challenges to NATO’s viability as a deterrent and security guarantor. However, the prospect of a reduced US security presence in Europe and of a transatlantic rift, while still uncertain, has not yet compelled Europe to accommodate Moscow or succumb to Russian intimidation. On the contrary, European states have demonstrated their resolve to push back against Russian aggression. Even before Trump announced on 1 May that the US might withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany, Berlin had decided to enhance its role in European security, including by increasing its 2026 defence budget by 24% over the previous year to $114 billion. The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO has only strengthened Europe’s cohesion, with or without US leadership. Moreover, the UK has joined the EU in providing a $106 billion loan to Ukraine in 2026–2027.
As recently as 9 May, Putin expressed the hope that pro-Russian, right-wing parties in Europe will prevail over the so-called globalist elite. While there is a strong chance that populist, nationalist, anti-EU, or even pro-Russian forces will triumph in upcoming European elections, they might be too late, too diffuse, too dysfunctional, or too preoccupied with domestic politics to benefit Russia. Moreover, right-wing victories would not necessarily lead to a single European foreign policy vis-à-vis Russia. For example, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Viktor Orban diverged significantly in their approaches to Russia, and Orban’s recent electoral defeat has made his path a dubious one to follow. As Europe adjusts to its changing relationship with the US, Moscow can no longer count on weakening transatlantic cooperation playing to Russia’s advantage. For now, the key question is how capable Europe, with unpredictable US support, is of countering Russia, whose resolve remains unchanged, but which has grown weaker by most accounts.
Russia’s diminished ability to exploit reduced US assistance to Ukraine
For much of the past three years, global media coverage and policy analyses have largely assumed that the Russia-Ukraine war is developing in Russia’s favour. The focus has been almost exclusively on Russian territorial advances along the front lines, Russia’s relative advantage in scaling up defence production, and its demographic advantage over Ukraine, among other factors. However, these assessments have tended to view other critical developments in the war, such as Russia’s naval losses in the Black Sea, Ukraine’s growing ability to hit targets deep inside Russia using drones, and resistance in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, as marginal factors with little effect on the ultimate outcome. They have also failed to take into account the long-term impact of the war on Russia’s economy, society, and armed forces. While the factors which favour Ukraine have not yet persuaded Putin to end the war or to relinquish his goal of subjugating Ukraine, and are unlikely to do so, they do provide a compelling explanation of why Russia has made so little progress during more than four years of constant fighting.
The Trump Administration’s reduced support for Ukraine initially fuelled the narrative that Russia can outwait the West and will ultimately erode Ukraine’s will and ability to fight. However, even with less US support, the widespread assumption that Russia will ultimately win the war is increasingly being questioned, due to Ukraine’s growing capabilities, its beneficial relations with countries including the Gulf States, European material and financial assistance, and the internal strain which the war is placing on Russia. For example, Russian military recruitment is falling behind casualty numbers for the first time, Russia’s net territorial gains in 2026 have slowed, and Ukraine has executed more and longer-range drone strikes in Russia. These strikes are hitting energy infrastructure, undercutting the oil revenues which Russia would otherwise have gained from higher energy prices and US sanctions relief since the start of the war with Iran.
Of course, Moscow welcomes any reduction in support for Kyiv, but Ukraine has proved to be resilient in keeping Russia at bay, thereby buying itself time to develop an impressive defence industrial base. Putin’s war of choice, already in its fifth year, may have discredited Russia’s belief that it could outwait the West’s interest in supporting Ukraine. Russia relies more and more on imported components from China to manufacture missiles and drones, and has made minimal territorial gains, especially over the past six months. There is little reason to think that the course of the war will shift in Russia’s favour, especially since Putin has been unwilling to change his largely unsuccessful approach of using long-distance strikes against civilian targets, energy infrastructure, and military facilities to pressure Ukraine into submission. He has also avoided taking the politically risky step of a full-scale mobilisation. Consequently, the war is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, unless Moscow offers to compromise in good faith, which it has so far refused to do.
The Russia-Ukraine war, initially characterised largely by ground fighting, is now dominated by drone warfare, which has inflicted an estimated 70+% of casualties and has drastically increased damage to energy and defence infrastructure far behind enemy lines. Ukraine’s agility in transforming its already sizeable defence industrial base into what may become the powerhouse of the European defence industry has generated demand for both its drone technology and its expertise in Europe and the Middle East. This requires supply chains that give unsanctioned Ukraine a strong advantage over heavily sanctioned Russia. However, despite the sanctions regime, Russia has succeeded in importing, mostly from China, the components it needs to scale up and modernise its drone technology. At the same time, Russia faces greater challenges in terms of costs, efficiency, and speed, which undercut its advantages in scaling up production.
Russia’s war, now in its fifth year, has also driven increases in the production of traditional armaments in Europe. For example, German defence manufacturer Rheinmetall claims that it currently produces more artillery shells and conventional ammunition than the United States, putting paid to previous claims by military analysts that it would take years for Ukraine’s Western allies to catch up with Russia’s scaled-up defence manufacturing.
The longer the war continues, the more Ukraine’s innovations in defence technology and its experience of modern combat are valued and sought globally, and the less it is viewed solely as a country dependent on foreign assistance. For example, in April, Norway and Ukraine signed an agreement to deepen defence cooperation, including through the production of drones in Norway. Japanese companies’ cooperation with their Ukrainian counterparts to develop and produce interceptor drones has provoked diplomatic complaints from Russia. As of mid-May, Germany had already begun financing a wide-ranging programme of support for Ukraine, including long-range missiles, air defence, and drone and munitions production.
