Understanding Putin Through a Middle Eastern

Looking Glass

by John W. Parker

STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES 19

Center for Strategic Research

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University
Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

The Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) is National 

Defense University’s (NDU’s) dedicated research arm. INSS includes 

the Center for Strategic Research, Center for Complex Operations, 

Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, and Center for 

Technology and National Security Policy. The military and civilian 

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their mission by conducting research and analysis, publishing, and 

participating in conferences, policy support, and outreach.

The mission of INSS is to conduct strategic studies for the Secretary 

of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the unified combatant commands in support of the academic programs at NDU and to 

perform outreach to other U.S. Government agencies and the broader 

national security community. 

Cover: Vladimir Putin, right, and Bashar al-Asad shake hands in Moscow, 

December 19, 2006. Putin hosted Asad for talks focusing on tensions among 

Palestinians, Lebanon’s political standoff, and stalled Middle East peacemaking 

(AP Photo/Mikhail Klementiev, ITAR-TASS, Presidential Press Service)
Understanding Putin

Through a Middle Eastern

Looking Glass

Institute for National Strategic Studies

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Series Editor: Nicholas Rostow

National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.

July 2015

By John W. Parker

Understanding Putin

Through a Middle Eastern

Looking Glass
For current publications of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, please visit inss.ndu.edu/Publications.aspx.

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First printing, July 2015
Contents

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Slow Fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Big Bang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Unexpected Returns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Saudi-Iranian Seesaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

After Syria—On to Crimea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Stress Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Back to the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Appendix A: Crimea—Damn the Cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Appendix B: The Diplomatic Perils of Russian Nationalism . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

1

Understanding Putin

Executive Summary

The resurgence of Russian influence in the Middle East has surprised Moscow as much as 

any other capital. Russia has done better than the Kremlin and its Middle East experts feared 

when the Arab Spring began. Despite Moscow’s deep involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, Russia is now in a stronger position with national leaderships across the Middle East than it was in 

2011, although its stock with Sunni Arab public opinion has been sinking.

The instrumental value of the region for demonstrating that the United States has to take 

Russia’s interests into account in the Middle East and beyond is more important than ever to the 

Kremlin and to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political legitimacy as a strong leader at home. 

It counts for more than any uptick in weapons sales or other economic deals in the region.

The confluence of four streams of developments in late 2011 sparked the dramatic turnaround in the Russian approach to Syria and shaped it along the lines with which we are now 

familiar. First was the Russian reaction to the Western campaign against Libya. Second was 

the political turbulence inside Russia itself and Putin’s embrace of a platform of opposition to 

U.S. policy, particularly in the Middle East, to help him recover his political footing as he faced 

presidential elections in early March 2012. Third was the sharp increase in Israeli and American 

threats to strike Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities. Fourth was the spike in Saudi—as well as 

Qatari and Turkish—activism against the Bashar al-Asad regime in Syria.

The consistency of Putin’s approach to the Syrian conflict and Moscow’s unexpected success in holding its own against Washington led to the perception in Moscow of growing respect 

from leaderships in the Middle East, even in countries such as Saudi Arabia, not favorably 

disposed toward Russia. By Russian accounts, leaders in these countries began to believe that 

Russia needed to be dealt with, even if this strained relations with Washington. As a result, some 

regional capitals started to consult more closely with Russia, to lobby for its support, and to return to the Russian arms market, while others resumed high-level exploratory contacts.

In the meantime, one of the unintended consequences of the increased direct pressure on 

Iran and of the indirect pressure on Iran through Syria was the drawing together of Moscow and 

Tehran. As a result of Russia’s obsession with suspected Saudi-sponsored Sunni terrorism and 

of the dynamics of the Syrian crisis, Russia drifted toward an implicit soft alliance with Shiagoverned states in the region: Iran, Syria, and Iraq. Moscow more than ever began to regard Iran 

as a “natural barrier” against Sunni extremism rising out of the Middle East to threaten Russian 

interests to the north.
2 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

By early February 2014, the Middle East was still not a top economic priority for Russia, 

but had become a prestige priority of sorts because it turned out to be a highly successful part 

of Russian diplomacy. Putin seemed to be on a roll. Russia’s veto power in the United Nations 

(UN) Security Council and naval shuttle of weapons and spare parts to the Asad regime had 

discouraged the use of U.S. force against Syria as well as Iran. The Russian president also had 

what seemed like a deal with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich to draw Ukraine closer to 

Russia and away from the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 

The Winter Olympics in Sochi (February 7–23) went off well, with no terrorist attacks. 

Toward the end of February, however, when the deal with Yanukovich collapsed, Putin’s 

success in Syria helped set the table for his approach to the Ukrainian crisis. The Russian president’s experience in the Middle East gave him the confidence to annex Crimea in March, and 

soon to extend Russian military assistance to pro-Russian forces in Donetsk and Luhansk in 

southeastern Ukraine.

There were several Syrian dimensions to Putin’s decision to go into Crimea. The momentum of his success in competing with Western leaders to reestablish Russia as a major player in 

the Middle East carried him forward into Ukraine. Security dimensions were also strong motivating factors in both theaters: in Syria, it was the threat of radical Sunni Islam moving north 

out of the Middle East to Russia; in Ukraine, it was the imperative to keep NATO from moving 

farther eastward.

Mixed in with security motives were also Putin’s domestic political needs: both in Syria 

and then in Crimea and southeastern Ukraine he used opposition to American policy to bolster 

the image of Russia as a restored great power and, not coincidentally, to buck up his approval 

ratings among the Russian public. 

Finally, there has been a similarity in Russian military ways and means used in both theaters: Russian navy ships have been semi-covertly transferring military hardware and supplies 

to the beleaguered Asad regime since spring 2013; in Crimea and then southeastern Ukraine, 

Russia has employed similar methods not only to supply military material to local pro-Russian 

fighters, but even to insert Russian soldiers. 

After the bloodless annexation of Crimea, some observers suggested that Syria had lost its 

importance to Putin as a venue for bolstering his ratings at home because his Ukrainian gambit 

was doing this much more effectively. But the Middle East, including Syria, now acquired another important function: to demonstrate that Russia is not an international “pariah.” Especially 

after the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 17 in July 2014 and the more open Russian 

military intervention in southeastern Ukraine in August, Putin has used his contacts in the 
3

Understanding Putin

Middle East not only to help him soften the impact of Western economic sanctions, but also to 

avoid international isolation.

Russia’s gains in the Middle East have not only held fast as the Ukrainian conflict has 

flared, but even matured. Given the general perception of American weakness in the region, 

particularly after Syria’s Asad crossed President Obama’s “red line” on chemical weapons use 

without eliciting a military response, friction between Moscow and Washington has meant 

more room for maneuver for capitals in the Middle East. Even if they still recognize that the 

United States remains the most formidable power in the region, they all have little incentive to 

spite Russia over Ukraine. 

Syria, of course, depends heavily on Russia’s UN Security Council veto to impede any concerted international effort to ease the Asad regime from power. Moreover, whereas 3 years ago 

it appeared that Russia itself was being eased out of the Middle East, Moscow is now potentially 

the key actor in seeking a political solution to the Syrian crisis.

Elsewhere, Israel has pursued neutrality over the Ukraine conflict. This may now change in 

the wake of Putin’s decision on April 13 to revive the transfer of S-300 air defense systems to Iran, 

but few in Moscow see this as likely. Iran itself has few equities in Ukraine and little reason to roil 

waters with Russia, a key and sometimes sympathetic player in the nuclear negotiations with the 

P5+1 countries (the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany).

In Iraq, Putin’s reaction to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) threat was quicker than 

Washington’s and was appreciated by both the Nouri al-Maliki and Haider al-Abadi administrations. With Egypt, relations between Cairo and Moscow have flourished all through the 

Ukrainian crisis.

Saudi Arabia and Russia have increased contacts despite deep divisions over Syria, new 

differences over Yemen, competing global energy interests, and longstanding mutual distrust. 

Rumored Saudi funding of Egyptian arms purchases from Russia might prove to be the bridge 

over these and other differences to better relations between Moscow and Riyadh.

Finally, Putin and Turkey’s President Recip Tayyip Erdogan seem determined not to let 

differences over Syria, Crimea, and now the Armenian genocide issue disrupt booming economic ties.

While Putin has been lucky, he has also benefited from the West’s mistakes and intervention fatigue. As a result of these realities and Russia’s focused political will, Moscow continues 

to punch above its weight in the Middle East. But the Middle East is still not a top priority for 

Russia. Even more since the onset of the Ukraine crisis, countries such as China and India far 

outrank the Middle East as global geopolitical priorities.
4 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Moscow most certainly wants to maintain relations with all in the region and sell weapons 

to any country that will pay for them, but Russia will not put boots on the ground anywhere. In 

this sense, Russian policy in the Middle East remains deeply conservative. As Moscow sees it, 

there are simply too many problems in the region and no solutions. Its policy will thus continue 

to be focused on keeping these problems as far away from Russia as possible.

Nevertheless, the Western reaction to Russian actions in Ukraine has given Putin a greater 

incentive to work toward a more significant Russian profile in the Middle East, in part to compensate for Western sanctions but foremost to demonstrate that Russia remains a great power 

in the world. And, as Moscow sees it, this impulse by Putin is being reciprocated in the region.

No outside power, including the United States, may be up to—or even able to play—a 

controlling role in the region any longer. But realism restrains all sides from believing that Russia is anywhere close to eclipsing the major role the United States still plays in the Middle East. 

Nevertheless, Putin appears intent on providing more of a choice for the region than has existed 

since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.
5

Understanding Putin

Preface

In 2010, a few months after joining the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the 

National Defense University (NDU), I began what would turn out to be a series of fairly regular 

visits to Moscow. These continued during a 2013–2014 parallel appointment as a Public Policy 

Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute in Washington, DC. They have now 

extended into the present year.

During these visits I discussed Russian policy toward the Middle East with a variety of 

think tank foreign policy and regional experts, journalists with similar experience, some active and some semi-retired diplomats, and several former high-ranking Russian government 

officials. The conversations took place in May 2010, February and July 2011, February and July 

2012, October 2013, February, June, and September 2014, and February and May 2015.

The purpose of these visits to Moscow was initially to continue research on the ongoing evolution of Russian-Iranian developments. My book Persian Dreams (Potomac Books, Inc., 2009) 

took these developments up to 2008.1

 I wanted to take the story further, and my paper Russia and 

the Iranian Nuclear Program: Replay or Breakthrough? (NDU Press, 2012) was a first result.2

Soon, however, the Arab Spring broke out. My exchanges in Moscow quickly expanded 

from Russian-Iranian relations to Moscow’s ties not just with Damascus, but with all the capitals 

in the Middle East. In 2014, the analytical focus of my trips took another unexpected twist as I 

began to probe the impact of Russian policy toward Ukraine on Russia’s ties in the Middle East. 

This paper is an attempt to put it all together.

I am grateful to INSS-NDU; the Wilson Center; U.S. Embassy in Moscow; Arab Center 

for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar; Track Two Citizen Diplomacy Institute in San 

Francisco; and Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow for 

facilitating various aspects of these visits. I am also deeply indebted to my long-time friends and 

colleagues Robert Otto and Wayne Limberg for bringing many of the articles cited in this paper 

to my attention and for providing occasional but necessary sanity checks.

I am especially thankful to some 20 Russian colleagues—real professionals—who repeatedly and selflessly shared with me their unvarnished views and critical insights into Russia’s evolving policy toward the Middle East from 2010 into 2015. They are all well known in 

the field, but they remain anonymous in this paper—except when I cite their many published 

works. Beginning with my earlier essay on Russia and the Iranian Nuclear Program, this practice seems to have served well for encouraging informality and the free exchange of ideas, so 

I have stuck to it here. 
6 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

The paper incorporates elements from earlier informal presentations and a partial draft-inprogress prepared for the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies conference titled “The Arab 

World and the U.S.: Interests and Concerns in a Changing Environment (An Academic Perspective),” which was held in Doha, Qatar, on June 14–16, 2014. This paper is based on information 

that was current as of June 24, 2015.
7

Understanding Putin

Slow Fade

Vladimir Putin in time would revive Russian interest in the Middle East after he replaced 

Boris Yeltsin as president. Yet it was not obvious in 1999–2000 that Russian fortunes in the region would reverse anytime soon. The Middle East per se in the first decade of the 21st century 

would remain a low priority for Russia in the world. 

When then-President Dmitry Medvedev spoke to Russian ambassadors on June 12, 2010, 

he emphasized Russia’s ties to the Asia Pacific region and Europe; Association of Southeast 

Asian Nations (ASEAN); Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRIC); European Union (EU); and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS); and to Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, 

Ukraine, and the United States. But he never mentioned strengthening (or even seeking) ties in 

the Middle East or Africa.3

 Except for Egypt, Russia at this time did not claim to have a “strategic partnership” with any country in the Middle East.4

 At various times, Moscow teased Tehran 

with the concept but always stopped well short of realizing it.5

In October 2011, Libyan militias backed by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

forces with Arab League support succeeded in ousting President Muammar Qadhafi from power and brutally murdered him. Russia, especially then–Prime Minister Putin, bitterly criticized 

the morbid spectacle but could do nothing else. Since then, however, the jagged arc of the Syrian 

and Arab Spring storylines has carried Russia from a power that was being steadily marginalized in the Middle East to a power whose input is critical to the search for a way forward in the 

region, and to a way out of the Syrian crisis in particular.6

Moreover, while money became one of the prime motivators of Russian ties to the Middle 

East under Putin, trade was never that high compared to other regions. In 2007, for example, 

before the global financial crisis knocked everything into a tailspin, Russia’s trade with Iran 

was only $3.3 billion, not much higher than the $2.6 billion with Israel. Next came trade with 

Egypt at $2.1 billion and Syria at $1.1 billion. All of these volumes paled in comparison to Russia’s trade at the time with Turkey ($22.6 billion) and China ($40.3 billion) and even the United 

States ($17.8 billion).7

From the beginning of the Arab Spring in December 2010 in Tunisia, the Russian reaction 

was one of deep suspicion toward any expression of Islamic political activism anywhere in the 

region. When it came to Syria, Russia viewed that country as much more important than Libya, 

Tunisia, or even Egypt to the security architecture of the region.8

 In April 2011, not long after 

Damascus started an operation to repress some of the first peaceful demonstrations against the 

Bashar al-Asad regime in the city of Deraa, the Russian Foreign Ministry underscored that Syria 
8 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

was “the cornerstone of the security architecture in the Middle East.”9 This became the standard 

talking point for Russian officials, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated the formulation 

in September 2011.10

Nevertheless, Russia was at first relatively restrained in reacting to the crisis brewing 

in Syria. As prime minister at the time, Putin, in June 2011 and several times thereafter, 

claimed that Russia had no special interests in Syria. “Some think for some reasons that we 

have some special relationship with Syria. A special relationship did exist at one time—in 

the Soviet era, not now,” Putin demurred. “We have no special interests there—neither 

military bases, nor major projects, nor billions in investment we would need to defend. 

Nothing.”11

President Medvedev in August 2011 called on Asad “to urgently carry out reforms, reconcile with the opposition, restore civil peace and create a modern state.” If Asad failed to do this, 

Medvedev warned, “he is doomed, and we will eventually have to make certain decisions.”12

Several days later, Riyadh recalled its ambassador from Damascus; Kuwait, Bahrain, and Turkey 

then did the same.13 Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah called on Asad to “halt the machinery of killing before it is too late.”14 And on August 18, 2011, President Barack Obama proclaimed, “The 

time has come for President Asad to step aside.”15

Indeed, in visits to Moscow in February and July 2011, I found the Russian reaction to the 

upheavals in the Middle East to be passive and bordering on the desultory.16 Official Moscow 

appeared to be at most a cautious observer simply reacting to events there, not an engaged actor 

trying to shape future developments. The prevailing view was that Moscow’s response remained 

reactive and narrowly focused on trade: politics in the service of economics. 

A well-known Russian pundit put it most bluntly: after the collapse of the Soviet Union, 

Russia had ceased to be a player in the Middle East. Russian policy in the region had become 

mercantilist and opportunistic. Another observer similarly saw Russia as without any great regional ambitions aside from weapons sales and the like. If something bad happened anywhere, 

Russia was powerless to do anything. Analysts at one institute, while noting that the region was 

important for Russian security, observed that Moscow displayed neither initiative nor any signs 

of a regional plan.17

This attitude had changed dramatically by February 2012, when I next visited Moscow. The 

focus was now squarely on Syria, and Russia’s readiness to resist international pressure on Asad 

verged on the defiant. Russia saw itself as the only adult actor on the world stage compared to 

the leading Western powers. Syria had become the venue of the hour for Russia to demonstrate 
9

Understanding Putin

that it was still a great power and for Putin to present himself as a strong leader defending not 

only Russia’s but also other states’ sovereignty and independence against foreign interference. 

Russian students of the region had a deep appreciation of the core support in Syria for 

President Asad and of his potential staying power. They also viewed the opposition as fractious, bound increasingly to radicalize, bent on ousting Asad, but having no clear—much less 

unified—agenda for Syria after that. The Russian perspective was one of amazement that the 

United States and the West were allowing Saudi Arabia and Qatar to drag them into the conflict, 

essentially doing their dirty work for them. Russians saw this as a clear case of the tail wagging 

the dog and a reprise of earlier Saudi tactics against Moscow in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and 

Bosnia. Experts in Moscow forecast chaos not only for Syria but for the entire region should the 

opposition succeed in ousting Asad.

