Politics

Russia’s pragmatic retreat from the Middle East

Moscow has its work cut out in Ukraine, where the ongoing war is a drain on resources. This means that the lofty regional ambitions it set out in 2023 have had to be recalibrated.

AFP-Reuters-Eduardo Ramon

Russia’s pragmatic retreat from the Middle East

Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy

last update on 24 Oct 2025

In March 2023, the Kremlin unveiled its latest Foreign Policy Concept (FPC) document proclaiming Russia’s return as a world power with “a unique mission in maintaining a global balance of forces”. As part of this, it envisioned Moscow acting as an indispensable mediator and security architect in the Middle East. To Iran, it promised “full-scale and trustful cooperation”. To Syria (then ruled by Bashar al-Assad), it offered “comprehensive support”. To the likes of Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Egypt, it spoke about “deepening multifaceted, mutually beneficial partnerships”.

The FPC aspired to position Russia as the Middle East’s peacemaker, capable of “reconciling differences and normalising relations” between rivals and establishing “a sustainable, comprehensive, regional security and cooperation architecture”. Just over two years later, things sound very different. From Gaza to Syria, Lebanon to Iran, Moscow is maintaining a noticeably constrained presence, suggesting a divergence between strategic ambition and operational reality.

This reveals a fundamental truth: that Russia’s pragmatic retreat from Middle Eastern engagement represents not a change in desire, but a recognition of capacity. The Ukraine conflict has forced Moscow into a strategic recalculation, pivoting from regional power broker to limited partner. In foreign policy circles, its new approach is sometimes called ‘strategic transactionalism’—one that combines pragmatic, interest-driven cooperation with ambitions for deeper alignment, yet remains constrained by competing priorities and limited resources.

Russia’s 2023 FPC represented a shift in orientation. For the first time since the Soviet Union’s collapse more than 30 years ago, the language of confrontation with the West overrode the language of cooperation. Moscow feels that the international order is becoming multipolar. For the Kremlin, this meant there was a “shifting (of) development potential to new centres of economic growth and geopolitical influence”.

Russia sees the Middle East as a critical theatre for challenging Western hegemony. The FPC’s implementation, however, combines ambitious rhetorical alignment with carefully limited commitments. Nowhere is this clearer than in Russia’s relationship with Iran. The pair signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty in January 2025 covering cooperation across multiple areas, but notably omitted a mutual defence clause that Iran had sought.

Evgenia Novozhenina / AFP — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sign a strategic partnership treaty during a ceremony following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow on January 17, 2025.

Ukraine war drain

The pursuit of formalistic upgrades in relationships while avoiding substantive commitments is now a familiar one to Moscow. Avoiding the overextension of Russian resources has become the hallmark of its Middle Eastern policy. The ongoing Ukraine war acts as a huge drain on resources, forcing Russia to prioritise immediate security concerns over distant ambitions.

For some analysts, Russia lacks the financial, human, and cultural resources for regional leadership, yet positions itself as the 'anti-West' option for Middle Eastern nations that may have fallen out with Washington and others. The 2023 FPC presents Russia as a distinct "state-civilisation" with historical claims to global influence, positioned to challenge Western hegemony through strong partnerships in the Islamic world.

This ambitious framework proposed strategic depth through deepened ties with the likes of Iran, Syria, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, while leveraging historical relationships with Palestinian factions and Israel. What makes Russia's subsequent retreat so telling is that it occurred despite the FPC's theoretical prioritisation of Middle Eastern engagement.

The document discusses "countering the expansionist plans of the United States and the collective West," so analysts expected this to translate into robust regional involvement. Yet the resource drain from Ukraine has put the brakes on. The Middle East is now a secondary theatre not by choice, but by necessity—a classic case of strategic overreach meeting operational limitations.

The resource drain from Ukraine has put the brakes on. The Middle East is now a secondary theatre, not by choice, but by necessity.

