Two weeks after invading Ukraine, Russia expanded its list of “unfriendly” countries to include 48 nations that had imposed sanctions against it for actions in Ukraine. The initial list, published in 2021, contained only two countries: the United States and the Czech Republic. Expanded in March 2022, the list now includes the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan and all European Union member states, among others. Being on the “unfriendly” list means restricted trade relations and currency transactions with Russia. While Russia imposed restrictions on economic cooperation with these “unfriendly” nations, it has intensified its cooperation with China and India. On 30 March 2022, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, visited Beijing and said Russia–China relations were “at their strongest level ever”. The countries released a joint statement on their strengthened cooperation. India has remained committed to its cooperation with Russia, refraining from criticising the invasion in Ukraine, exploring new payment models for trade, and purchasing liquified natural gas from Russia at a discount. The war in Ukraine demonstrated that the global order the world has known since 1991 has been altered: multipolarity – a reality in which there are multiple centres of global power – is the new norm. Western countries could not get the full condemnation and isolation of Russia they hoped for, and the more strongly they pushed for condemnation, the clearer it became that major powers such as China and India could not be forced to choose sides. Since the Cold War, Russia has cultivated multiple allied relationships that have proven useful. While its engagement in traditional security alliances has been limited, Russia has experimented with a range of cooperation formats. Disillusioned by the promise of allying with the West, Russia’s leadership in the late 1990s shifted towards multivectorism: the idea that a country’s geopolitical standpoint can be favourable to all of its major partners, benefiting economically and militarily from these partnerships, with the goal of creating a multipolar world order, without US hegemony.
Russia followed two pathways. Regionally, it aimed to strengthen its influence in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, creating a defensive alliance and economic-union-type relations with former Soviet countries. Globally, it sought to increase its bargaining leverage towards the US and diversify its foreign relationships.
At the regional level, the only formal alliance that Russia is part of is the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Policy documents treat the CSTO as the main tool for managing regional military and political threats in Eurasia, but Russian scholars don’t see the CSTO offering Russia support or “pseudo-legitimacy” during its military actions (for example, those in Georgia or Ukraine) comparable to the support the US receives from NATO. Nevertheless, Russia remains the CSTO’s guarantor and the main contributor to its budget. Beyond security-focused alliances, Russia has put its energies into creating and sustaining regional union-type relationships, including the Union State of Russia and Belarus, and the Eurasian Economic Union. The former is a union characterised by economic sovereignty, emphasising loyalty and common defence with Belarus, Russia’s closest ally. The latter is a regional integration project involving Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. The Commonwealth of Independent States has also been used as a political platform to address regional issues. The fate of these Russia-championed regional organisations is yet to be known, given their main security guarantor (Russia) has disrupted the global status quo by invading Ukraine as well as through its actions in Georgia and Crimea in 2014. This has left some Central Asian countries concerned about Russia’s next moves.