Still, my contacts in Moscow were largely resigned to Russia’s exit from its last foothold in 

the Middle East—Syria—and to what then seemed as Asad’s inevitable downfall. Russia’s only 

hope was that these processes would happen as slowly as possible so as to postpone and perhaps 

soften the inevitable chaos that would follow.

However, Moscow experts were dismissive of the idea of any major Russian economic or 

military interests in Syria, including the so-called naval base at Tartus. As one expert put it at 

the time, Tartus and arms sales, taken together, in comparison to Russia’s $1.85 trillion dollar 

economy, were peanuts. They were not the real motivation for Russia in Syria.18 A year and a 

half later, another still scoffed that Syria presented only miserable economic interests for Russia—just $200 million in trade in 2012 (down from $2 billion at its earlier pre-sanctions peak). 

By comparison, Russia’s $8 billion trade with the entire Middle East was less than half of its $16 

billion trade with Finland.19

All the same, the Syria crisis injected new fervor into the litany of Russian grievances 

against the United States and Europe since the Soviet collapse: NATO expansion toward Russian borders; the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia; the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq; purported American support for “color revolutions” in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan; and the 

NATO-led intervention against the Qadhafi regime in Libya.

Russia insisted that all powers adhere to accepted rules of behavior in international relations, especially noninterference (and particularly military noninterference) into the internal 

affairs of sovereign nations, and on adherence to the United Nations (UN) Charter and to the 

primacy of the UN Security Council in authorizing any military interventions anywhere by the 

international community.
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Big Bang

The confluence of four streams of developments in late 2011 sparked the dramatic turnaround in the Russian approach to Syria that was so evident by February 2012 and shaped it 

along the lines with which we are now familiar. 

First, of course, was the Russian reaction, and especially that of Putin, to the Western 

campaign against Libya and its culmination with the killing of President Muammar Qadhafi on 

October 20, 2011. Referring to televised video clips of Qadhafi’s capture, Putin said the images 

of Qadhafi “being clubbed to death” were “impossible to see without disgust.”20 Putin conceded 

that Qadhafi’s “regime was absolutely deranged and obsolete,” but described his “lynching” as 

“medieval.”21

In March 2011, in a rare instance of public discord, then–Prime Minister Putin and thenPresident Medvedev had sparred over the wisdom of abstaining rather than vetoing United 

Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1973 authorizing military action in Libya. Putin 

called it “a medieval call for a crusade.” Medvedev retorted that it was not permissible to use expressions such as “crusades” to criticize the resolution.22 According to some accounts, it was this 

open clash over the Libya resolution that had subsequently persuaded Putin against Medvedev’s 

reelection as president.23 If so, it was a harbinger of what would soon become the growing connection between Russian policy in the Middle East and politics at home.24

During my February 2012 visit to Moscow, all of the Russian experts I consulted saw Putin as determined to prevent a repetition of the “Libyan scenario” from unfolding in Syria. By 

this they meant any attempt by the Western powers to use Security Council authorization for 

“all necessary measures . . . to protect civilians” to launch a military campaign aimed at regime 

change in Damascus. Some explained Russia’s resounding and enthusiastic second veto of the 

Syria resolution earlier that month as compensation for Russia’s abstention on the Libya resolution the previous year. They said that many establishment insiders regarded that abstention as a 

major blunder, which they blamed on President Medvedev.25

Several years later, a well-informed Russian foreign policy strategist would reminisce in 

more nuanced terms that there had indeed been a problem on Libya. Looking back, he suspected that Putin had likely leaned toward vetoing the Libyan resolution but let it pass. This 

insider remembered well from participating in various discussions that the arguments at the 

time for abstaining were powerful. The feeling was strong in Moscow that it was necessary not 

to oppose the UNSC resolution because it was needed to prevent massive bloodshed in Libya. 
11

Understanding Putin

To go against that would have been a blatant challenge to public opinion. But Russia now knows 

what followed in Libya, he observed, and the situation in Libya turned out to be a terrible one.26

Russia bitterly objected that the West had gone way beyond the mandate of Resolution 

1973 of March 2011. The Western effort to prevent Qadhafi from bombing his opposition into 

extinction had turned into a campaign that supported the opposition in its efforts to capture 

Qadhafi and his family. Citing this evolving “Libyan scenario,” Russia cast its first veto of a draft 

UNSC resolution on Syria on October 4, 2011.27 Two and a half years later, after he annexed 

Crimea, Putin would assert that the “reset” with the United States had “ended immediately after 

the events in Libya.”28

The second development leading to the Russian turnaround, less well understood, was the 

political turbulence inside Russia itself. According to independent polling, Putin’s popularity 

had plummeted. His overall approval had stood at 80 percent in April 2008 but by November 

2011 only 31 percent favored him for president.29 Medvedev and Putin’s presumptive revelation 

in late September that they intended to switch places after the upcoming elections set the stage 

for a wave of open opposition to Putin’s campaign to regain the presidency.30 The crowd at a 

boxing match in Moscow in November shockingly booed Putin.31 Fraudulent Duma elections 

provoked large demonstrations on December 10 and December 24, with an estimated 100,000 

people turning out in Moscow during the latter one.

Putin needed a new team and new issues to help him recover his political footing, overcome the challenge to his legitimacy, and win the presidential elections scheduled for early 

March. He named Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov chief of staff (Head of the Presidential Administration) and Vyacheslav Volodin his (Putin’s) deputy. Volodin also took over running Putin’s presidential campaign. According to one retrospective, “Observers noticed that 

Volodin’s arrival at the Presidential Administration signaled a completely new attitude in the 

Kremlin to the leaders of the opposition . . . [and] it was Volodin who came up with the idea 

of contrasting the poor, loyal provinces with the ‘well-fed’ Moscow opposition.”32 At the same 

time, Putin brought back long-time Russian nationalist politician Dmitry Rogozin from Brussels, where he had been serving as ambassador to NATO, and made him deputy prime minister 

in charge of the defense and space industry. 

Appealing to its core base outside of Russia’s large cities, Putin’s campaign donned a Russian nationalist/anti-American mantle. The election campaign was marked by increased anti-American sentiment deliberately encouraged by the official media. It portrayed candidate 

Putin as fighting U.S.-inspired and -directed “orange revolutions” across former Soviet states, 

now including Russia, as well as a repetition of the “Libyan scenario” in Syria. Early on, Putin 
12 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

suggested that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had paid demonstrators to turn out for 

the massive protests in the Russian capital.33 Some of this anti-Americanism was even targeted 

at the new U.S. Ambassador, Michael McFaul, who arrived in Moscow on January 14, 2012, 

and thereafter had to endure a prolonged campaign of harassment.34

In this electoral context, Syria became the perfect foreign policy issue for Putin to use to 

pose as a strong leader defending the sovereignty of Great Russia and its reputation as a major 

power in world politics. And it all worked. Most observers agreed that Putin likely did get a 

slight majority of the votes in the presidential elections on March 4, 2012. In his victory speech 

on election night, Putin exuded “Glory to Russia!” and famously shed tears.35 By May 2012, 

when he was inaugurated, his overall approval rating had recovered to around 60 percent.36

Third, also not well understood and even more poorly remembered, was the sharp increase in October and November 2011 in Israeli and American threats to strike Iranian nuclear 

enrichment facilities. Moscow feared that this would actually provoke Iran to rush to develop a 

nuclear weapon rather than slow down its nuclear enrichment program, and that any attack on 

Iran would soon escalate into regional war and chaos with unforeseen but frightening consequences for Russian interests. This development added to Moscow’s sense of urgency in pursuing the “principle” of nonintervention.37

The same can be said of the fourth development. This was the spike in Saudi—as well as 

Qatari and Turkish—activism against the Asad regime in Syria in late 2011. In October 2011, 

U.S. charges of an Iranian plot to kill Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir in Washington made dramatic headlines around the world.38 Reacting to the headlines, prominent Saudi journalist Jamal 

Khashoggi predicted that “Syria is the next battleground. [. . .] Many Saudi Arabians feel there 

is an extended Iranian hand in Syria, and Syria is not the Iranian domain. They say Syria is our 

domain, and that a mistake of history put a minority in charge. But it is our territory, and this 

is our opportunity to correct this mistake of history.” On the same day, Saudi Prince Turki Al 

Faisal commented, “Somebody in Iran will have to pay the price.”39

According to some accounts, the first armed attacks by the Free Syrian Army occurred just 

a month after the plot disclosures.40 In retrospect, although perhaps pure coincidence, these 

attacks by the Saudi-supported opposition in Syria may have been Saudi Arabia’s asymmetric 

response to the Iranian plot. Saudi comments shortly before certainly seemed to point in that 

direction. In any event, suspicious minds in Moscow could have easily perceived the asserted 

plot as a pretext for the Saudis to encourage the ramping up of armed resistance in Syria aimed 

ultimately at undermining Iran.
13

Understanding Putin

Official Moscow reacted skeptically to the U.S. claims and did not join its voice with Washington’s.41 However, these tangled events in October and November 2011 appeared to have left 

the impression in Moscow of a stepped-up and coordinated U.S./Saudi flanking assault on Tehran through Damascus. The controversy reinforced longstanding Russian fears of the impact 

of Sunni extremism bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies in Afghanistan, 

Bosnia, and Chechnya. Now it was Syria’s turn, and the Saudis and the Americans were simply 

seeking to leverage the upheavals in that country against Iran. 

This seeming revving-up of Saudi and American pressure on Damascus as a way to get 

at Tehran had the effect of causing Moscow to dig in its heels. Russia stepped up its own efforts against military intervention against either Damascus or Tehran, even as optimism and 

pessimism about Asad’s fate rose and fell in reaction to events in Syria. Russia became more 

outspoken in accusing Saudi Arabia and Qatar of arming the rebels to topple Asad and in turn 

weaken Iran. Moscow was reinforced in the view that Sunni rather than Shiite extremism had 

now become the greater danger to Russia’s own security (more on this in the “Saudi-Iranian 

Seesaw” section).

Still, Moscow held off for a long time before it confronted what it saw as Saudi and Qatari pressure against Asad. Two developments likely pushed Moscow toward finally reacting 

so strongly. First, the Russian Foreign Ministry charged that Qatari security officials on November 29 had beaten up Russian Ambassador Vladimir Titorenko at the airport in Doha and 

attempted to seize a diplomatic pouch.42 Within days, Russia downgraded diplomatic relations 

with Qatar. As for the Saudis, all of the evidence suggested that by late 2011 they had abandoned 

caution and were “all in” in Syria.43

But the last straw likely came at the end of December 2011, when the United States announced that American and Saudi negotiators had signed contracts for $30 billion of the $60 

billion in weapons purchases approved by Congress in 2010.44 Two years earlier, in July 2008, 

Prince Bandar bin Sultan had met with Putin. Soon thereafter, there had been Moscow press 

stories that Bandar had dangled visions of $2–$6 billion in Saudi weapons purchases from Russia.45 Now, however, at the end of December 2011, it became clear to the Russians that there 

would be no sizable contracts for them from the Saudis.

To this day, bad memories linger in Moscow over Saudi support to opponents of Russian 

interests in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, and now Syria. The view is widespread in Russia 

that the Saudis have only tricked and double-crossed Russia over the years and that they are 

not reliable diplomatic or business partners. Although Putin perhaps did not totally share this 
14 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

view, he finally had nothing to lose in confronting the Saudis and Qataris in Syria. There was no 

longer any reason for restraint.

Unexpected Returns

In retrospect, Moscow’s opposition in principle, as it argued, to non-UNSC-sanctioned 

armed intervention in the Syrian conflict had to be considered the main motive for Russia’s 

stand at the time. This was especially so since by July 2012, Asad’s position in Damascus and 

Russia’s in Syria appeared so hopeless. The importance in Moscow of this “principle” was a reflection of what most recognized as the impending loss by Russia of its earlier equities in Syria. 

Already by February 2012, as Foreign Minister Lavrov and Foreign Intelligence Chief Mikhail 

Fradkov headed off to Damascus, Moscow was abuzz with speculation that the Kremlin was 

ready to throw Asad under the bus and prepare for his ouster.46

That being the case, the impulse seemed to be to draw comfort from the fact that Russia had at least fought an honorable game in reminding the international community of 

the importance of what Russia interpreted as international law. “If someone conceives the 

idea of using force at any cost, and I’ve already heard calls for sending some Arab troops to 

Syria, we are unlikely to be able to prevent this, if someone wants to do something of the 

sort,” Lavrov conceded in January 2012. “But this should be done on their own initiative 

and should remain on their conscience. They won’t get any authorization from the Security 

Council,” he stated adamantly.47

This defense of “principle” increased as Asad’s position deteriorated further, reaching perhaps its lowest point in July 2012. In Geneva on June 30, Russia had agreed on the need to move 

Syria to a transitional government and to accept all parties in it, but it had also insisted on 

not excluding any (that is, Asad).48 However, an analyst in Moscow said shortly afterward that 

Secretary Clinton had been right when she said that Foreign Minister Lavrov had told her that 

Russia was prepared to see Asad go, even though this caused a scandal in Moscow.49

When Putin delivered the biennial presidential speech to Russian diplomats at the Foreign 

Ministry in Moscow on July 9, he noted the “contradictory and unbalanced” reform process in 

the Middle East and North Africa, the “tragic events” in Libya, and his determination not to 

allow a repeat of the Libya “scenario” in Syria. It was necessary, Putin said, to “do everything 

possible to press the parties in this conflict into negotiating a peaceful political solution to all issues of dispute.” But otherwise, as then-President Medvedev had done in his address in the same 

forum 2 years earlier, Putin did not suggest that the Middle East ranked as a priority region for 

Russian interests.50
15

Understanding Putin

Despite the June 30 agreement in Geneva, violence in Syria surged. It climaxed on July 18 

with an explosion in Damascus that killed four of Asad’s closest security aides, including his 

brother-in-law and his defense minister.51 The next day, Russia and China cast their third veto 

of a Syrian draft resolution in the UN Security Council. Moscow, however, could have no confidence that its veto would restrain the United States and its partners from striking Syria militarily, or that Asad could withstand the rising pressure from the armed opposition. 

In Moscow, many observers recognized that Asad’s position was deteriorating and feared 

that he was unlikely to survive. Nevertheless, argued one Russian commentator, Syria was just 

one of the many issues on Russia’s geopolitical agenda. From Moscow’s global perspective, it did 

not matter whether Russia won or lost in Syria. As a veteran former high-ranking diplomat put 

it, Russia’s policy in Syria was to maintain international law, not to maintain Asad.52

But then, Russian hopes began to rise. After the September 11, 2012, murder of American 

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya, some in Moscow pointed to the tragedy 

almost gleefully. They took it as confirmation that Russia was pursuing the correct policy in the 

Middle East while the United States had blundered.53

Nine months later, the victory of Asad forces in Qusayr on June 5, 2013, produced a more 

substantial confidence bump. Moscow viewed it as confirmation of the staying power of the 

Damascus regime, supported critically by Lebanese Hizballah fighters, Iranian advisors and 

financial support, and Russian military supplies and diplomatic blocking. As such, it was also 

seen as a token of success for Putin’s independent, anti-Western policy on Syria, and thus also 

of the importance of Russia in the region.54

The Russian reaction to Qusayr was a reminder that Russian aims and motivations in 

Syria were dynamic and not static. They were deflated by setbacks on the ground in Syria—both 

Asad’s absurdly brutal handling of the opposition and the opposition’s successful strikes against 

the regime, such as the bomb that killed four insiders in July 2012—and inflated by Damascus 

regime successes such as that at Qusayr. When on a roll, such as after Qusayr, Putin likely calculated that advances in Syria raised his and Russia’s stature in the world as a great power and 

a key actor in dealing with the Middle East, especially the Syria problem. But at home, polling 

suggested that support for Putin was not rising commensurately and that his “negatives” were 

actually increasing (more on this in the “Third, The Domestic Politics Dimension” subsection 

of the “After Syria—On to Crimea” section).

Given the action-reaction dynamic between supporters of the Damascus regime and its 

opponents, the inflated moments were hard to sustain. Although the smoke-and-mirror advances for Russian diplomacy at times appeared to have morphed into something more solid, 
16 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

realistically any gains could easily collapse with the defeat of the Damascus regime. Veteran 

Middle East analyst Georgiy Mirskiy opined that despite the Qusayr victory, Asad was a strategic loser and the Syrian civil war would continue until both sides ran out of blood.55 Similar 

views certainly fed the argument in Moscow that a political solution, however imperfect, would 

still be the best solution for Russia’s long-term interests in the region, given Asad’s still-notgood odds of surviving long term as a viable ruler. 

However, the Qusayr victory—as well as the questions and uncertainties raised by Hassan 

Rouhani’s surprise victory in Iran’s presidential elections on June 14, 2013—appeared instead to 

spur Russia to stay in the Syrian game on the military front and spread its bets more robustly. 

Soon there were indications that Russian arms transfers to Syria had increased. 