Russia's response to the Gaza conflict exemplifies its transactional approach to regional crises. Despite historical ties to Palestinian factions and having recently hosted a Hamas delegation in Moscow, Russia has only played a small part in ceasefire diplomacy, with summits proceeding without much Russian participation. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia would not "impose its services" as a mediator, a passive stance contrasting sharply with the document's promise that Russia would help find "a comprehensive and lasting solution to the Palestinian question".

Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of Russia's Middle Eastern limitations came with the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December 2024. Moscow had spent nearly a decade (and significant resources) propping him up, so his ouster was a profound setback for Russian influence, given the FPC pledged "comprehensive support" to Syria.

Russia's refusal to intervene once the Idlib-based revolution unfurled revealed a new pragmatism born of strategic limitation. It seems that Russia deliberately held back during the opposition's push, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan later observing that Russia "had the military capability to respond and could have used it, but decided not to". Moscow may simply have judged that al-Assad was worth less than its other strategic relationships, such as with Türkiye, which was backing Syria's opposition.

In the aftermath, Russia's ambitions narrowed dramatically to the preservation of its strategically important military bases in Syria, at Tartus and Khmeimim. The former patron-client relationship between Russia and al-Assad's Syria transformed into one of transactional negotiation between Moscow and the new Damascus government, as Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa sought to "redefine" their relationship. Far from the FPC's vision of a deep strategic partnership, it now reflects a minimalist approach focused on preserving Russia's essential military assets in the Mediterranean.

AFP — Russian soldiers stand aboard a ship at the Russian naval base in the Syrian Mediterranean port of Tartus on September 26, 2019.

Hedging its bets

The Russia-Iran relationship is a more complex case, in which strengthened formal diplomatic channels conceal substantive limitations. The January 2025 Partnership Treaty was a formal upgrade in relations, yet it remained fundamentally transactional and constrained by mutual necessity, rather than robust alignment. The partnership's core lies in jointly dealing with Western sanctions and in specific areas of military cooperation, particularly in relation to Iran's provision of drones for Russia's war in Ukraine.

The major point of note from January, however, was Russia's unwillingness to guarantee Iran's security. Less than six months later, Israel and the United States attacked Iran from the air for 12 days in June 2025, extensively targeting its military and political leaders, its military and nuclear infrastructure, and its top nuclear scientists. During the bombing, Moscow offered rhetorical support to Iran, but no military backing. The Iranian relationship, therefore, remains limited in substance. It is a partnership of convenience, not a true alliance, and is a good example of the 'strategic transactionalism' defining Moscow's current approach.

In Lebanon, too, Russia's minimal engagement reflects its broader regional retreat. Despite the FPC's ambition to mediate regional conflicts, Moscow has only played an observational role in negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, particularly over Hezbollah's disarmament, playing second fiddle to the United States. Again, the FPC's vision of Russia as a security architect in the Middle East seems a long way off.

While Moscow continues to regard Hezbollah as a "legitimate socio-political force," rather than a terrorist group, it exerts little discernible influence over the group's strategic calculations or Lebanon's political direction. The disarmament negotiations, which are critical to regional stability, have proceeded without meaningful Russian participation—a clear indicator of Moscow's diminished capacity to project influence.

Alexander Zemlianichenko / AFP — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa hold a meeting at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow on October 15, 2025.

Limited bandwidth

From Gaza to Syria, Lebanon to Iran, Russia has prioritised the preservation of its essential assets—military bases, specific partnerships, and diplomatic positioning—over the comprehensive engagement outlined in its foreign policy doctrine, with the Ukraine war exposing the constraints of Russian power projection. While this approach allows for flexibility and cost management, it limits influence and reveals the emptiness of rhetorical commitments.

Moscow's limited bandwidth has not been lost on its Middle Eastern partners, who have adjusted their expectations accordingly. The grandeur of Russia's ambitions has yielded to the humble reality of triage, showing how even aspiring global powers must prioritise.

For now, the Middle East's conflicts and various diplomatic processes will continue to evolve with only marginal Russian input, as it has—out of necessity—opted to make a tactical withdrawal. That, however, should not be misconstrued as it ceding all influence to the West. After all, Russia is known to play the long game.

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