Putin's Power Suffers From Ukraine Failure, Perception He's Powerless To Save Iran

There have been lots of articles in the past week claiming Putin is the primary beneficiary of the US-Israeli attack on Iran. But most of these arguments focus on the current rise in oil prices. 

The harsher reality is that this financial impact is temporary. What is permanent is that for the third time in recent months the leader of a major Russian ally - Syria, Venezuela and now, Iran - has fallen (with Cuba probably to follow) and Putin has been powerless to save them. This perception of weakness is corrosive. And while he can still project a threat to Europe, he would be unlikely to win were he foolish enough to think he could win a war. And the proof is that he still can't beat Ukraine, which was weaker than several of Europe's individual nations, let alone the alliance together. JL

Bob Seely reports in The Telegraph:

Oil prices have temporarily skyrocketed, helping replenish Russia's emptying coffers, but Putin's dreams of building an alliance to counter the West are being dismantled, one dictatorship at a time, by Donald Trump. Trump's and Putin's telephone call doesn’t change the fundamentals: the loss of allies damages Putin, but also the perception he’s powerless to save them. Putin has invested so much in co-opting Trump over Ukraine that he cannot treat the US as an enemy on Iran - or Syria, Venezuela, Cuba. The Kremlin wanted US-Ukraine negotiations to gain what Russian soldiers failed to win on the battlefield; it hasn’t. Putin knows his fake superpower status would be swept aside if he uses what little force Russia could muster to support Iran. He loved to boast Russia was one of the “sovereign” powers on earth. In reality, it is metamorphosing into a raw-material colony for China.

For Vladimir Putin, the Russian dictator, the Iran war must feel, to misquote Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, like the best of times and the worst of times.

On the one hand, oil prices have temporarily rocketed, helping to replenish Russia’s emptying coffers. The benchmark price for crude oil has nearly doubled since January, from about $60 (£45) a barrel to near $110 before falling back. Where it goes now is obviously dependent on whether the conflict continues – Trump says it is near complete, let’s see – and whether the Straits of Hormuz, through which a third of the world’s oil moves, is open.

While there is a current Western-imposed cap of $44 a barrel on the Russian oil price, it applies only when using Western banks, insurance and tankers. To avoid this cap, Putin uses his “shadow fleet”, an armada of about 1,200 ships, the largest such covert operation in maritime history. Even selling at a discount, Russian oil should currently fetch $80 a barrel from deliveries to India and China. Not paying for insurance or even for the upkeep of the often-unsafe vessels may make Russia another $5-$6 per barrel. Every little helps. 

But this boon is dwarfed by the downsides of the war in Iran for Putin. His dreams of building an alternative alliance system to counter the West are being dismantled, one dictatorship at a time, by Donald Trump, who has been treating him as if he were an irrelevance on a par with Sir Keir Starmer.

Yes, on Monday, Trump and Putin spoke about the war. This has led to some concern that the Kremlin is once again influencing the US president’s thinking. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. One polite telephone call doesn’t change the fundamentals: it’s not just the loss of allies that damages Putin, but the perception that he’s powerless to save them.

Two key partner regimes, Venezuela and now Iran, have been partly decapitated. The fall of socialism in Cuba, an island which, in Putin’s mind, sits at the heart of Moscow’s overseas alliances, is surely only a matter of time. 

Yet his hands are tied. Putin has invested so much in trying to co-opt Trump and the US negotiating team over Ukraine that he cannot be seen to treat America as an enemy elsewhere now. The Kremlin wanted the US-Ukraine negotiations to be a new front in the operation – to gain the territory Russian soldiers failed to win on the battlefield. He hoped his influence would result in the US forcing Ukraine to surrender territory and cities; it hasn’t.

 

But Putin is so heavily invested in the Trump White House that his strategy is backfiring in other regions. His world is being shattered by the same US administration he tried to co-opt. Whether by accident or design, the US is helping to bury Russian power in the Middle East and Putin seems powerless to react.

He has little practical aid to offer, in any case. Putin must know that his superpower status is fake and would be swept aside if he dared to use what little military force Russia could muster to support Iran. Putin’s Russia can send some satellite information and verbal messages of congratulations to the ayatollahs, but short of endless boasting about nuclear weapons, Putin must know that he is a modern-day emperor with no clothes.

Consider the example of Syria, a Moscow client state since the late 1950s. Less than a decade ago, Putin’s forces successfully helped Bashar al-Assad cling to power in the country’s civil war, outmanoeuvring an indecisive West with a combination of a ruthless application of limited military force and swift diplomatic action. It was the high point of Russian global power, helping to convince Putin that Russia was back. When a British delegation visited Moscow shortly before the start of the Ukraine war, they were told by the Russian chief of staff that he commanded the second most powerful army on earth.

From zenith to nadir. By December 2024, as Assad’s regime was being overthrown, Putin stood by. Russia lacked the military capability even to defend one of its core allies. 

Putin’s overreach in the Ukraine war has drained Russia’s global military and diplomatic leverage. While he can and will still threaten eastern Europe, his ability to deliver expeditionary forces over long distances is largely shot through, save for some semi-mercenary operations in Africa.

 

Russia has also lost much of its influence in Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, replaced by the US and Turkey. Recent Iranian strikes on Azerbaijan are likely to have further complicated Putin’s calculations in the region. The Kremlin failed to support its Armenian ally during its conflict with Baku and has paid the price. A lesson for the UK in support of its Gulf allies now.

 

And in Central Asia, ruled from Moscow within living memory, China is (quietly) replacing Russia. Moscow cannot compete with Beijing’s wealth, especially as Putin can’t confront China while it needs it to replace lost Western markets. Putin has gambled on relationships that are now weakening, not strengthening, Russian power.

By the end of this decade, Putin risks strategic failure on many fronts – in Ukraine, in Central Asia and the Caucasus, and further afield in Venezuela, Syria and Iran. He loved to boast that Russia was one of the truly “sovereign” powers on earth. In reality, it is metamorphosing into a raw-material colony for China. It is an angry, atavistic threat to Ukraine and Europe, and an irrelevance elsewhere.

At the start of this century, Putin had grand plans to rebuild his nation. He reinvented a theory of war in which all the tools of the state, military and non-military, would be integrated as never before to take on the West. It was a strategically creative way of maximising Russia’s shrinking power. There were some notable wins. Yet such were Putin’s aims that, no matter how skilfully blended the tactics were, those ambitions were too great for a country with an economy the size of Spain’s.

 

It is foolish to write Putin off. He remains a danger and still has much destructive power. He is a ruthless manipulator, but his dreams of attaining a global status on a par with China and the US – a “Poundland superpower”, if you will – are tottering, if not falling, around him.