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian-Syrian arms contracts had been fairly inconsequential until Russia forgave 70 percent of Syria’s debt of $13.4 billion in January 2005, 

when Bashar al-Asad first visited Moscow as president. By early 2007, Russia and Syria had concluded a $4.5 billion package of major contracts. By summer 2012, the total volume of contracts 

stood at $5.5 billion.56

Syria was thus Russia’s largest arms buyer in the Middle East. However, Russia had strung 

out actual deliveries of the arms for political reasons, and they amounted to only around $1 

billion by mid-2012. Under American and Israeli pressure, complained one Moscow expert on 

arms transfers, Russia had actually not gone through with at least three big contracts—Iskander-E missile systems, S-300PMU-2 air defense systems, and Igla surface-to-air missile (SAM) 

man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS)—and had gotten little recognition from the 

West for its restraint.57

An expert on arms transfers stated in mid-2012 that Russian spokesmen could say “no 

more contracts” because Asad did not have the money to sign them. He doubted that Russia was 

selling small arms and light weapons to Syria because Russian sellers were not interested in the 

low profit margins from small weapons on small platforms; there was little money in it. Furthermore, the contracts for the small arms were all 10 years old. In addition, the arms that Syrian 

regime forces did not have could be obtained from Iran more quickly and less expensively than 

via Russia, which was both longer and considerably more expensive.58

At the same time, Syria may have been acquiring some valuable “passive” Russian military 

technology either directly from Russia or indirectly through Iran. Among these systems was the 

Avtobaza electronic surveillance system. Damascus reportedly was using this mobile intercept 

system with lethal efficiency to pinpoint the coordinates of satellite phones that Qatar and Western intelligence agencies had provided to Syrian opposition fighters.59
17

Understanding Putin

By mid-2013, however, Russian readiness to openly transfer greater volumes and more 

sophisticated arms to Syria was changing rapidly. The fuse had been set months earlier. In February 2013, rebel forces for the first time began receiving M-79 anti-tank weapons and M-60 

recoilless rifles from unspecified outside sources.60 Separately, in August 2012 President Obama 

had stated that the use of chemical weapons would constitute a “red line” that, if crossed by 

the Asad regime, would cause the United States to provide lethal weapons to the Syrian opposition.

61 An incident on March 19, 2013, sparked charges and countercharges of chemical 

weapons use in Syria. 

Subsequently, on May 31, 2013, the EU embargo on weapons supplies to the Syrian opposition lapsed.62 On June 13, the White House announced that the United States had concluded 

that the Asad regime had used chemical weapons “multiple times in the last year,” including in 

mid-March 2013. President Obama had therefore authorized the supply by the United States of 

lethal weapons—light arms and ammunition—to the Syrian opposition.63

The U.S. decision injected uncertainty into Russian calculations as to the likely outcome of 

the civil war in Syria and the returns that it might reap for all that it had invested diplomatically. 

Yes, Russia—according to Putin—had no material interests in Syria. Yet after 2 years of shielding Syria from UNSC action, Russia had immense reputational interests that it was not willing 

to give up easily.

Moreover, Russia was gaining confidence that the Asad regime might outlast rebel forces, 

even if thrown back into its Latakia stronghold. Russia seemed well on its way to being able to 

claim that it had prevailed over the American—and Saudi, Qatari, Turkish, and others’—desire 

to intervene in Syria and change the regime in Damascus.64

In reaction, and even perhaps anticipating the EU and U.S. decisions, Moscow by late 

spring 2013 appeared to have taken the decision to supply Asad forces more robustly with spare 

parts, ammunition, and small arms.65 Commenting on the end of the EU embargo, Defense 

Minister Sergey Shoygu warned, “Any decision has two sides. If one side lifts some restrictions, 

the other side may consider itself not bound to honor commitments it undertook earlier.”66

Several weeks later, after the U.S. decision, an opinion piece in the Russian government 

daily newspaper argued that Syria was “the culmination of the lawlessness imposed by the 

Americans.” In preparing to deliver arms directly to the Syrian opposition, it charged, the United States was crossing a Russian “red line” that had helped limit the scale of the Syrian conflict. 

Russia had restricted itself until then to fulfilling old weapons contracts with Syria and refrained 

from signing new ones. “But the U.S. plans to bypass the UN Security Council, deliver weapons 

to the militants, and impose a no-fly zone in southern Syria untie our hands.”67
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Small arms are almost impossible to track if deliberately concealed. But by late summer 2013, 

circumstantial evidence suggested that Russia had abandoned its earlier self-described restraint 

and that there had been a definite uptick in Russian arms transfers to Syria since April 2013.68

A Russian source familiar with “military-technological contracts” asserted that Russia 

had started to supply Syria with more than small arms. These new armaments included “newgeneration” Buk-M2E and Pantsir-S1 air defense systems and Bastion mobile coastal systems 

armed with supersonic Yakhont anti-ship guided missiles capable of hitting targets at ranges of 

up to 300 kilometers. The presence of these systems in Syria, he suggested, “should cool some 

hotheads. What was done to Libya won’t work this time around.”69

Other experts recalled that Russia in the past had put on hold some big weapons deliveries to Syria. But then, they speculated, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar arranging for the delivery 

of weapons to Syrian opposition forces through third parties, Russia understood that there 

was to be no fair play. Therefore, after the British had intervened the previous year to revoke 

insurance coverage for the merchant marine ship MV Alaed, thus preventing it from delivering air defense systems and repaired helicopters to Syria, Russia had begun using its navy 

landing ships to transport weapons to Syria. They could not be stopped by anyone without a 

declaration of war.70

Through these shuttle naval visits, Russia had reinforced its delivery of small weapons and 

spare parts—small items whose transfer could not be detected—that the Asad regime needed 

to fight on a daily basis. Most of it was from military reserves and had no impact on Russian 

industry, making it essentially invisible. The Asad regime could go only so far in cannibalizing 

broken-down weapons systems to repair functioning ones; however, Russia had stepped in to 

supply the necessary spares.

Under existing contracts, the supply of spares was legal. Russia was fulfilling existing contracts that included follow-up maintenance, upgrades, and repairs of Russian weapons systems 

sold to Syria, such as helicopters and combat aircraft. Technically, there were no “new” contracts.71

Judging by the frequency of Russian navy landing ships going to Syria, these experts speculated that there was a steady flow of such basic supplies, including ammunition and infantry 

weapons. They referred to this constant ship traffic as the “Syrian Express.” The Russian Black 

Sea fleet had around seven large landing ships, LST Tapir class, each making around 10 trips 

to Syria each year. The ships, rather old and displacing only around 4,000 tons, were loaded in 

Novorossyisk and then sailed from Crimea to the port of Latakia in Syria.72

At the same time, on June 17, 2013, Putin and Obama at the G-8 summit in Lough Erne, 

Northern Ireland, discussed Syria, including how to prevent the use of chemical weapons 
19

Understanding Putin

there.73 In Moscow’s view, Putin had held his own and successfully resisted efforts to call for 

Asad’s resignation and a transitional government, watering the language down to a transitional 

“body.”74 Russia seemed to have gone from its gamble—for the sake of “principle”—on a likely 

loser a year earlier to a winning diplomacy. This was getting Putin grudging respect on the international stage as well as at home—even from those who otherwise were uncomfortable with 

his leadership.

On August 6, however, reacting in part to Russia’s decision to give asylum to National 

Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, President Obama decided not to attend the bilateral summit with Putin already planned to take place in Moscow in early September, and 

on the eve of the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg. Then, in his August 9 press conference, 

Obama suggested that a “pause” in U.S.-Russia relations was in order. That threatened Putin with prolonged diplomatic isolation from one-on-one interactions with his primary 

great power counterpart.75

Moreover, the United States put Asad’s tenure in danger later that month when Obama 

decided to retaliate with a military strike after concluding that Syrian regime forces had used 

chemical weapons to kill nearly 1,500 civilians in the Damascus suburb of Adra on August 21.76

However, when President Obama decided at the last minute to get congressional backing for 

the move, and then on September 9 quickly agreed to Putin’s proposal for destroying the Asad 

regime’s chemical weapon stocks and production capabilities, Asad gained a respite. 

In addition to helping save the Asad regime from the impending U.S. strike, Russia’s diplomacy foreshortened what looked likely to be a long pause in U.S.-Russian summits. It also 

diverted an American military strike that could have exposed weaknesses in Syria’s Russianorigin air defenses. That Syria has great air defenses is a big myth, opined one Russian specialist. 

They are better than were Libya’s, but are vulnerable to attack by U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles, 

he claimed. According to this well-known expert, the United States has access to all Russian air 

defense systems exported abroad except for the S-400, and the Israelis have kept a meticulous 

inventory of Syrian targets.77

In February 2012, Putin had lamented what he called the U.S. and Western “itch for military intervention” in Syria. He had warned against the “temptation to resort to this simple, 

previously used tactic: if the UN Security Council approves of a given action, fine; if not, we will 

establish a coalition of the states concerned and strike anyway.”78 At the time, though, he did not 

appear confident that his warning would be heeded. 

By December 18, 2013, however, Putin sounded as though he had accomplished his mission in the Middle East. “The situation surrounding Syria, and now surrounding Iran as well, 
20 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

has shown that any international problem can and should be resolved exclusively through political means, without resorting to forceful actions that have no prospect and are rejected by the 

majority of the world’s countries.”79

Independent observers in Moscow, however, were quick to qualify the success of Putin’s 

policy in Syria and the Middle East. In February 2014, on the eve of the Sochi Winter Olympics, a well-known student of the Middle East agreed that Russia was now in a better position 

in the region than it had been 3 years earlier.80 It had not lost everything on the economic 

front as was first feared. There had been losses, of course, but they should not be exaggerated. 

In Iraq, for example, Lukoil had stayed the course and its investments in the West Qurna 2 

field would soon start turning a profit. There were also prospects for weapons sales to Iraq 

and Egypt, among others. 

Overall, though, the Middle East was mainly of instrumental value to Russia, cautioned 

this observer. It was a region where Moscow could demonstrate that others had to take its interests into account. This was more important to Russia than any increased trade and weapons 

sales. In addition, the impulse to fight Islamization and the spread of terrorism—a domestic 

security factor of utmost importance to Moscow—was a high priority. Moscow needed to persuade the Arabs not to treat Russia as an enemy against which to target terrorist activity.81

Another well-known Russian observer of broad foreign policy trends captured different 

dimensions of the prevailing mood.82 He cautioned that there was a tendency among some in 

Moscow to attribute Russian successes in the Middle East to good analysis of the situation by 

Russian area experts. In actuality, this commentator asserted, it had all been an accident resulting from the total failures of all the other powers involved in the region. American policy had 

proved incomprehensible. European policy had been bankrupt. But Russia had stuck to one 

position. On Syria, Russian policy did not change at all. 

Two years earlier, Russians like this observer had thought that Russian policy on Syria was 

doomed and therefore foolish. It seemed bound to undermine all of Russia’s prospects in postAsad Syria, he recalled self-critically. But since then, the Russian line had emerged as something 

more or less viable. The consistency of Putin’s approach to the Syrian conflict and Moscow’s unexpected success in holding its own against Washington had led to growing respect, even from 

leaders of countries like Saudi Arabia, which was not otherwise favorably disposed toward Russia. They now believed that Russia needed to be dealt with, even if this strained relations with 

Washington. As a result, some regional capitals had begun to consult more closely with Russia, 

to lobby for its support, and to return to the Russian arms market, while others had resumed 

high-level exploratory contacts. 
21

Understanding Putin

But all of this had been unexpected, this commentator emphasized, and surprised even 

those who managed Russian policy. At the same time, many outside Russia were now erroneously expecting Russia to come back to the Middle East and reestablish the positions gained by 

the Soviet Union during the Cold War. There was no way this would happen, he underscored. 

Russia did not have a clue how to capitalize on the situation that had developed in the Middle 

East. On Asad, there was no inkling that Putin had a Plan B, and his Plan A remained doing 

everything he could to make sure Asad won reelection in 2014. 

Well, then, was the Middle East a priority for Russia? Not a real priority, this observer 

argued. The Middle East had become a priority of sorts because it turned out to be a highly successful part of Russian diplomacy. Russia indeed had good diplomats working the region, had 

benefited from an improved reputation, and stood ready to sell weapons to any country that 

wanted them. But that was about it, he emphasized.83

Saudi-Iranian Seesaw

Relations between Russia and Iran have waxed and waned since the Islamic revolution 

of 1979. Engagement has historically been Moscow’s default setting for dealing with Tehran. 

Before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011, the two countries had partnered closely in 

resisting Taliban threats to their regional equities in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Since 2002, 

however, revelations of Iran’s secret nuclear enrichment program had begun to feed growing 

mistrust of Iran’s motives, crowned by Moscow’s abrogation in September 2010 of the contract 

to transfer S-300 air defense systems to Iran.84

Unease Over Iran’s Rise

In the decade preceding the advent of the Arab Spring, Iran’s rise in the region increasingly concerned Moscow.85 Middle East professionals such as former Prime Minister Yevgeny 

Primakov lamented the consequences of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.86 This had 

destroyed the Iran-Iraq balance of power that had brought a modicum of stability to the 

region since the end of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq war. The collapse of Iraqi power, the revelation of Iran’s nuclear program in 2002–2003, and the success of the Iranian-backed Hizballah 

forces in stymieing the Israeli army in the 2006 Lebanese war had all contributed to concern 

in Moscow over Iran’s seemingly relentless rise in the region. There was also some worry over 

possible future revanchist intentions on the part of Iran toward territory lost to Russia in the 

imperial wars of the 19th century.87
22 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

During Putin’s first term, Russia again began to treat Syria as an important player in the 

Middle East. This was perhaps partly in reaction to American exploration of rapprochement 

with Damascus. But Putin’s attempts to reengage with Syria during his first term as president 

could perhaps be best understood in the context of the times as having several goals. One was 

an effort to improve Russia’s position in the Middle East by capitalizing on the negative reaction 

in the region to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Another was to wean Asad away from this rising and 

more threatening Iran. Moscow may also have seen a greater presence in Syria as a backdoor 

balance to Iranian leverage in Iraq and Lebanon, not just in Syria itself. 

In any event, the Russians certainly had reasons to let the Syrians know they had other 

choices besides Iran and the United States. Bashar al-Asad, however, who succeeded his deceased father Hafez in July 2000, did not appear much interested in boosting ties with Moscow 

until he needed Russian help in 2011. Putin would later recount that “when Asad took over as 

president, he first went to France, Britain and other countries. He visited Moscow [only] after 

three years of presidency.”88

Reaching Out to Riyadh

For some of the same reasons that Putin sought to resuscitate relations with Syria, he also 

sought during this period to exploit Saudi unhappiness with the United States over Iraq, as well 

as Riyadh’s reciprocal concern over Iran. Russian writings remind us that Saudi Arabia, prior to 

2003, had put all its eggs in the U.S. basket. But after the United States sparked much concern 

across the Muslim world by invading Iraq, Saudi Arabia wanted to diversify its ties and began to 

put some distance between itself and the United States.89

For Russia, Saudi Arabia, a country important both in the Muslim world and in the Persian 

Gulf, represented potential business opportunities as well as a longstanding rival of Iran in the 

region. In addition, Saudi Arabia had a great deal more money than Iran, which made it potentially a much more interesting market for Russian weapons and other goods. More recently, 

Riyadh had been active in opposing the transfers of S-300s to Iran.90

However, there was a significant downside for Russia in dealing with Saudi Arabia. Iran 

had behaved generally well toward Russian interests in Central Asia and the Caucasus since 

Tehran’s misadventure supporting the losing side in the Tajik civil war that immediately followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.91 In contrast, Saudi behavior had been less restrained in opposing Russian interests. Analysts in Moscow pointed out that Saudi Arabia had 

invested much in defeating the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s, that Saudi donors had 
23

Understanding Putin

given generously to the Chechen independence movement in the post-Soviet 1990s, and that 

Riyadh had also helped bankroll Muslim forces in Bosnia during the breakup of Yugoslavia.92

Not surprisingly, Moscow’s overtures to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies did not 

develop much traction well into the post-Soviet period.93 That began to change after 2003, however. Deepening fears of Iran in the region were sparked by the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the 

political emergence of Iraq’s Shia majority, and the series of revelations about Iran’s 18-year-long 

secret nuclear program. All of these factors, as well as the impulse to demonstrate displeasure toward the United States for toppling Iraq’s Sunni minority leader Hussein, led to a warmer welcome 

for Russia from Iran’s Sunni Gulf neighbors. They all had an interest in constraining Shia Iran, in 

part by dangling incentives for Russia to distance itself from the Islamic republic. 

