Senior Research Fellow, Head of Economics
Moscow hopes to maximise economic and geopolitical gains from the Iran crisis while avoiding the risks of a prolonged conflict
Russia is carefully balancing its Middle East relationships and avoiding confrontation with the US, calculating that a prolonged crisis could benefit Moscow by diverting Western focus from Ukraine and boosting oil revenues
After four years of war, Russia has hardened into a more personalist and repressive system, adjusted its economy to prolonged confrontation, and signalled readiness for a sustained standoff with the West
Russian discourse on MSC 2026 casts the conference as a symbol of Europe’s strategic fragility and highlights evolving Kremlin narratives about the balance of power within the West
Ahead of the Geneva talks, Russia maintains its position and continues infrastructure strikes, suggesting that negotiations will remain stalled unless battlefield dynamics or external pressure significantly alter the parties’ calculations
With New START expired, Moscow is signalling arms-race readiness—but in reality is seeking to freeze the current nuclear balance and slow US modernisation
The 2026 elections will not change Russia’s political course, but will complete the current reshaping of the regime and may increase its exposure to latent public dissatisfaction
US–Europe tensions over Greenland are weakening transatlantic unity, expanding Russia’s room for manoeuvre, while simultaneously exposing limits of the Kremlin’s ambitions
The fall of the Iranian regime would be a political blow for Moscow, further weakening its position in the Middle East, but it would not significantly affect Russia’s ability to continue its war against Ukraine
The US capture of Maduro exposes Russia’s limited power, while normalising a force-based world order the Kremlin can exploit to legitimise its war against Ukraine
Putin’s 2025 Direct Line makes clear that Russia is being locked into a present defined by war, economic constraint, and permanent confrontation with the West, with no vision for the future
The Kremlin quietly endorsed Lukashenka’s limited deal with Washington, seeing it not as a threat to its control over Belarus, but as a test case for US sanctions relief and a potential wedge in transatlantic unity
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