The war between the US and Iran is producing mixed results for Moscow
The US war with Iran is another example of how the Trump Administration undermines the so-called rules-based international order even more than Russia does. Iran’s exports to Russia of its Shahed drone technology have been invaluable to the Russian war effort, but because of Moscow and Tehran’s close relationship, the war has complicated Russia’s cautious strategic balancing policy towards other countries in the region. In particular, Moscow can provide only limited defensive support to Tehran without antagonising the Gulf States, which Iran is targeting in response to US and Israeli attacks. At the same time, Russia has benefited at least in the short term from spiking oil and fertiliser prices and from the temporary suspension of US sanctions on Russia’s oil exports.
That the US-Iran war might increase China’s energy dependence on Russia, as Moscow has long hoped, seems unlikely. China’s large strategic reserves have bought it time and enabled Beijing to capitalise on rising global demand for Chinese wind and solar technology. As the war with Iran drags on and transit through the Strait of Hormuz remains largely blocked, high oil and gas prices may well hasten a global shift towards alternative energy, which is likely to hurt Russia in the long run.
Russia has long sought Chinese investment in the construction of the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline from Western Siberia to China, but Beijing has consistently baulked, almost certainly because it does not want to become more dependent on Russian energy, and intends to maintain a diverse range of energy suppliers. Beijing’s reluctance probably also reflects the view that such a large investment would be unprofitable and risky in the long run, even if the project might ultimately serve as leverage over Moscow. Moreover, Beijing might view Ukraine’s current ability to target Russian energy infrastructure 1200 miles from the Ukrainian border as an additional risk to the project. Judging by the continued lack of progress on the long-stalled pipeline during Putin’s recent meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing, war in the Middle East and the resultant disruptions in energy shipments do not seem to have changed Beijing’s calculus.
The war has also created opportunities for Ukraine. In the wake of Iran’s missile and drone attacks on its neighbours, the Gulf States have welcomed Kyiv’s offers of counter-drone technology and expertise, establishing unprecedented defence ties between Ukraine and the Middle East. While it is too early to assess the tangible outcomes of the recent defence agreements which Ukraine has signed with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, they have the potential to compensate for the disappointing results of Ukraine’s diplomatic outreach to the Middle East and the Global South during the first two years following Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.
Russia’s global influence in retreat
While the Trump Administration’s policies, actions, and statements regarding NATO and European security in general have made European governments more sceptical regarding the reliability of the US as a security guarantor, growing transatlantic tensions have pushed Europe to bolster its own defences against Russia, rather than accommodating it as Moscow would have hoped. Moscow will continue to probe and undermine the strength of European unity and NATO’s resolve, although so far it seems reluctant to take actions that could trigger Article 5.
After the shock of early military failures and relative diplomatic isolation during the first 12–18 months of the war on Ukraine, Russian society has proved surprisingly resilient in the face of sanctions and other forms of pressure. On the international front, Russia has achieved more impressive successes. Most notably, it has deepened its close partnership with China, including by acquiring components for defence production. It has also signed a mutual defence agreement with Pyongyang, whereby North Korea agreed to provide Russia with munitions; it has also made a limited deployment of its troops to fight Ukraine. Russia has also procured drones from Iran, increased at least ten-fold its crude oil sales to India, enhanced its political and economic leverage in Africa, and, together with Beijing, helped to elevate BRICS into a multilateral body with appeal throughout the Global South. These achievements defied expectations that the non-Western world, under pre-Trump US leadership, would punish Russia for its attempt to wipe out a European nation-state. Instead, Russian soft power has succeeded in spreading the blame for the war, in a world which is increasingly questioning and even jettisoning Western leadership.
However, over the past two years many of Russia’s apparent foreign policy gains have very quickly turned into losses. Key examples are the toppling of Syria’s Russia-aligned dictator Bashar al-Assad, the US seizure of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, Armenia and Azerbaijan distancing themselves from Russia, the apparent cooling of the North Korea-Russia relationship, the US-Israeli war against Russia-aligned Iran, and Russia’s declining influence in western and central Africa. Russia’s war with Ukraine has significantly diminished one of its leading foreign policy instruments: arms exports and associated defence partnerships. Russia’s global arms exports during the past five years (2021–2025) declined by 64% since the previous five-year period.1
While US actions are responsible only for some of these outcomes, on the whole there is little evidence that Washington is making life easier for Moscow. Even as developments of the kind that Moscow once wished for unfold, Russia’s weakened position due to the war and the effects of US policy are diminishing its influence globally. Moscow will continue to pose a serious threat to Western countries, and to Europe in particular, but it is much less influential than it might have been without the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. During their recent meeting in Beijing, President Xi reportedly told Trump that Putin will likely regret his decision to invade Ukraine. Whether or not Xi actually said this – Beijing has denied the statement – it could not have been closer to the truth, whether Putin realises it or not.
Endnotes
- The largest reductions were in Russian arms exports to Algeria, Egypt, and China, although Algeria’s figures might not be as low as estimated given the secrecy it maintains regarding its arms imports. In the most recent 5‑year period, Russia was the third largest exporter globally, with 6.8% of the market (behind the US and France). Russian arms exports to India, currently the world’s largest arms importer after Ukraine, dropped by 11% between 2016–2020 and 2021–2025, continuing a longer-term trend of India diversifying its sources of arms imports. Given this trend, Russia could conceivably drop at least to 6th place, falling behind Germany, China, and Italy, in the near future. (SIPRI Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2025 Fact Sheet, March 2026). ↩︎