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, then the Crown Prince, broke the ice with a visit to Moscow 

in September 2003. Russia, which had for many years been pursuing ties with all sides in the 

Middle East, was of course ready to entertain Saudi overtures. During Abdullah’s visit, the two 

countries tried to put the Chechen issue behind them. Moscow for several years had complained 

that Saudi Arabia was supporting Chechen rebels in Russia’s North Caucasus.94 Now, however, 

Abdullah expressed his “conviction” that the “Chechen question” was “Russia’s internal affair.”95

Saudi Arabia also looked favorably on Russia’s bid to be embraced by the Organization of the 

Islamic Conference, which 2 years later would give Russia permanent observer status.96

Events in 2006 put nerves further on edge throughout the region. The July–August war in 

Lebanon, in which Iran backed Hizballah forces that succeeded in stalemating the Israeli army, 

marked a high-water mark for Iran’s influence in the Middle East. Iran that year also defied 

the UN Security Council—including Russia, of course—by resuming and expanding nuclear 

enrichment and reprocessing after a “voluntary” 2-year suspension. At the same time, Iran contributed to the tsunami of sectarian violence that broke out in Iraq. All of this sparked a resurgence of fear in the region of an American or Israeli strike on Iran.97

By 2007, the Gulf monarchies seemed to be worried as much by Iran’s nuclear ambitions 

and muscle flexing as they were by the possibility that the United States or Israel might try 

to solve the problem militarily. At the same time, Russia had already endorsed referral of the 

Iranian nuclear file to the UN Security Council in 2006, and had begun to support a series of 

resolutions calling on Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment program while creating UNSC 

procedural barriers to using military force against Iran.98 The members of the Gulf Cooperation 

Council (GCC) seemed to see in Russia an independent actor with the potential to restrain both 

Washington and Tehran.
24 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Thus, Russia’s relations with the Arab Gulf powers continued to improve during Putin’s 

second term as president. He broke new ground when he visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan in February 2007, the first-ever Russian or Soviet leader to visit the Persian Gulf, where he 

pitched Russian arms, oil investments, nuclear reactors, and satellite launches.99

Disenchantment with Saudis

Meanwhile, the United States remained central to the security of the Saudis and the GCC.100

The Saudis did not look to Russia in a military way, but did seemingly try to entice Russian cooperation toward their own regional security goals with the lure of substantial arms contracts. 

During the visit of Saudi National Security Council head Prince Bandar bin Sultan to Moscow 

in July 2008, as we have seen, Russia and Saudi Arabia signed a military-cooperation agreement that reportedly could result in “several large arms contracts.”101 Subsequent negotiations 

on deals reportedly worth $2–$6 billion seemed designed to sweeten the pot for a decision by 

Moscow to downplay relations with Iran.102

During Medvedev’s presidency, as Russian-Iranian relations actually cooled, the Saudis 

did not appear eager to conclude these contracts quickly. Perhaps they wanted to make sure that 

Russia’s decision to dampen relations with Iran stayed in place. The Saudis also may have been 

reluctant to pay a big price for a decision that they may have perceived Moscow was increasingly 

ready to make for its own reasons, motivated more by its fluctuating ties with the United States 

and by Iranian behavior than by Saudi blandishments. The Saudis also may have been simply 

playing with Russia while they negotiated a truly significant arms deal with the United States, 

estimated at $60 billion.103

Subsequent reports mentioned only “several” Russian-Saudi weapons contracts in 2010, 

not the larger ones expected earlier, as well as possible Saudi investment in Russian infrastructure for the 2018 soccer World Cup.104 Little of this panned out, as discussed earlier in the “Big 

Bang” section of this paper. Russian disappointment likely contributed to Putin’s increasingly 

hard line on Syria, which pushed back against the desire of Saudi Arabia—and many other nations—to oust Asad from power in Damascus.

Appreciation of Iranian “Natural Barrier”

All in all, in assessing ties with Iran and Saudi Arabia in May 2010, there was not much confidence in Moscow that Saudi Arabia was a viable counterweight to Iran. One observer speculated that Saudi Arabia may have been trying to make up for Iraq’s loss as a counterweight to Iran. 

Others conceded that there might be an element of this in Russia’s view of Saudi Arabia and vice 
25

Understanding Putin

versa. However, several experts cautioned that Saudi Arabia was too weak a reed to support such 

hopes. Iranian power was simply too overwhelming and the prospects for instability down the 

road in Saudi Arabia were too high. A well-known expert concluded that Russia therefore looked 

to its interests with Iran and Saudi Arabia along separate tracks, and not as counterweights to 

each other.

The view that it was in Russia’s interests to keep patiently engaged with Tehran however far 

Iran went down the military nuclear path was widespread. In 10 years, it was likely to become 

the regional power of the first rank in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, so Russia could not 

afford to ignore or anger it. 

Russia was willing to put some pressure on Iran, said close observers of the relationship, 

but not enough to turn it into an enemy and a big problem to deal with in the future. No one 

believed that Iran would attack Russian territory with a nuclear weapon. Most analysts, including Russian Foreign Ministry officials, believed that good relations with this country with a 

population already over 70 million were critical for stability in the Caucasus and Central Asia. 

Russia did not want any Iranian-inspired unrest to the north.105

In July 2011, expert observers in Moscow were still more concerned about a rising Iran 

benefiting from the Arab Spring than about Sunni jihadists upsetting the regional order by 

trying to topple the Asad regime in Syria. However, after the Saudis and the Qataris switched 

from trying to mollify Asad to trying to oust him in late 2011, all of Russia’s historical concerns 

over Saudi terrorism returned. At the same time, Moscow reverted to its earlier regard, now 

strengthened, for Iran as a “natural barrier” against Saudi-encouraged Sunni extremism rising out of the Middle East to threaten Russian interests to the north—Moscow’s take on Saudi 

policy in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Bosnia. This barrier would be eroded by a successful 

Saudi and Qatari campaign against Iran through Syria.106

In 2006, for example, Yevgeniy Satanovskiy, president of the Institute of Middle Eastern 

Studies, alluded to sentiment in Iran for rolling back the results of the 19th-century treaties of 

Gulistan (1813) and Turkmanchai (1828), imposed on a humbled Iran by the victorious Russian 

Empire. Satanovskiy speculated that after settling matters with its Persian Gulf rivals, Iran would 

turn its sights to its former “northern territories” in the Caucasus and Central Asia.107

By May 2012, however, the historian Stanislav Khatuntsev argued that Shia Iran was actually a shield that Russia should do everything to preserve—including by restarting the transfer 

of embargoed air defense systems—against the onslaught of Sunni extremism, which he charged 

was supported by the West. “This Shiite state is a kind of shield protecting Russia’s Caucasus and 

Central Asian regions from the onslaught of militant Islamism of a Salafi-Wahhabi bent.”108
26 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Strategic Partners?

Since then, Russia and Iran have had some parallel interests in Syria, although they have 

pursued different policies. And while Russian and Iranian interests coexisted and to some 

extent overlapped, the leverage each had sought through Syria was aimed at divergent goals 

in the region. 

As one analyst put it, Iranian and Russian aims in Syria were not the same. For Iran, Syria 

was a bridge to Hizballah and the Palestinians for destabilizing the rest of the Middle East. For 

Russia, Syria was a window through which to stabilize the Middle East so that Russia could do 

business. If the Middle East were stable, Iran would have no influence.109

Moscow at the beginning of the Syrian crisis was less tied to Asad staying in power than 

was Tehran. Russia had regional national security interests of its own in Syria, but they were not 

of the first order as they were for Iran. In a sense, though, Putin in Syria may have been trying 

to use Iran’s existential national security need to keep Asad in power to support Russia’s global 

pretensions to be a great power that could act independently of—and compete on the world 

stage with—the United States.

Russia has never formally agreed to a “strategic partnership” with Iran. Moreover, the 2001 

Russia-Iran Treaty signed by then-presidents Mohammad Khatami and Vladimir Putin in Moscow does not commit either side to render military aid to the other in case of aggression by a 

third party, but merely “not to give any help to the aggressor” and to assist a settlement on the 

basis of the UN Charter and international law.110

With Putin’s late 2011 to early 2012 commitment to the Damascus regime, however, the 

diverse and simultaneous threats directed at Iran and Syria pushed Moscow and Tehran closer 

together. There were unusual signs that Moscow would not join efforts to isolate Iran. In November, a representative of Russia’s Security Council worked the text of a vague strategic cooperation agreement with his counterpart from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.111 Although the final document was not signed until October 2014, the Russian and Iranian security 

councils in the meantime in fact did meet more often, one of several strands of ostentatiously 

closer consultations between Moscow and Tehran during this period.112

Thus, one of the unintended consequences of the increased direct pressure on Iran and of 

the indirect pressure on Iran through Syria was the drawing closer together of Moscow and Tehran. As a result of Russia’s obsession with suspected Saudi-sponsored Sunni terrorism and the 

dynamics of the Syrian crisis, Russia drifted toward an implicit soft alliance with Shia Iran, Syria, 

and Iraq. In return, one informed perception in Moscow was that Iran increasingly appreciated 
27

Understanding Putin

Russian policy on Syria and had become more respectful of Moscow and less prone to regard it 

as always maneuvering around Iranian interests and toying with Tehran.113

Not Just the Money

Yet Tehran could never rest easy as it viewed Russia’s continuing contacts with regional 

rival Riyadh. Ever since the Syrian conflict had escalated into a proxy war between Iran and 

Saudi Arabia, there had been a quiet debate in Moscow over policy in the Middle East: should 

Russia rely on what it widely viewed as the arc of Shiite stability and Iran’s “natural barrier” to 

Sunni extremism, or should it try to repair relations with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Sunni 

monarchies and, if so, how much effort should be expended? 

Russia wanted productive contacts and profitable contracts with all countries in the region, but Moscow had not liked what it viewed as aggressive Saudi efforts to influence politics 

in Libya, Egypt, and Syria. Nevertheless, for Putin it was not just the money, Russian analysts 

stressed. There was also the issue of terrorism, which long predated the onset of the Arab Spring. 

There was an obsession with the belief that Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf states continued 

to provide money to militant Salafist and Wahhabi cells in Sunni Muslim districts of the Russian 

Federation’s North Caucasus and central Volga territories. Trade and profits were fine, in Moscow’s view, but not when they sponsor terrorists who were killing even moderate Islamic clergy 

in Russia. The Russian leadership and public were equally jaundiced on this point.114

All the same, neither side let ties lapse. Though disputes over Syria divided Moscow and 

Riyadh, the keep-in-touch line seemed to have the upper hand in both capitals. Prince Bandar visited Putin in Moscow at the end of July and then again in early December 2013.115 In 

between, there was a Lavrov-Bandar phone call in August and a Putin-King Abdullah phone 

conversation in November.116

Bandar’s meetings with Putin provoked much speculation. Many even in Moscow were puzzled about their content but convinced that Bandar had overreached in his transactional threats 

to security at the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics.117 As officially described, however, beyond 

bilateral ties, the exchanges dealt with key Middle East and North Africa issues, including Egypt, 

Syria, and the Iranian nuclear file. This did not stop considerable speculation in the press that 

Riyadh had offered Moscow $15 billion in arms contracts and a guarantee of no terrorist attacks 

to spoil the Sochi Winter Olympics in exchange for the dropping of Russian support for Asad.118

As in previous contacts in the 2003–2008 period, the linked issues of Saudi-sponsored antiRussian activity in the North Caucasus and Saudi arms contracts seemed in play. Given the personal prestige that Putin had invested in the Sochi Olympics, it would not be unreasonable to 
28 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

assume that due diligence on behalf of security for the games prompted him to touch base with 

Riyadh during the last half of 2013.119 According to one press story, his meetings with Bandar 

led to Riyadh agreeing to set up an intelligence office in Moscow to help Russia track extremist 

Chechens.120 In any event, the Games took place under completely unanticipated conditions of 

local peace and quiet. This calm was disrupted not by a terrorist assault on the Games but by sudden political turbulence in Ukraine.

After Syria—On to Crimea

On February 24, 2014, the large landing ship Nikolay Fil’chenkov, rather than making a run 

from Novorossyisk to the Syrian port of Latakia, was reported to be carrying 200 soldiers and 

10 BTR-80 armored personnel carriers (APCs) from the Russian Black Sea port of Temryuk 

to Sevastopol. (The Nikolay Fil’chenkov was one of the Russian Navy ships active in the “Syrian 

Express,” and photographs of it could easily be found on the Internet.) Its destination and cargo 

were early tip-offs of what would turn out to be the Russian invasion of Crimea and a stark 

example of how Russia’s experience in Syria helped set the table for its annexation of Crimea.121

The annexation of Crimea was not part of a master plan of which war with Georgia in 2008 

had been a major component. After that conflict, Putin insisted to a German television interviewer that Russia recognized all of Ukraine’s borders and that Crimea was not disputed territory.122 Psychologically, however, Putin certainly nursed deep antipathies toward the Ukrainian 

political establishment ever since the Orange Revolution in 2004 frustrated Russian efforts to 

put a more Moscow-friendly government in power in Kyiv. In fact, Putin asserted to President 

George W. Bush, after the latter in April 2008 championed bringing Ukraine into NATO, that 

“Ukraine is not even a state. [. . .] Part of its territories is Eastern Europe, but the greater part is 

a gift from us.”123 So Putin may well have long been prepared emotionally to strike back at Kyiv 

by dismembering Ukraine.

In the end, however, the Crimean action was a risky, last-minute improvisation that shocked 

many close observers in Moscow, to say nothing of the rest of the world.124 It violated the Budapest 

Memorandum of 1994. Signed by the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and the United States and 

the prime minister of Britain, it pledged to “respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the 

existing borders of Ukraine” and to “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial 

integrity or political independence of Ukraine.”125 Putin would later claim that Crimea had been 

a “strategic decision,” but it would bring with it major unintended, unforeseen, and uncalculated 

consequences.126
29

Understanding Putin

A year later, Putin would describe an all-night meeting that took place February 22–23, 

2014. “We finished at about seven o’clock in the morning. As we parted, I will not hide it, I told 

all my colleagues, there were four of them: The situation has unfolded in Ukraine in such a way 

that we have to start work on the return of Crimea to being part of Russia.”127 The four colleagues 

Putin addressed—whom he described as “the heads of our special services and the Ministry of 

Defense”—were certainly Defense Minister Shoygu and very likely Presidential Administration 

chief Sergey Ivanov, Russian Security Council secretary Nikolay Patrushev, and Federal Security Service (FSB) director Aleksandr Bortnikov.128 The timing of the meeting accords with the 

sighting of the Nikolay Fil’chenkov on February 24 headed for Sevastopol with its cargo of troops 

and armored personnel carriers. The limited attendance at the critical session reminded some of 

the decisionmaking under Brezhnev to invade Afghanistan.

129 Economics did not seem to play 

any role in the early Crimea decision (see Appendix A: Crimea—Damn the Cost).

That Foreign Minister Lavrov may not have been there reinforced the impression that on 

Ukraine his ministry has been the implementer and not the decider of Russian policy toward 

Ukraine.130 Nevertheless, a tough Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on February 24 suggested that Lavrov was certainly in the loop.131 Put out the day after the Sochi Olympics closed, 

it stated that everything that was happening in Kyiv was illegal and contravened the February 21 

power-sharing agreement between President Viktor Yanukovich and the opposition. As such, it 

in essence laid the groundwork for justifying an eventual Russian intervention.

In Putin’s recounting of the February 22–23 all-night session, he “set them the task, let’s 

be upfront about it, to save the life of the president of Ukraine.” He then described in dramatic 

detail the efforts dedicated to extricating Yanukovich safely from Ukraine. According to Putin, 

Kyiv was intent on killing Yanukovich.132 It is easy to read into Putin’s words a clear emotional 

arc from his earlier outraged dismay at how Qadhafi was killed in Libya in October 2011 and 

the possibility of a similar fate befalling Yanukovich in Ukraine.

In addition to the specter of Qadhafi’s murder, there were several Syrian dimensions to Putin’s decision to go into Crimea, and later there would be several wider Middle East dimensions 

to the way the Russian president would deal with the international blowback to his Ukrainian 

moves. For now, the momentum of Putin’s success in reestablishing Russia as a major player in 

Syria and by extension in the Middle East had psychologically set the stage for carrying him on 

to Crimea.133 Security dimensions were also strong motivating factors in both theaters: in Syria, 

it was the threat of radical Islam moving north to Russia out of the Middle East; in Ukraine, it 

was the desire to keep NATO from moving farther eastward. 
30 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Mixed in with security motives were also Putin’s domestic political needs: both in Syria 

and then in Crimea he used opposition to American policy to bolster the image of Russia as a 

restored great power and not coincidentally to buck up his approval ratings among the Russian 

public. Finally, there would be a similarity in Russian military ways and means to dealing with 

both theaters: Putin had successfully used the Syrian Express to covertly transfer military hardware and supplies to the beleaguered Asad regime; in Crimea and then southeastern Ukraine, 

Russia would employ similar war methods not just to supply military material to local proRussian fighters, but even to insert Russian soldiers.

First: The Momentum Factor

As with Syria, Crimean decisionmaking was all Putin’s, and as 2013 turned into 2014 the 

Russian president was on a powerful roll. Syrian regime successes on the battlefield had boosted 

Russian confidence on the world stage and in the Middle East. At the end of October 2013, 

Forbes magazine had proclaimed Putin the most powerful person in the world, ahead of President Obama, who dropped to second place.134

In December 2013, Putin’s offer of $15 billion in loans and discounted gas turned Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich away from NATO and EU membership and toward joining Moscow’s Eurasian Economic Union.135 Despite its vulnerability to terrorist attacks and 

noncooperative weather, the Sochi Winter Olympics in February 2014 went off well, sparking 

a wave of national pride and support for the Russian president. Perhaps Putin’s two meetings 

with Saudi Prince Bandar the previous year had played a role in discouraging any potential 

terrorist attacks. 

