Officials in Moscow point to growing trade with China, military cooperation with Iran, diplomatic outreach in the Arab world, and the expansion of the BRICS group of major emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – to include Iran and Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia.
The BRICS expansion has demonstrated the group's “power and growing role in global affairs,” and its work will focus on “sovereign equality,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement issued on January 1, when Russia assumed the group's presidency. The Kremlin has begun to refer to itself as part of the “global majority.”
Internal Russian Security Council documents obtained by a European intelligence agency and viewed by The Washington Post show that the Kremlin held meetings in 2022 and 2023 on ways to undermine the dollar’s role as the global reserve currency. The ultimate goal, one document stated, was to dismantle the post-World War II global financial system and the power it gave Washington.
One of the documents, dated April 3, 2023, said: “One of the most important tasks is to create a new world order.” “The Western countries, led by the United States, have tried to impose their own structure, based on their hegemony.”
Another document, written by a close ally of Security Council President Nikolai Patrushev and circulated in the Kremlin this summer, called for greater cooperation between China and Russia in artificial intelligence, cyber systems, and the “Internet of Things.” As part of this, the document envisioned Beijing and Moscow creating a new Eurasian financial system and digital currency based on alternative payment systems, such as blockchain, to bypass Western dominance of global financial transactions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that Russia was working to undermine US dominance of the global financial system, but acknowledged that it aimed to create alternatives, saying that actions taken by the “collective West” undermine confidence without any help from Moscow. The Kremlin is watching [the situation] Carefully and build a new system of economic neurons because the previous system turned out to be unreliable, false and dangerous.
The belief that Russia has proven more resilient militarily and economically than the West expected has strengthened Putin's domestic standing ahead of the presidential election in March, especially with some members of the Russian elite who have expressed long-standing doubts about the war in Ukraine and the initial threats of war in Ukraine. Concern about the impact of Western sanctions.
“There has been a certain amount of consolidation within the Russian elite,” said a Russian academic with close ties to the country's top diplomats. “There is a certain expectation that the situation will change in favor of Russia.”
Russian billionaires like Oleg Deripaska, who initially spoke out against the war in Ukraine, saying it would lead to an economic crisis in Russia, now describe Russia's break with the West as a catalyst for reshaping global economic patterns.
“Alternative payment systems and debt markets will be created: in China based on the yuan, and in India and the Middle East based on cryptocurrencies,” Deripaska wrote on January 20 on the messaging app Telegram. Within a few years, sanctions will no longer be an obstacle to global trade and investment.
European security officials said Moscow is Beijing's junior partner, and it is not clear that China has any real interest in aligning with the Kremlin's grandiose visions. but Russia's focus on using its global position to disrupt the West is increasing, including in the Middle East, the officials said.
Russia “does not have absolute power, but it is trying to use all possibilities.” “They are very consistent and methodical,” said one senior European official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
While most of the West still hopes for a return to the previous regime, a senior European security official said that Russia's billionaires “have realized that the old life is over, and now is the time to create a new future.”
The official added that the Russians “crossed the Rubicon, but the West did not.” The West wants to return to business as usual. But the Russians understood that this was impossible, and they were trying to build a new world.”
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, the Kremlin has appeared to abandon its carefully crafted post-Soviet relationship with Israel in favor of deepening ties with the Arab world. In October, Russia hosted a joint delegation of high-ranking members of Hamas and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani. Putin made a rare visit to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in December, his first trip outside China, Iran and former Soviet Union countries since the invasion of Ukraine.
He added: “Through Iran, this is possible.” [for Moscow] To do that [Middle East] A Russian official said the situation was so acute that attention could be diverted from Ukraine.
“Russia still has significant negative potential,” he said. “There are a lot of hotspots where Russia can intervene.”
With a host of elections taking place in Europe this year, the State Department has warned that Russia will conduct “information operations” aimed at further undermining Western support for Ukraine.
“Russia hopes that the number of elections in Europe this year will change the remarkable alliance and disciplined opposition to its war,” says James P. Rubin, a special U.S. envoy and coordinator of the department’s Center for Global Engagement.
Matthew Redhead, former head of global strategic intelligence at HSBC and senior associate fellow at Royal United, said deep divisions in Washington, including ongoing funding of Ukraine, had reinforced the belief in Moscow and elsewhere that the United States was paralyzed. Services Institute, a British research centre.
“This means that hostile countries like Russia, Iran and perhaps China will start pushing the boundaries more to see what reaction they get,” Redhead said. “It is a call to escalation.”
For Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled businessman who spent a decade in Russian prison after falling out with Putin, the West appears to be at an inflection point. How it responds to growing global chaos—and Russian aggression—could determine how many conflicts it faces in the coming decades.
“Putin, of course, is trying to undermine the world order because for him this is the only strategy for survival,” said Khodorkovsky, who now resides in London. Khodorkovsky said that after allowing Russia to cross red lines in Syria and then withdrawing from Afghanistan, followed by gradual support for Ukraine, “it appears from the outside that the United States is losing World War III.”
General Richard Barrons, former commander of the British army's Combined Forces Command, said the risks of strategic failure for the West were increasing due to a lack of political will to supply Ukraine with sufficient quantities of weapons and improve military industrial production.
He added: “In terms of potential military power and economic power, it is absolutely ridiculous for the West to be hostage to something as relatively trivial as Russia.” Putin believes that if he remains stubborn long enough, we, the weak West, will withdraw – and he may be right. …It wouldn't just be shameful. That would be an act of strategic self-harm.