In October 2013, a hard-boiled and well-known Russian strategic thinker in frequent contact with Russian policymakers had privately conceded that it was true that Putin lived in a 

semi-monarchical bubble. Nevertheless, he asserted, there was now no world leader equal to 

Putin intellectually on the world stage.136

Without being pushed to elaborate, Putin in November 2014 would call Crimea a “strategic decision.”137 That was certainly so, though many of its costs were grossly underestimated 

and unforeseen. Nevertheless, looking back on Crimea, respected pundit Fedor Lukyanov 

argued that Putin was not a “strategist,” but rather someone who operated on “intuition [and] 

a holistic view of the world” and “thinks in systemic categories.” As a result, “a chain of tactical steps, reactive or simply inevitable, taken for granted in the given circumstances, acquire 

internal consistency.”138

In Lukyanov’s estimation, Putin’s talents had served Russia well as a world power:
31

Understanding Putin

Toward the end of 2013, Russia’s international weight had grown incomparably 

in comparison to the end of the 1990’s and even the mid–2000’s. The country had 

reclaimed the toolkit of a global player—not a great power, but a state without 

which the most important world problems could not be solved. Putin’s realism, 

his ability to determine the real current challenges and solve them with cold 

pragmatism, brought results.139

Indeed, Putin at the beginning of 2014 seemed to have gained something of an attitude of 

superiority. He was now a major player on the world stage. He felt he could outdeal the West, 

even the United States. Putin’s success in shielding Syria’s Asad from Western and Arab pressure 

had played a part in this development. It added to Putin’s self-confidence and to his disdain and 

even contempt for his Western interlocutors.140 After the relatively easy success of Russia’s Syrian chemical weapons proposal in getting Obama to walk back American threats to strike Asad’s 

forces, this disdain applied especially to Obama, but even more widely to the gridlock of American politics that made it difficult for the American President to deliver on any commitments.141

However, on February 7, referencing various combinations and permutations of differences over Syria, Ukraine, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) and other human 

rights issues, and Russian asylum for National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, major 

Western leaders—American President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President François Hollande, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel—had 

all declined to join Putin in Sochi for the opening ceremony of the Olympics.142 Moreover, 

even before the games concluded on February 23, Russia’s relations with the United States and 

NATO were quickly enveloped by another, even more dramatic turn in the already long-running Ukrainian crisis. 

In December, Putin had appeared confident that his $15 billion offer to President Yanukovich had secured Russia’s strategic goals of foreclosing Ukrainian membership in NATO and 

the EU. On February 21, however, under pressure from demonstrators camped out for months 

on Kyiv’s central Independence (Maydan) Square, Yanukovich signed a power-sharing deal with 

the opposition. Then, unexpectedly and to Moscow’s dismay and disgust, Yanukovich fled Kyiv 

during the night of February 21–22.143

Analysts and pundits assumed as late as the first half of February 2014 that Putin would 

coast on the laurels of his accomplishments in the Middle East. However, Putin’s Crimean decision—while not foreordained or pre-planned—was actually made in the context of an already 

evolving, harder Russian line on Syria. Evidence began to suggest that there had been another 
32 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

uptick in shipments of Russian ammunition, weapons, and spare parts to Syria in February 

2014, if not a bit earlier.144 The ebb and flow of Russian supplies to Syria was difficult to detect 

and measure. This increased flow could have been launched even before what were dubbed the 

“Geneva 2” talks—pursuant to the June 30, 2012, Geneva Communiqué145—commenced in late 

January 2014. 

For much of 2013, moreover, there had been little if any evidence of Russian pressure on 

Asad to negotiate with the opposition. And the Geneva 2 talks in January–February 2014 had 

deadlocked as Asad—not dissuaded by Moscow—pushed to run out the clock until new presidential elections eventually set for June 3 could be held. Putin was clearly determined to help 

Asad defeat the opposition in Syria as the two rounds of Geneva 2 talks stalled and even as Russian diplomats continued to say a “Geneva 3” was necessary.

In early February, as the Winter Olympics opened in Sochi, it seemed to observers in Moscow that the Kremlin no longer viewed Asad as it had in 2012. Then, he had been a troublesome 

and disposable Syrian leader who was a bit of an embarrassment for Moscow. Now, however, 

Asad had transformed himself into Exhibit A of the efficacy and value of Putin’s policy of independence and opposition to the United States. Analysts saw Putin sticking more firmly than 

ever to Plan A in Syria, which was to ensure Asad’s survival in power and reelection as president 

later in 2014.146 Putin evidently had no need or desire for a Plan B in which Asad would be eased 

out of power for the sake of a political compromise in Syria.

Putin’s success in Syria thus helped set the stage for his approach to Ukraine by giving 

him the courage and confidence to act in Crimea, and soon to go even further in Donetsk and 

Luhansk in southeastern Ukraine, directly bordering Russia.

While there were some common motivating elements, there was also a big difference between the starting place for Putin’s reaction to Libya and the Arab Spring in 2011 and his 2014 

reaction to Ukraine. Then, as eloquently voiced by Lavrov in January 2012, there had been a determination, even while acknowledging the hopelessness of Russia’s case, to oppose the United 

States and the West out of principle.147 Now, in early 2014, with success in opposing the United 

States and major Arab and Western states on Syria, Putin had the wind in his sails as he headed 

into troubled Ukrainian waters.

After the March 17–18, 2014, formalization of the annexation of Crimea, some would 

suggest that Putin’s hardball approach to Ukraine augured an even harder Russian line in the 

Middle East, especially on Syria. However, the synergies were actually operating in the opposite 

direction. Looking back, one can argue that it was Putin’s successes and methods in the Middle 
33

Understanding Putin

East that had encouraged him to undertake the annexation of Crimea, rather than that the successful annexation of Crimea had pushed him toward a harder line in the Middle East. 

Certainly, Putin’s determination to keep Asad in place and the central figure in Syrian 

politics was reinforced after Ukrainian President Yanukovich fled Kyiv late on February 21. 

But it was Putin’s political actions and military successes in Syria—UN Security Council vetoes 

and transfers of military material—and their ramifications throughout the Middle East that, in 

retrospect, turned out to be a dress rehearsal for his improvised reaction to the collapse of his 

strategy toward Ukraine. 

Second: The Security Dimension

Russian analysts would subsequently debate the relative weight of external security and 

domestic political factors in Putin’s decisionmaking on Crimea. Most appeared to subscribe 

to the notion that Russia had to take Crimea because there was no way Putin was going to let 

Sevastopol become a NATO naval base should Ukraine join NATO. Many attributed primacy 

in Putin’s decisionmaking to this issue. Dmitry Peshkov, Putin’s spokesperson, would tell the 

BBC in November that Russia wanted a “100% guarantee” that Ukraine would never become a 

member of NATO.148

This was in effect the Ukrainian analogue to Russia’s top security concern in the Middle 

East. There, as we have seen, protection of Russia from Muslim jihadists turning their attention 

north toward Russia had long been a priority for Moscow. Russia had long sought to discourage any regional powers from sponsoring jihadists—especially Sunni extremists—and from 

subverting local regimes in Russia’s Muslim-majority territories in the Northern Caucasus and 

Middle Volga regions, and even Moscow itself. 

Besides keeping Ukraine out of NATO, Moscow had long made clear its demand that 

Ukraine join the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) because of the size of its economy and its intimate links to that of Russia. Without Ukraine’s participation, the EEU would 

make even less economic sense than the low degree of economic rationality that its critics attributed to it.149

Having embarked in late February 2014 on the military option for pressuring Kyiv to bend 

to Moscow’s will, it was not long before Putin took the next step of annexing Crimea. From his 

perspective, this would solve the Black Sea Fleet basing issue forever; Kyiv’s ensuing territorial 

dispute with Moscow there and in nearby Donetsk and Luhansk would make NATO members 

reluctant to risk incorporating Ukraine into the Alliance; and Ukrainian alignment with the EU 

would likewise become more problematic.150
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Third: The Domestic Politics Dimension

As with the “big bang” that produced Putin’s response to the Syrian crisis in late 2011, 

Putin framed his response to the crisis in Ukraine in 2014 for maximum political benefit. At 

stake behind Putin’s decision to annex Crimea was not only Ukraine’s political, economic, 

and military orientation, but also the dangerous example so close to home that the successful Kyiv Maydan demonstrators set for a “color revolution” in Russia. Indeed, the anti-Putin 

demonstrations in Moscow and other large Russian cities in late 2011 and early 2012 were 

still a painful memory. 

Some expert Moscow observers stressed a mix of intertwined motives. As one put it, Putin 

decided to annex Crimea to punish the Maydan demonstrators who had toppled Yanukovich 

and to solve the Sevastopol-base question definitively. At the same time, the Crimea move allowed him to sharply change the political situation inside Russia, and he quickly succeeded in 

scattering his opposition. A few argued that the main reason was not NATO enlargement and 

possible Western bases in Crimea at all, but rather Russian domestic politics. Opinion against 

Putin had been rising, but the annexation of Crimea turned that negative opinion trend around 

and helped—certainly well into 2015—improve and sustain Putin’s popularity.151

Putin had long twinned his opposition to NATO expansion with opposition to regime 

change by a “Libyan scenario” and especially now by a “color revolution.” The latter was almost 

always portrayed as being instigated by the United States rather than erupting out of local conflict conditions. With what appeared to be the sincerity of a true believer, Putin’s spokesperson 

Dmitry Peshkov would again make the stark argument in November 2014.152

Putin had been using the long-established narrative of U.S.-inspired “regime change”—beginning with the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, through many of the Arab Spring challenges to established authority, continuing with the mass demonstrations against him in 2011 

and 2012 in Russia’s biggest cities, and now circling back to Ukraine with the Maydan protests. 

He used this narrative to portray Washington as the mastermind of conspiracies to oust him 

or Russia-friendly governments from power by financing and inspiring mass demonstrations 

against them. To this end, he had used anti-Americanism and Russian opposition to U.S. policy 

in Syria—the “Libyan scenario”—to bolster the image of Russia as an independent great power 

in order to keep his head above water in Russia. 

Putin did not manufacture the Syrian crisis because of domestic political needs. But, when 

it came along, he used it skillfully to get a domestic boost. Now in Ukraine, Putin again deliberately chose to inflate rather than calm the crisis, in part because of the potential political returns 
35

Understanding Putin

at home. On this domestic political plane, Syria once more in effect helped set the table for Putin’s response to the crisis in Ukraine. As in Syria, Putin in Ukraine would amplify the independent big power, Russian nationalist, and anti-American themes that had served him so well as 

he had pursued his policy in the Middle East since late 2011. Both in Syria and in Crimea, Putin 

used Russian nationalist sentiment to prop up his legitimacy and ratings, rather than focusing 

on long-overdue economic reforms.

Success in Syria had had substantial positive political reverberations for Putin inside Russia. Nevertheless, Putin had reasons for wishing more. His support was still soft during the last 

half of 2013. Despite rising success in Syria, Putin’s negatives were also rising inside Russia, according to Levada-Center polling. Putin’s annexation of Crimea was designed to overcome this 

rise in negatives with its appeal to Russian nationalism. 

In March 2013, Putin’s approval rating had dropped to 52 percent, and by August had 

sagged to 47 percent.153 By November, this recovered to 52 percent. But the proportion of respondents who viewed Putin basically unfavorably now stood at 29 percent, double that during 

his first and second presidential terms (9–15 percent). Moreover, if there were snap elections, 

just 47 percent would now vote for Putin, down from 55 percent a year earlier.154 It could be 

argued that despite Putin’s foreign policy accomplishments in 2013, especially his “success” in 

Syria, public opinion at home was beginning to display Putin fatigue and lack of enthusiasm.

Putin would later disclose that he made his decision on Crimea only after secretly conducting opinion polls. While he was referring to polling in Crimea, he no doubt had also studied potential opinion dynamics in Russia. Polling results would have suggested to him that 

annexation of Crimea could be the magic bullet for solving the nagging problem of his sagging 

political support—in the short run at least. It is thus easy to speculate that it was the Kremlin’s 

own internal polling that may have pushed Putin over the line on his Crimea decision. If so, it 

proved an irresistible temptation despite the inevitable international storm that it would cause. 

Indeed, the Sochi Winter Olympics and the annexation of Crimea helped boost Putin’s 

ratings at home and strengthen his reputation abroad. Independent polling found that 79 percent of respondents supported the notion that the annexation of Crimea meant that Russia was 

reestablishing its traditional status as a great power.155 According to the Levada-Center, negative 

views of the United States increased from 44 percent in January 2014 to 56 percent in March, 

while positive views decreased from 43 to 34 percent.156 By November 2014, the negative proportion would reach 74 percent, while the positive would plummet to 18 percent.157

Meanwhile, the Russian president’s approval rating rose to 69 percent after the Olympics,158 but the best was yet to come. After the annexation of Crimea, which 88 percent of those 
36 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Crimea: “It Is Ours”

Even critically thinking members of the Russian intelligentsia, who otherwise did not support Putin, supported him on the issue of Crimea and helped push the Russian president’s 

approval numbers through the roof. Oleg Kashin, for example, is an independent journalist who was brutally beaten with a crowbar on November 6, 2010, near his home in 

Moscow. After recovering, he went into self-exile in Switzerland.1

 From there, even Kashin 

wrote this about Crimea:

Yes, I cannot, I do not see in myself the moral strength to say that Crimea 

should be a part of Ukraine. It should not be. I readily agree with the fact 

that Putin’s Kremlin, in tearing Crimea from Ukraine, acted shamelessly and 

cynically in violating all spoken and unspoken international principles. [...]

But any clear and obvious arguments are outweighed by this simple thing: yes, 

it is ours. Crimea became part of Ukraine as a result of two tragic accidents, 

one by Khrushchev and one by Yeltsin, and Putin’s annexation canceled these 

accidents. If Putin pays dearly for this annexation, furthermore, even if after 

some years they again separate Crimea from Russia, it still does not cancel 

the fact that Crimea is ours, is Russian.2

Like Oleg Kashin, an overwhelming proportion of Russian public opinion saw the annexation of Crimea as historically justified. The Crimea grab brought about what would 

be referred to as the “consolidation” of Russian society around the “National Leader,” that 

is, Putin.3 With his move into Crimea, Putin successfully tapped a deep well of nostalgia mixed with revenge in expressing what many Russians felt and wanted to say: we are 

back, and you cannot ignore us anymore. By November, polling found that 68 percent of 

respondents considered Russia a “great power,” up 20 points since September 2012.4

1 Victor Davidoff, “The Kremlin Storm Troopers,” Moscow Times, November 11, 2013, available at <www.

themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/the-kremlin-storm-troopers/489306.html>. For Kashin’s followup on 

his case, see “Journalist Turns to European Court Over Russia’s ‘Inaction’ in Finding His Attackers,” Moscow 

Times Online, December 23, 2014. 2 Oleg Kashin, “For Soviets Without Bolsheviks: Is Anti-Putin Russian Nationalism Possible Right Now?” 

Slon.ru, June 16, 2014, available at <http://slon.ru/russia/za_sovety_bez_bolshevikov_vozmozhen_li_seychas_

antiputinskiy_russkiy_natsionalizm-1113455.xhtml>. 3 Presentation attended by author, Washington, DC, April 2014.

4 “68% of Russians Consider Russia a Great Power,” Levada-Center, December 11, 2014, available at 

<www.levada.ru/11-12-2014/68-rossiyan-schitayut-rossiyu-velikoi-derzhavoi>.
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Understanding Putin

polled favored,159 77 percent of those who had made up their minds declared that they would 

vote for Putin for president, up from 63 percent a year earlier.160 A month later, this had risen 

to 81 percent.161

At the same time, Putin’s approval rate climbed to 72 percent in early March, to 82 percent 

in late April, then to 83 percent in late May.162 The positive rating of Putin would stay in the 

84–88 percent range from June 2014 to May 2015, then reach a record high 89 percent in June 

2015, while his disapproval rating dropped from 34 percent in January 2014 to a record low 10 

percent in June 2015.163 At the end of 2014, paradoxically, Levada-Center polling suggested that 

the majority of Russians blamed sanctions on the West’s determination to humiliate Russia and 

not on reaction to the annexation of Crimea.164

By March 18, 2014, after the successful annexation of Crimea, Putin’s aggrieved Russian 

nationalist speech in the Grand Kremlin Palace was the culmination of his post-December 2011 

anti-Americanism, designed to nurture and appeal to a growing support base. Putin had used 

his opposition to the calls—the American ones in particular—for ousting President Asad in 

Syria to give voice and weight to this electoral strategy. Now, he had transposed the same theme 

to the Crimean context, with electrifying impact on the Russian electorate.

Finally: Ways and Means

With Yanukovich’s abdication of the presidency, the Ukrainian opposition seized power 

and appeared intent once again on reversing Kyiv’s strategic orientation away from Moscow. In 

turn, Putin evidently quickly came to the conclusion that his pursuit, using political and economic inducements, of at least Ukrainian neutrality toward NATO and the EU, even if short of 

full partnership with Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union, had run its course. He would 

now employ more forceful military-political means.

In Syria, Putin had successfully used the naval Syrian Express covertly to transfer military 

hardware and supplies to the beleaguered Asad regime. In Crimea and then in southeastern 

Ukraine, Russia would employ similar methods not just to supply military material to local 

pro-Russian fighters, but even to insert Russian soldiers into battle. In fact, the means to do so 

would be largely one and the same in the case of Crimea. Illustrating the point was the Nikolay 

Fil’chenkov, a large landing ship and one of the Russian navy ships active in the Syrian Express. 

Now, on February 24, it ferried soldiers and APCs for the initial operation to take control of the 

peninsula.

Russia’s naval Syrian Express, which was ferrying more cargo than ever to Syria as the 

Ukrainian crisis erupted, thus primed the pump for the surreptitious, semi-clandestine transfer 
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of arms and fighters to Russia’s allies in southeast Ukraine that would follow. It would be even 

easier to transfer weapons and soldiers to Asad regime forces in Syria by short voyage via the 

Black Sea to nearby Crimea and then by land across the porous Russia-Ukraine border than 

had been the case using the longer route from the Black Sea through the Bosporus and into 

Mediterranean waters.

What would come to be referred to widely as Russia’s “hybrid” war entailed covert and 

not-so-covert—but all the same denied—military intervention backed by professional, powerful, and impressively effective propaganda, the latter in many ways superior to that of the Soviet 

period.165 Kremlin spokesmen and propagandists would disavow charges of Russian military 

intervention in Crimea, first, and then into the southeastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and 

Luhansk in support of pro-Russian separatist forces inspired by Russia’s annexation of Crimea. 

Putin, however, would subsequently personally concede that Russia’s military had played 

a role. “Of course, the Russian servicemen did back the Crimean self-defense forces. They acted 

in a civil but a decisive and professional manner,” Putin said on his annual call-in show in April 

2014.166 Six months later, with encouragement from the Defense Ministry, the Russian Duma 

would consider designating October 7, Putin’s birthday, as a day on which to honor the “polite 

men” in military uniforms bereft of insignias who had been so evident during Crimea’s takeover.167 Eventually, February 27—a date fraught with significance for Crimea—was chosen to 

commemorate Special Operations Forces Day.168

With Crimea in hand, Putin was ready to move on.169 In his March 18 Kremlin speech, 

the Russian president charged that over the years, “We have been cheated time and time again.” 

However, with something now to show for Russian efforts in Syria the past few years, more 

widely in the Middle East, and most recently even closer to home in Ukraine, a confident Putin 

could assert that “Russia is an independent and active participant in international life. It, just 

like other countries, has national interests that should be taken into account and respected.”170

In this speech, Putin resurrected from Russian imperial history the concept of “Novorossiya” (“New Russia”). This was a reference to the extensive territories, including Crimea, north 

of the Black Sea that Russia’s Catherine the Great had wrested from the Ottoman Empire in the 

late 18th century. Serious pundits regarded this as a flight away from realpolitik pragmatism 

into romantic fantasy. Putin was needlessly foreclosing future options by embracing Russian 

nationalistic rhetoric.171

Indeed, a war between pro-Russian separatists and Kyiv government forces would soon 

break out in early April in southeastern Ukraine, particularly in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, often referred to as the Donbas.172 Putin would support the separatists diplomatically 
39

Understanding Putin

and militarily, sending substantial numbers of unmarked soldiers and military hardware and 

supplies across the border into the Donbas, especially in August 2014 when Kyiv would appear 

to be on the verge of a military victory. But the Russian president would repeatedly disappoint 

the pro-separatists by not moving toward outright annexation of the Donbas.173 Making Crimea 

truly Russian would cost dearly, and adding incorporation of Novorossiya to the bill seemed 

simply out of the question.174

Stress Test

Putin’s Syria policy had helped set the table for his plunge into Ukraine. Now, as international reaction to Russia’s military intervention in southeast Ukraine grew, it set in motion 

new turns in Russia-Middle East relations. While still not Moscow’s highest priority, the region 

gained value as a venue for demonstrating that Russia was not isolated internationally. It also 

became marginally more important economically as a region to which Russia could turn to 

compensate to some degree in some sectors for the impact of Western sanctions. 

In June 2014, with Putin’s approval ratings running sky-high, there were some Russian 

Middle East watchers who judged that Putin had transferred Russia’s competition with the West 

to Ukraine. Syria was still a priority. Neither side would win in Syria, but Russian society valued 

an independent stance there. However, Ukraine was now far more important for Putin’s ratings 

than Syria ever was. There were no real Russian interests in Syria. It had been more a place for 

Putin to enhance his domestic rating, so it was now less important for Russia to sink resources 

into Syria.175

All the same, Russia’s gains in the Middle East since the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 

late 2010 not only held fast as the Ukrainian conflict flared, but even matured. Moreover, as the 

Ukrainian conflict metastasized beyond the bloodless annexation of Crimea to the increasingly 

ugly and bloody war between Kyiv and pro-Russian separatist forces in southeastern Ukraine, 

Russia’s improved positions in the Middle East came to serve another vital function: helping 

Moscow avoid international isolation. This was especially helpful after the tragic downing of 

a civilian airliner over southeastern Ukraine helped solidify European support for American 

sanctions against Russia. 

On July 16, Asad was inaugurated into his third term as Syrian president. Putin was starting to regain traction internationally after the shock of his annexation of Crimea. The next day, 

however, as fighting raged in the Donbas, a projectile hit Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 17 over 

the skies of separatist-controlled territory between the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, killing all 
40 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

298 passengers and crew. Their remains fell to Earth onto fields near the village of Grabovo, not 

far from the Russian border. 

The belongings of the MH 17 victims were looted, their scattered bodies left unattended 

and exposed to the elements. Some remains were not recovered until November, months later. 

All of this provoked outrage, especially in Europe, and international furor over Russia’s military 

intervention in Ukraine spiked, hitting Putin for a loop. Kyiv could no doubt be faulted for 

not having formally closed the airspace above this battle zone. But the MH 17 passengers were 

more likely than not the unintended targets of a missile fired by pro-Russian separatists from a 

Russian-made Buk (SA-11) mobile air defense platform.176

The specter of Libya’s Qadhafi was again in the air. In the aftermath of the downing of 

MH 17, well-known Russian pundit Tatyana Stanovaya suggested that Putin was in danger of 

becoming an international “pariah” as southeastern Ukraine threatened to become an Afghanistan-like quagmire for Russia.177 Others would later suggest that Putin ran the risk of being 

tagged another Qadhafi for the similarities between the downing of MH 17 and the blowing up 

of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988.178 Relations between Washington and Moscow deteriorated further. Their frostiness began to resemble that following the 

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late December 1979 and the Soviet downing of Korean Air 

Lines (KAL) Flight 007 in early September 1983.179 Even before this, independent Russian analysts had begun to describe the escalating East-West tensions as a new Cold War.180

The chilliness extended even to Germany, especially after the MH 17 tragedy. Putin’s violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity—enshrined most recently in the Budapest Memorandum 

of 1994—had already provoked Chancellor Angela Merkel’s deep distrust. That now worsened 

and finally swung German public opinion around to support a new round of extensive energy 

and financial sanctions.181

The atmosphere deteriorated further after Ukrainian government forces achieved substantial success in pushing pro-Russia separatists back from front lines in the Donetsk and Luhansk 

regions in August. On August 28, in what Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and NATO 

described as a military invasion, unmarked Russian military supplies and personnel poured 

into the Donbas region. Russian forces, backed by another wave of propaganda out of Moscow, 

mounted a major 5-day counteroffensive that smashed and pushed back Ukrainian forces.182

Sticking to the script, however, the Russian Foreign Ministry would only concede that Russian 

“volunteers” were fighting on both sides of the conflict in Ukraine.183

The Russian campaign quickly achieved its objective of preventing pro-Russian separatist 

forces in Donetsk and Luhansk from having to forfeit control of the region to Kyiv. Putin forced 
41

Understanding Putin

Poroshenko in effect to sue for peace and accept less than full sovereignty over “Novorossiya.” 

A ceasefire was agreed on September 5, though fighting continued to wax and wan after that. 

The ceasefire all but collapsed in November as Russia again sent significant numbers of 

unmarked tanks and trucks and insignia-less soldiers into the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.184

The ongoing conflict in the Donbas handicapped Kyiv from presenting Ukraine as an attractive 

candidate for NATO membership and closer EU association. Still, the newly elected Rada put 

in motion consideration of overturning Ukraine’s 2010 neutrality law and pointing the nation 

toward full membership in NATO.185

Despite the MH 17 incident and the growing impact on Russia’s economy of Western sanctions, Putin got great marks at home for his Ukrainian campaigns, even while getting terrible 

marks in Europe and the United States.

But what about the Middle East? Here there was little outrage in elite and leadership opinion over events in Ukraine. Instead, the reactions ranged from quiet neutrality to open admiration to even welcome for the return of significant East-West friction on the world stage.

The reasons were various. The downing of MH 17 on July 17 coincided with the start of the 

50-day war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and came amidst the sweeping advances by the 

Sunni extremist jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, out of Syria into Iraq.186

By early April 2014, the joint efforts of the Asad regime, Hizballah forces, Iranian assistance, 

and Russian military supplies and diplomatic support had brought a noticeable if tense break 

in the intensity of fighting. Opposition forces were forced to ratchet down their efforts in key 

battlegrounds such as the city of Homs, but the regime has lost control of much of Syrian territory.187 Increasingly, it was ISIS that began to dominate the battlefield in Syria.188

These two developments—the advances of ISIS and the Gaza war—absorbed much of the 

attention of the countries in the region, and thrust forward new priorities and trade-offs. Iran, 

in addition, was focused on its negotiations with the P5+1, which were about to be extended to 

November 24. Some more intangible factors were also at work to explain the deafening silence 

in the region on MH 17 and the Ukrainian conflict.

In the Arab world, polling done in the Middle East between the annexation of Crimea and 

the shooting down of MH 17 did not suggest that the Ukrainian crisis was damaging perceptions of Russia among Arab publics. In fact, positive views of Russia during this period did not 

lag far behind appreciation for America (36 percent versus 43 percent, respectively). Meanwhile, negative views toward Russia and the United States were on a par (20 percent versus 19 

percent), while neutral attitudes toward each were also not far apart (28 percent toward Russia 

versus 25 percent toward America). The researchers attributed negative opinion toward the 
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

United States almost entirely to American support for Israel. At the same time, they noted that 

the United States was still the favorite destination for Arab travel, with Russia far behind.189

Early on, a major American newspaper pictured Russia as isolated in the UN General 

Assembly vote on March 27 on Resolution 68/262. This declared the annexation of Crimea illegal.190 Indeed, one hundred nations, including Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey, 

joined the United States and European Union countries in voting for the resolution. 

However, there were some notable instances of countries in the Middle East that did not 

support the resolution. As could be expected, only Syria voted with Russia against the resolution. However, Egypt and Iraq abstained. And Israel, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen were all absent when the vote was taken.191 Their various motivations in not voting against 

Russia on the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution pointed to enduring points 

of diplomatic convergence in Russian-Middle Eastern relations. 

Iran

Iran’s abstention was understandable, though still curious, since it put Iran in the same 

vote column as archenemy Israel. Russia’s interference in Ukraine revived historical grievances 

in Iran over past Russian and Soviet territorial aggrandizement at Tehran’s expense.192 However, 

Iran had few equities in Ukraine and thus had little reason to roil unnecessary waters with Russia, a key and sometimes sympathetic player in the P5+1 negotiations. Whenever those negotiations concluded, commentary in Tehran suggested that Iran would want to keep both Russia 

and the United States engaged and competing with each other for its favors afterwards, rather 

than giving preference to one or the other.193

Early on, Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov had suggested that Russian retaliation against 

U.S. and Western sanctions for Crimea could involve Iran. According to Ryabkov, Ukraine was a 

supreme interest for Russia and far outranked the Iran nuclear file.194 However, by July, Ryabkov 

asserted that, “there are no grounds for fearing that the Ukraine situation will become a ‘bomb’ 

under the talks on the Iranian nuclear program or prevent its fruitful progress.”195

In the meantime, despite differences on the nuclear issue, Iran and Russia had been cooperating in bolstering the Asad regime in Damascus, and in recent years both had suggested 

the need to expand their cooperation in the region. By October 2014, Nikolay Patrushev and 

his Iranian counterpart Ali Shamkhani, top “secretaries” of the two countries’ National Security 

Councils, would finally sign the “Memorandum on Mutual Understanding and Cooperation” 

between the apparatuses of the Russian and Iranian Security Councils that had been drafted 3 

years earlier, in November 2011.196
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Understanding Putin

However, with Russia now under pressure from Western sanctions, and more of a supplicant than earlier for closer relations with Iran, some in Tehran underscored the limited writ 

of the Memorandum. Patrushev’s message, in this view, had been clear: Iran would remain a 

key regional partner for Russia. However, the joint fight against terrorism and narcotics did not 

amount to “close and strategic relations.”197

Indeed, there had been no resolution of the sore issue of the broken S-300 air defense systems contract. Iran’s $3.9 billion suit for damages in the Geneva Court of Arbitration had still 

not been settled.198 As with Russia’s abstention on the Libya UNSC resolution in March 2011, 

many in Moscow considered then-President Medvedev’s annulment of the contract in October 

2010 to have been a mistake.199 However, one observer of the region argued that the Iranians 

would never get the S-300 because Putin valued friendship with Israel as more important than 

with Iran. In part, this was because there was no Iranian lobby in the U.S. Congress, but there 

was a robust and effective AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee).200

Putin and newly elected President Rouhani would meet three times in 2014.201 Rouhani 

had long experience with Russia through all the ups and downs of the relationship. In June 

1989, he accompanied then Majles Speaker and soon-to-be President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to Moscow as Russia and Iran resurrected ties after the estrangement over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Soviet support of Iraq during most of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq war.202

Likewise, National Security Council secretary Shamkhani had served as defense minister under 

President Khatami and had had mixed experiences with Moscow. In September 2002, he complained bitterly that Russia did not want a stronger Iran and therefore would not sell it even 

defensive hardware and equipment.203

Nevertheless, Iran and Russia engaged throughout 2014 in negotiations to try to reenergize 

bilateral trade to relieve the pressure of Western sanctions, now also affecting Russia. Russia had 

worked hard to resolve procedural problems—visas, etc.—so it would be ready to move ahead 

with expanding business when this was possible. Never impressive, trade was in dire straits by 

the end of 2013. It had declined drastically to 2002 or 2003 levels: some $1.6 billion in 2013.204

In 2014, despite efforts and much publicity, especially on the Russian side, trade 

dropped even lower: to $963 million.205 In some cases, physical volumes did not decrease, 

explained experts in Moscow as they elaborated on why the amount was less than $1 billion, but the valuation of trade volumes did diminish because of the drop in the value of the 

ruble.206 Moreover, Iran routed some trade through third countries in order to skirt Russian 

direct high import duties, and thus trade was very likely higher than what was reflected by 

the official statistic.207
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

By the end of 2014, little had changed. With the nuclear negotiations perhaps nearing 

resolution, the sense in Moscow of competition by the United States and Europe for future postsanctions business and influence in Iran began to inject some urgency into Russia’s efforts to 

bolster its own shaky political and economic positions in that country.208 Nevertheless, although 

a $20 billion oil-for-goods exchange was being widely discussed, as well as an $8–$10 billion 

electrical energy deal, technical and other barriers stood in the way.209

Politically, relations were very good, noted Moscow experts. There were a lot of visits and 

economic negotiations. But none of this was being transformed into anything concrete. The 

Iranians were saying, “we are now both under sanctions and need to work more closely.” But 

it made Russian officials uncomfortable to be put on the same level with Iranians. The Russian 

government supported Russian business involvement in Iran, but Russian business did not like 

the risks of running afoul of Western sanctions on Iran. Even Russian advocates of moving 

toward a “strategic partnership” with Iran conceded that, while Russia-Iran economic cooperation had serious potential, there were no serious achievements because of internal opposition 

on both sides to moving ahead.210

Rajab Safarov, a vocal Iranian lobbyist in Moscow, complained to Putin at his December 

2014 press conference that “You promised to visit Iran last year, but you haven’t. You promised 

to sign a large economic agreement with Iran, but this hasn’t come about either.”211 Nevertheless, 

likely more for political reasons than for profit, Rosatom had committed in November to building at least two new units at Bushehr.212 Given Bushehr-1’s tortured history, implementation of 

the new contract will likely be a long-term and painful proposition.213

Relations between Russia and Iran were thus likely to continue to be an uncomfortable 

mix of sour historical memories, fresh friction over more recent issues, and lost economic opportunities. After a visit to Tehran late in the year, the pundit Fedor Lukyanov wrote, “Behind 

the doubts [in Tehran] as to the reliability of our word is far more serious distrust.”214 The view 

in Moscow among analysts most familiar with Tehran was that Iran would always be a difficult 

partner. Iran was now flirting with everyone. Strategic partnership with Iran was impossible 

for Russia, however, because the Iranians could not be strategic partners with anyone.215 Nevertheless, there would be Russian-Iranian cooperation in some areas where interests coincided, 

especially since Iran was useful to Russia in the short term to show the West that Russia had 

other options.216

When I visited Russia in February 2015, expert opinion in Moscow was still stuck in this 

rut. Tehran was playing for time until the outcome of the nuclear negotiations was clear, agreed 

observers. If there was a deal, Iran looked forward to warmer political and economic relations 
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Understanding Putin

with the United States and Europe, but would balance them with ties to Russia. This was Plan 

A. If there was no deal, Iran would move closer to Russia but still not too close: a rather unattractive Plan B.217

Both Russia and Iran wanted to use each other; there was no real partnership. Each country was chasing its own political goals, and there was no basis for large-scale economic cooperation. The Iranians were more interested in Europe and America than in Russia, which could 

provide more nuclear power plants (NPPs) and weapons to Iran but little else. There would be 

Russian-Iranian cooperation but not nearly as grand as the $20 billion sometimes speculated. 

Policymakers in Moscow knew all of this, but were playing a political game. Yes, there would 

be a Putin trip to Tehran in 2015, but it was difficult to nail down the date with the Ukrainian 

crisis in full flare.218

Behind the scenes, though, the ice had already begun to crack in high-level contacts between Moscow and Tehran in January. With the P5+1 negotiations resuming in Geneva after 

the holiday break and facing a self-imposed March 30 deadline to reach a framework agreement,219 Defense Minister Shoygu visited Tehran on January 19–20. It was the first visit by a 

Russian defense minister to the Iranian capital in 15 years.220 A week later, Supreme Leader 

Khamenei’s senior advisor Ali Akbar Velayati met in Moscow with Putin, Lavrov, and Energy 

Minister Novak.221

On the eve of Shoygu’s visit, preeminent arms transfer expert Ruslan Pukhov cautioned 

that “one can’t expect any large-scale military technological cooperation with Iran in any foreseeable future because the Iranians feel betrayed and insulted.”222 In addition, explained Pukhov, 

“Russia has a secret obligation to Israel not to deliver S-300s to either Iran or Syria. This will be 

a major obstacle [for the development of arms trade between Russia and Iran] because the Iranians have made their position clear—either deliver the S-300s or get lost.”223

Nevertheless, Shoygu and his Iranian counterpart Dehqan announced in Tehran that they 

had decided to resolve the S-300 issue.224 A few days later, Sergey Chemezov, general director 

of Rostekh—the State Corporation for Assisting the Development, Production, and Export of 

High-Tech Industrial Products—revealed that two months earlier it had conveyed its readiness 

to sell Iran five divisions of Antey-2500 (S-300VM) surface-to-air missile systems. If this did 

not suit Iran, Russia was ready to transfer state-of-the-art S-400 Triumf systems. In either case, 

Iran must first drop its lawsuit over the 2010 annulment of the S-300 contract and its claim of 

$4 billion in damages.225

Two months later, on April 2, P5+1 negotiators in Lausanne, Switzerland, concluded a 

framework nuclear agreement with Iran that would have to be fleshed out into a final accord by 
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

June 30.226 Should that prove successful, the assumption among Russian experts quoted in the 

Russian press was that Russia could then—and not before—again sell S-300 systems to Iran. But 

there would have to be a new contract since the original agreement had been annulled. Moreover, the systems originally destined for Iran had been dispersed to the Russian Armed Forces 

and/or scavenged, and production of the S-300PMU1 system had been discontinued.227

Beyond the S-300, resumption of sales of Russian offensive arms to Iran could only go 

forward if the nuclear negotiations in Geneva were successfully completed and the UN Security 

Council issued a new resolution lifting and/or redefining its June 2010 prohibitions on arms 

transfers to Iran. Prospects would then be bright for Russian arms exporters to compete for the 

lion’s share of the anticipated Iranian needs for $11–$13 billion in new weapons. 

Competition from the West would be tough, of course, but Russia would have an edge given Iranian experience with Russian weapons. But this was one of the few niches in the Iranian 

economy where Russia might enjoy such a competitive advantage against stiff Western pressure 

to reclaim Iranian markets. Freed of sanctions, Iran would once again be able to choose and 

bargain, and Russia would have to compete.228 Moreover, elsewhere in the Middle East, Western 

powers—especially the United States—would continue to monopolize arms sales.229

However, without waiting until June 30, Putin surprised the world on April 13 when he 

issued a decree that reversed Medvedev’s 2010 suspension of the original contract and allowed 

S-300 transfers to Iran to go forward.230 Visiting Moscow, Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s 

Supreme National Security Council, praised Putin’s “good will.”231 This was the same Shamkhani 

who as defense minister complained in September 2002 that Russia did not want a stronger 

Iran.232 Defense Minister Hosein Dehqan, also in Moscow the week of Putin’s decision, declaimed that “Bearing in mind our common views, we have come to the conclusion that we can 

form a new world order together and participate in regional cooperation.”233

Putin’s move clearly seemed to have been in the works for several months. His S-300 gambit was designed to get Russia’s foot in the door of the Iranian market, not to upset the final 

round of nuclear negotiations. Russia, in fact, wanted them to succeed so that Moscow could 

go beyond S-300 sales to Iran.234 Rather than aiming to scuttle a final agreement, the Russian 

president’s decree was indicative of Moscow’s anxiousness to quickly improve relations with 

Iran and to give them more economic substance before Western business has a chance to return 

full force to Iran.235

Putin’s decree sets the stage for an S-300 deal worth around $1 billion—or more if Iran 

goes for a more modern and capable system. It also is aimed at avoiding the risk of $4 billion 

in penalties sought by Iran for breach of contract. For Iran, a deal would draw Russia closer 
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Understanding Putin

but not commit Iran to an exclusive partnership. In fact, Iran likely sees a new S-300 deal as 

a lever to encourage Western states to do more and compete with Russia for Iran’s “affection.” 

But Iran will not be able to become a full member of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization 

(SCO)—in which Russia is a senior partner—until all sanctions are lifted following a successful 

final nuclear accord.236

Unless European and American banking sanctions on Iran are lifted as part of a final June 

30 nuclear agreement, Russia cannot grow its bilateral trade with Iran. These sanctions will 

continue to place effective barriers in front of a revival of Russian-Iranian trade. As before, 

Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak quickly dumped cold water on happy talk about a $20 billion energy-for-goods barter agreement. There was no oil-for-goods arrangement in place, he 

underscored. Ramping up trade depended most of all on lifting financial sanctions so that Iran 

could pay Russia with money and not goods.237

Putin’s S-300 gesture on April 13 was therefore meant to encourage Iran to go the distance 

in the nuclear negotiations. At the same time, it gained Putin approval points at home for another display of independent Russian foreign policy. Many Russian experts have long considered the S-300 contract annulment a mistake. Putin could count on his decision being popular 

with them and across the board as another sign of Russian independence and assertiveness in 

the world against the United States.

Since 2010, Tehran has persisted in driving home the point that Russia must honor the 

original S-300 contract. Tehran has now gotten an apology of sorts from Moscow. This has 

required some verbal sleight of hand by Putin. When Medvedev annulled the S-300 contract 

in 2010, Moscow insisted on the fiction that the UNSC resolution required this.238 On April 13, 

when Putin in effect resurrected the contract, he adhered to the fiction that Medvedev’s 2010 

decree had merely frozen or suspended the contract rather than outright canceled it. In the Russian capital, some professional Iran watchers called it a purely political decision designed to play 

to Iran’s vanity.239 Having succeeded in getting Moscow to eat crow, however, Tehran now must 

decide which system it really wants and how much it is willing to pay for it.240

Israel

Of the countries not supporting the March 2014 UNGA resolution, Israel was the most 

startling. As Irina Zviagelskaya of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow has noted, Israel 

was “absent” ostensibly because of a strike in the Israeli Foreign Ministry. However, Israel could 

easily have sent an official to the UN to cast a vote if it had wanted.241
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Moscow’s exaggeration of anti-Semitism in Ukraine may have been calculated in part to 

swing Israeli audiences against criticizing the Russian move. Whatever the case, Israel’s then–

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman—a Russian speaker born in Moldova—stated on April 

23, 2014, that Israel would not choose sides in the Russia-Ukraine dispute.242 Furthermore, in 

September, Israel reportedly turned down a request by Kyiv to purchase drones (unmanned 

aerial vehicles) for use against Donbas separatists purportedly in part out of concern that Russia might retaliate by selling more arms to Iran and Syria.243 Presumably, these included the 

infamous S-300. Russia had broken the contract with Iran for this air-defense missile system in 

2010, and more recently disrupted delivery of the same to Syria.244

Russia evidently appreciated Israeli neutrality on Ukraine. A veteran Russian analyst of 

the Middle East noted that Russia rebuked Israel in the mildest terms over its otherwise widely condemned—including by the United States—conduct during the Gaza war.245 This expert 

wondered whether Israel would again resist or instead cave in to United States pressure the next 

time a vote similar to that in March came up in the UN General Assembly.246

However, Moscow’s support of the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran and Putin’s surprise April 13, 2015, decision to allow the S-300 transfers to go forward are making managing relations with Israel more challenging for Moscow. The S-300 decision in particular has 

disrupted Israeli assumptions about Tel Aviv’s leverage in Moscow. Prime Minister Benjamin 

Netanyahu regarded Putin’s move with “great severity.”247 As a reminder that Israel is ultimately 

less important to Russia than Iran, it has been an unwelcome comeuppance to Netanyahu and 

Lieberman’s Russia policy. 

Putin has publicly defended the transfer of the “exclusively defensive” S-300 system to Iran. 

But the sudden snub to Israeli interests after years of courting Tel Aviv’s favor does not come 

without potential downsides for Moscow. These include the possible reversal of Israel’s apparent policy, since Putin’s move into Crimea, of not selling military equipment to Kyiv. So far, 

Putin has shrugged off reports of possible Israeli arms sales to Ukaine as “counterproductive,” 

though their rightful choice.248 Furthermore, few Middle East watchers in Moscow see the S-300 

disruption as anything more than a brief blip on the screen of a deep and multifaceted RussianIsraeli relationship that neither side wants to abandon.249

Iraq

As noted, Iraq and Egypt both abstained on the UNGA vote on Ukraine in March 2014. 

Iraq’s decision may have been best explained at the time by the influence of Tehran in Baghdad. 

By June, however, Sunni-radical ISIS forces had begun a lightning campaign out of Syria into 
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Understanding Putin

Iraq, attacking Samarra on June 5 and capturing Mosul on June 9 before heading toward Baghdad. The Shia-dominant leadership in Baghdad suddenly had an even more urgent existential 

reason to court Moscow’s good graces. 

This impulse would only increase in the months ahead, even as Russian forces in late August began to push back Ukrainian government forces in southeast Ukraine despite Western 

condemnation. International attention more and more focused instead on the rising menace 

posed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria.250 ISIS had already beheaded one American journalist and 

would soon behead another. But ISIS would also threaten Russia, posting a video promising to 

topple Putin from power for supporting the Syrian regime and to take the war to the Russian 

North Caucasus to liberate it.251

In June, Moscow had obliged on an urgent basis Baghdad’s requests to the international 

community for help. Although President Obama decided on June 19 to send 300 military advisors to Iraq,252 and some U.S. airstrikes began against targets in northern Iraq on August 8,253

he declared 2 weeks later that the United States “does not have a strategy yet” for airstrikes 

against ISIS forces in Syria and Iraq.254 On September 22, a U.S.-led coalition of Arab and European powers finally began an aerial bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria, with plans to train 

ground forces for later land attacks. But President Obama continued to resist calls for a return 

of even limited American “boots on the ground” to Iraq. 

Obama’s measured response to ISIS advances was in part aimed at forcing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki toward a more inclusive approach to the country’s Sunni population, or failing 

that, to encourage a change of leadership in Baghdad.255 For Russia, this was not a priority issue. 

Putin’s initial reaction was thus notably quicker than Washington’s hesitation and as such was 

much appreciated in Baghdad, both by the Maliki administration and that of Haider al-Abadi, 

who replaced Maliki on August 14. As Washington slowly responded to the advance of ISIS into 

Iraq, Putin began to send Su-25 ground attack fighter jets to Iraq on an urgent basis. The first of 

nine aircraft and the technicians to get them into fighting shape arrived by June 29.256

Iraq reportedly had concluded contracts for $4.2 billion worth of Russian helicopters and 

anti-aircraft missile systems in 2012–2013, and by July 2014 would put in an order for other systems worth more than $1 billion.257 In January 2015, Moscow reportedly acceded to Baghdad’s 

request—in light of the dramatic drop in oil prices—to delay payment until after 2016.258 Later 

there would also be assertions that Ukraine-related bank sanctions on Russia were making it 

hard for both sides to conclude some payment transactions.259

Doing the sums, Andrey Frolov, an expert in the transfer of arms at the Center for Analysis 

of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) in Moscow, determined that Iraq was among the top 
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importers of Russian arms in the world in 2014, in sixth place with 6 percent of Russia’s known 

sales.260 On May 21, 2015, again under pressure after ISIS captured Ramadi on May 17, Prime 

Minister Abadi returned to Moscow looking for more Russian weapons, reportedly already having secured from Washington the month before an order for 1,000 AT-4 hand-held anti-tank 

grenade launchers.

261

 As impressive as Iraq’s purchases of Russian arms have been, analysts in Moscow underscore that Russia’s energy interests in Iraq may surpass even arms sales in importance.262 Leasing 

the pack and capping a 25-year effort with many harrowing ups and downs, Lukoil on July 19, 

2014, for example, finally began shipping oil from the West Qurna 2 field, one of the largest in 

the world, out of the southern Iraqi port of Basra.263

All in all, Iraq’s abstention on the UNGA resolution in March 2014 condemning the annexation of Crimea seemed to be paying off.264

Egypt

Relations between Cairo and Moscow flourished throughout the Ukrainian crisis, reflected in Egypt’s abstention on the March 2014 UNGA vote. Moscow had been quietly delighted 

when a coalition led by army chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had ousted and jailed president 

and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi on July 3, 2013. Morsi had replaced longtime secular strongman President Hosni Mubarak, ousted in February 2011, in one of the Arab 

Spring’s major landmarks. A decade earlier, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation had 

deemed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and prohibited its activity on the 

territory of Russia.265 That designation still stood and had not been amended. 

However, dealing with reality, Putin had met with Morsi in Sochi on April 19, 2013. Morsi, 

also dealing with reality, came under some criticism for going against earlier pledges not to 

deal with Putin.266 Nevertheless, Morsi called for a “real union” between the two countries and 

urged Russia to return to Egypt to work on priority Aswan dam, steel mill, and aluminum plant 

projects.

267

All the same, Russia clearly welcomed the return of secular military power in Cairo. In 

contrast, in response to the military’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, the United States 

suspended the disbursement of $260 million in aid after Morsi’s ouster and the delivery of 

Apache helicopters, F-16 fighter jets, and other major items.268 Unlike the United States, Russia 

would not criticize the repression of the Brotherhood in Egypt that resumed under Sisi after 

Morsi’s ouster.269 In return, as one long-time expert in Moscow on Russian military-political ties 
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Understanding Putin

would suggest, countries such as Egypt, with a history of anti-Americanism, did not have any 

“complexes” about dealing with Russia.270

Just a month after the U.S. freeze of arms deliveries to Egypt, Foreign Minister Lavrov and 

Defense Minister Shoygu visited Cairo on November 13–14 and discussed arms sales. Initial reports suggested that success could translate into more than $4 billion in new contracts, though 

skeptics at the time suggested they were more likely to be in the $1–$2 billion range.271

Egyptian Defense Minister Sisi met with Putin in Moscow on February 13, 2014. In greeting Sisi, Putin publicly revealed and endorsed Sisi’s forthcoming presidential candidacy.272 Sisi 

was in the Russian capital with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy, with their counterparts 

Shoygu and Lavrov, for continuation of the so-called 2+2 talks begun in November in Cairo. 

While Egypt and Russia had declared a “strategic partnership” in June 2009, little if any 

mention had been made of that concept since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.273 After the Moscow 2+2 talks, however, Lavrov said that they reflected “the mature 

nature of our partnership, which has started to acquire traces of strategic partnership.”274 Several 

months later, Moscow was reportedly again pressing Cairo for help in controlling the radicalization of students from the North Caucasus studying in Egyptian religious schools.275

After his election in late May and inauguration on June 8, Sisi met with Putin in Sochi on 

August 12, 2014, during Sisi’s first trip abroad. They discussed an extensive revitalization of relations, including trade in agricultural products, a Russian industrial zone in a new Suez Canal 

project, and arms transfers. Putin revealed that a protocol on “military technical cooperation” 

had been signed in March. Russia was already supplying Egypt with arms, he said, and had 

“agreed to expand this cooperation.”276

Commentary in Cairo argued that the “bundle of painful Egyptian-Russian messages to 

Washington” was intended to impart “equilibrium” and “diversification” to Egyptian foreign 

policy.277 Indeed, on May 7, none other than Sisi had declared that Russia was “no alternative” 

for Egypt to the United States.278 And after Sisi’s bilateral talks with Obama on September 25 at 

the UNGA in New York, Cairo commentary suggested that despite differences over treatment of 

the Muslim Brotherhood and arms purchases from Russia, Sisi had successfully eased tensions 

with Washington and cast Egypt as a partner of the United States in the war against ISIS.279

In Moscow, some Russian experts viewed Sisi as playing the old Cold War game once again 

and using anti-American propaganda to improve his domestic support. Even before the Ukrainian crisis, they observed, there were those in Egypt who wanted relations with Russia to be 

more like relations under Nasser, the leader under whom Soviet relations with Egypt had flourished in the 1950s and 1960s until Sadat reversed course in the 1970s. Now Sisi was positioning 
52 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

himself as another Nasser. This was of course a small plus for Russia. But so far there were no indications that Russia wanted to become an alternative to the United States in the Middle East.280

Others speculated that Sisi intended to develop Egyptian relations with both the United 

States and Russia while keeping in close contact with Saudi Arabia. Sisi had visited Riyadh 

before proceeding to Sochi, and all assumed Saudi Arabia would bankroll any new Egyptian 

purchases of Russian arms.281 Rumors to that effect had been circulating in Moscow since fall 

2013, gaining traction after Lavrov and Shoygu’s visit to Cairo in November.282

A month after the Putin-Sisi meeting in Sochi, Alexander Fomin, director of the Russian Federal Service for Military Technological Cooperation, revealed that the two countries 

had initialed draft contracts for Russian arms worth $3.5 billion. According to Egyptian and 

other sources, Cairo’s shopping list included Kornet anti-tank guided missile systems; Tor-M1, 

Tor-M2E, Buk-M2E, S-300, and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs); Ka-25, Mi-8, and 

Mi-17 helicopters; MiG-29 and MiG-35 fighter jets; and diesel electric submarines. In addition, 

Egypt planned to modernize Soviet-era arms that still remained in its inventories, and Russia 

would establish a service center for Russian helicopters.283 Andrey Frolov ranked Egypt as number one in the world in 2014 for known new weapons contracts with Russia, accounting for 34 

percent of the global pie.284

Moscow was doing well in Egypt, but was clearly wary of overreaching as it dealt with 

Cairo. After Sisi’s successful summit with Putin in Sochi, some Russian experts thought that 

the Russian Navy, kicked out by Sadat in April 1976, would again establish basing facilities in 

Alexandria. Others, however, argued this was a doubtful proposition.285

Given Egyptian sensitivity to the idea of foreign military bases on Egyptian soil, Lavrov 

treated the idea of a Russian naval base at Alexandria warily during his November 2013 visit 

to Cairo. The base question was “rather overstated,” he told the newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 

“The Americans have a colossal fleet there [in the Mediterranean], same as the French and others.” Russia “cannot spite the United States because the Americans will never lose their influence” in Egypt and the Middle East.286

Sisi hosted Putin in Cairo on February 9–10, 2015. The two sides agreed that Rosatom 

would build an NPP in Egypt.287 Although Putin gave Sisi a Kalashnikov rifle as a gift, they did 

not announce any new arms contracts. Instead, Putin underscored Russian wheat exports to 

Egypt and imports of agricultural goods from Egypt as key components of boosting bilateral 

trade, in addition to cooperation in the energy field. Four hundred companies with Russian 

capital were registered in Egypt, he asserted, and over 3 million Russian tourists visited Egypt 

in 2014. Prior to the visit, analysts in Moscow had speculated that the relationship might again 
53

Understanding Putin

be elevated to that of a “strategic partnership.”288 In Cairo, however, Putin went no further than 

calling Egypt Russia’s “reliable partner and friend.”289

Sisi, however, described Russia more enthusiastically as a “strategic friend and a real asset 

for its balanced foreign relations.” He reportedly stated that the two sides had agreed to continue 

boosting military cooperation, but gave no details.290 Within a few days, however, French President Hollande announced a $5.9 billion sale of military hardware to Egypt. It would include 24 

Rafale fighter jets and a naval frigate.291 Saudi Arabia, it was widely presumed, would pay for the 

bulk of the arms.292 It suggested to some observers that Saudi Arabia, which had just undergone 

a royal succession, was no longer willing to bankroll Egyptian purchases of Russian arms, but 

was more than willing to foot the bill for French and other weapons.293

In Moscow, one expert on the region suggested that the United States—in taking the lead 

on the coalition against ISIS and in leaning toward the Saudis on the developing crisis in Yemen—was finally succeeding in recovering from the debacle in 2013 of ignoring its own red line 

on the use of chemical weapons in Syria. A reconsolidation of U.S.-Arab ties was now developing and no one wanted to deal with Russia at the cost of angering Washington. Egypt might be 

dallying with Russia, but it did not constitute a real strategic turn on Egypt’s part. The Egyptian 

purchase of French arms two days after Putin left Cairo, argued this expert, proved the point. 

Another seasoned observer cautioned, however, that Saudi willingness to pay for Egyptian 

arms from Russia still existed. Egypt might not now buy Russian jet fighters, but anti-aircraft 

systems were still the most valuable item for Cairo. Nevertheless, there would be no such thing 

as a real close friendship between Russia and Egypt. Cairo was not changing main partners, just 

diversifying its partnerships. Sisi at this point was useful to Putin as a demonstration that Russia 

was not isolated by the Ukrainian crisis, but Moscow was under no illusions.294

However, there were reports around this time of possible Libyan purchases of Russian 

weapons through Egypt, though the financial details remained unclear.295 And in the case of 

anticipated Saudi payment for Russian weapons for Lebanon, Western sanctions on Russia for 

Ukraine were interfering, not Saudi pique at Moscow for its stance on Yemen.296 So, it was possible that Western sanctions on Russia were perhaps also a backstage impediment to Saudi payments for Russian weapons for Egypt. 

Whatever was going on, in early March 2015, during the visit of Egyptian Minister of Defense and Military Production Sidqi Subhi Sayyid Ahmad to Moscow, he and Russian Defense 

Minister Shoygu presided over the signings of an intergovernmental protocol on military cooperation, a regulation on a joint Russian-Egyptian commission for military and technical cooperation, and a protocol of the first session of the joint Russian-Egyptian commission for military and 
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technical cooperation.297 The very next day, a Russian Defense Ministry official finally confirmed 

the beginning of fulfillment of a contract—said to have been signed “earlier”—for an unspecified 

number of Antey-2500 air defense systems, the export version of the S-300V4.298 And in late May, 

Russia and Egypt were reportedly on the verge of signing yet another new contract for 46 MiG-29 

fighter aircraft, worth up to $2 billion.299

All in all, Russia’s relations with Egypt were “absolutely wonderful,” as a long-time Middle 

East expert stated in May. When Putin visited in February, Sisi received him like a pharaoh. For 

the sake of bolstering his domestic legitimacy, President Sisi was playing up a Nasser-era image 

and the fight against the Muslim Brotherhood. In this context, positive relations with Russia 

were good for Sisi’s image. They played to the nostalgia in Egypt for the Nasser period.

The relationship is a “plus-plus” for Russia, observed a well-known “big picture” commentator in Moscow around the same time, and if the United States loses ground in Egypt, then 

this is “one more plus” for Russia. This does not mean Russian involvement in Egyptian foreign 

affairs. Nevertheless, despite internal weaknesses, this strategist’s view was that Egypt is still one 

of the more stable countries in the Middle East.300

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia was one of the 100 nations that voted against Russia on the March 2014 UNGA 

resolution. Nevertheless, on the leadership level, relations between Moscow and Riyadh would 

develop in 2014 and into 2015 despite the Ukrainian crisis, despite their continued opposing views 

on Syria, new tensions over the Saudi-led campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen, the increasing prospects of a P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, and the royal succession in Riyadh. 

Ties between Saudi Arabia and Russia had been through some hard bumps, but since 

summer 2013, a desire on both sides to keep in touch has prevailed at the top. Moreover, in this 

context of revived contacts despite mutual wariness, the curious triangular relationship of likely 

Saudi funding for Egyptian arms purchases from Russia suggested to one Moscow expert that 

Egypt might prove to be the bridge to better relations between Moscow and Riyadh.301

Riyadh’s confidence in Washington had been shaken by President Obama’s decision in 

January–February 2011 to withdraw support from Egyptian leader Mubarak, which opened the 

door to the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood, long a bête-noire of Saudi leaders. Nevertheless, although the impetus for revitalized Russian-Saudi contacts is a matter of speculation, 

a more likely suspect was mutual concern 2 years later over a potential rapprochement between 

Washington and Tehran. 
55

Understanding Putin

The two adversaries had begun secret contacts in spring 2013. Deputy Secretary of State 

William Burns and Vice President Joseph Biden’s top foreign policy advisor, Jake Sullivan, had 

begun to meet with Iranian officials in Muscat, Oman. The first discussion was in March, followed by two sessions in August and two more in October. These contacts paved the way for 

the P5+1 interim agreement with Iran on November 24, 2013, in Geneva, on the way forward 

toward a comprehensive resolution of the nuclear issue.302

The pace of contacts between Riyadh and Moscow quickened in June 2013. Saudi Foreign 

Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal was in Moscow at the beginning of the month, and Lavrov reciprocated on June 21 after a phone call between Putin and King Abdullah. After his meetings 

in Jeddah, Lavrov said that all of his “conversation partners [had] underlined the profound 

interest of the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the King personally, who has just returned from his 

vacation, in the significant build-up of a partnership with the Russian Federation.”303 As already 

recounted, Putin and Prince Bandar then met in late June in Sochi.

Although not publicly stated, Russia and Saudi Arabia both appeared to be reacting to 

a perceived and feared potential U.S.-Iranian rapprochement that would gain strength after 

sanctions on Iran were lifted following a P5+1 comprehensive agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear 

program. The thinking in Moscow and perhaps in some quarters of Riyadh seemed to be that 

any growing American-Iranian axis would be counterbalanced by a new Russian-Saudi axis—

something truly new.304

Russia did not want a more dominant let alone nuclear-armed Iran because of Russia’s other 

commitments in the region to Sunni Arabs and to Israel alike. In February 2012, for example, 

even as Russia was resisting Arab pressure over Syria, Putin was sensitive to Arab concerns over 

the Iranian nuclear program: “The Arab world is highly skeptical about the prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. The Arab world categorically objects, and the best proof of that is the 

way the Arab world perceives the events in Syria.”305 And in his April 17, 2014, televised call-in 

session, Putin referred to “our Saudi friends,” and the “very friendly relations” that had developed 

despite differences.306

Consequently, Putin appeared to begin to double-track Russian policy. He would try to 

nail down Russian business positions in Iran before any U.S. arrival that might develop, while 

also courting Saudi Arabia. These more frequent contacts with Saudi Arabia would have several 

goals: as an incentive to Iran to react positively to Russian business and other approaches, and 

as a fallback should Iran go forward with the United States and relegate Russia to secondary 

status after a nuclear deal. Russia would continue to appreciate Iran as a “natural barrier” to 
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Saudi-sponsored Islamic extremism, but with a growing appreciation for the possibility of a new 

Russian-Saudi axis as a counterbalance to a potential new Iran-U.S. axis.

By summer 2014, Russian analysts placed greatest weight for the continuation of RussianSaudi contacts on regional unhappiness over the slow response of the United States to the rise 

of ISIS. Perhaps the best plugged-in Russian expert on the Middle East was of the view that 

the prospects for Russia’s relations with Saudi Arabia were bright despite differences over Syria.307 Shifts were underway in Saudi Arabia’s policies, he opined. Syria was a mess. Saudi Arabia 

would likely fund Egyptian arms purchases from Russia. There was an uneasy transition in the 

Saudi royal family.308 There was disagreement with the United States on policy in Syria and toward Iran. All of these factors and developments were pushing Saudi Arabia toward unexpected 

moves.309 Saudi Arabia was vulnerable, thought this eminent Russian expert, and did not want 

Middle East issues to damage Saudi relations with Russia.310

Echoing these thoughts, another Russian observer argued that Russia-Saudi relations were 

not strained. Both sides were looking for common ground. Also, Russian diplomats were now 

more optimistic about cooperation with Saudi Arabia in Egypt. The Saudis were desperate to 

stabilize the Middle East region and bring it under control. They had lost control of their ISIS 

project and were thus ready to cooperate with any country—even Iran or Russia—that could 

be helpful and that could provide weapons to the Iraqi government to fight ISIS. Nevertheless, 

it was hard to forecast developments in relations with Saudi Arabia because of the unsettled 

leadership questions there. Russia was also waiting for the Saudis to sort out their relations with 

Iran and Qatar.311

A third expert was of the opinion in summer 2014 that, while there were no real prospects, 

Saudi-Russian rapprochement was continuing. This was a paradox because it was not a rapprochement among friends. But there was a weakening of traditional alliances as a result of the policies 

of Obama, who was focused on domestic politics and unfocused on foreign policy. If America had 

been firm abroad, Saudi Arabia would not be interested in gestures toward Russia. But American 

weakness required the Saudis to look for other support bases, even among unfriendly powers. 

Saudi Arabia did not care about Ukraine. Although it was concerned by the challenge to the rights 

of Crimean Tatars, it saw a strong Putin, and it respected strength.312

By September, however, this same expert thought that Obama’s August authorization of 

limited airstrikes against ISIS might give Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments pause in 

their exploration of closer relations with Russia. The anti-Asad coalition had tied all the problems encountered from September 2013 to September 2014 to Obama’s weakness, which had 

led to Asad being able to prevail on the ground. The coalition had been irritated with Obama 
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Understanding Putin

and therefore reenergized ties with Russia. Now, however, Obama had come back to the idea of 

material support to the Syrian opposition. Would this cause the Arab regional powers to reject 

the idea of Russia as an alternative power center in the region? So far there were more questions 

than answers, thought this expert.313

Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal returned to Moscow for extensive talks with 

Lavrov in November. According to the Russian foreign minister, they covered the “colossal threat” from ISIS; the situation in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen; Iran’s nuclear program; 

the Palestinian-Israeli peace process; cooperation in energy, including the oil markets and 

nuclear energy; and other economic, transport, and space cooperation. In addition, Lavrov 

stated, “We have agreed to step up our joint efforts in combating terrorism and to this end 

form a bilateral working team.”314

This mention of cooperation against terrorism was a variation on the theme rumored after 

Prince Bandar had seen Putin in early November 2013—that Riyadh had agreed to set up an 

intelligence office in Moscow to help Russia track extremist Chechens.315 This time, however, 

in November 2014, there was no reported or rumored discussion of arms sales, whether Saudi 

purchases of Russian weapons for Saudi Arabia or financing of Egyptian purchases of Russian 

weapons. But that subject, of course, would have been more appropriate for talks between defense ministers rather than foreign ministers. 

Meanwhile, Putin did not seem to give much currency to speculation that the drastic drop 

in world oil prices was the result of U.S.-Saudi collusion against Russia and Iran. In his November TASS interview, while not totally dismissing the conspiracy theorists, he put primary weight 

on the “fundamental factors” of increased supply and decreased demand.316 A month later, at his 

3-hour news conference, Putin again sat on the fence on the issue of possible Saudi-American 

collusion. “Maybe, but then maybe not,” he said. “Maybe it is a battle between the producers of 

traditional energy resources and shale oil.”317

King Abdullah passed away on January 23, 2015, and was quickly succeeded by King 

Salman.318 Since then, Saudi-Russian relations have so far come through the royal succession 

far better than might be expected, especially given the emotional issues that might push the two 

countries further apart. Ties are far from intimate, but all the same the leaderships on both sides 

seem to be making a concerted effort to communicate.

In the midst of the royal transition, the two countries held antiterrorist consultations in Riyadh on January 19. This was a followup to the agreement Foreign Ministers Lavrov and Prince 

Saud had reached in Moscow on November 21 to form a bilateral working group on fighting 

terrorism.319 Prince Saud continued as foreign minister under King Salman. Interior Minister 
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Prince Mohammed bin Nayef not only continued as interior minister after the royal succession, 

but was also designated deputy crown prince, second in line to the throne after Crown Prince 

Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

320

Although he was believed to be highly regarded in Washington and other capitals,321

Prince Mohammed was presumably among those who signed off on the antiterrorism initiative 

with Russia. (In Moscow, however, he was not widely known, even after the royal succession.) 

Regional experts regarded him as pragmatic in the Saudi context. Was he “Washington’s best 

friend”? Professional Middle East watchers warned not to personify Saudi policy. Yes, observed 

an expert on Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed was recognized in Moscow as friendly toward 

the United States. This same expert, however, stressed that Prince Mohammed, above all else, 

was a Saudi patriot.322

In any event, Crown Prince Muqrin conferred with Russian Ambassador Oleg Ozerov in 

February.323 In March, Foreign Minister Prince Saud consulted by telephone with Lavrov on 

Yemen and also kept alive the propects for bilateral energy and economic cooperation.324 Saudi 

Arabia launched its first airstrikes in Yemen as Houthi rebels advanced toward Aden on March 

26, 2015. Within hours, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling for all parties 

in Yemen “and their external allies immediately [to] cease any forms of warfare and give up attempts to achieve their goals through military force.”325

Russian media commentators were decidedly negative about the chances for success of the 

Saudi and Arab League military campaign in Yemen.326 Some even called for Russia to help the 

Houthi rebels bring about regime change in Saudi Arabia.327 All the same, at the top there continued a steady stream of consultations between Moscow and Riyadh. On March 28, Defense 

Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, son of King Salman and the public 

point person for the Saudi campaign in Yemen, met with Ambassador Ozerov to discuss the 

unfolding developments.328 He received him again on April 15.329

In late March, to the obvious dismay of his Egyptian hosts,330 Prince Saud made headlines 

when he publicly lashed out at a message from Putin to the Arab League summit in Sharm alShaykh that called for an end to hostilities in Yemen.331 Several times during the following week, 

Lavrov pressed the call for a UNSC resolution pushing all sides toward a cessation of hostilities 

and the beginning of negotiations toward a political solution to the Yemeni conflict.332 All the 

same, it was Prince Saud who placed the call to Lavrov on April 6 to discuss the Yemen conflict 

and coordinate the evacuation of Russian and other citizens from that country.333 In an interview around this time, Lavrov referred to Russia’s Saudi “colleagues” and asserted, “we really 

value our relations with Saudi Arabia and other participants of the coalition.”334
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Understanding Putin

Putin’s April 13 S-300 decision painted Russia ever more solidly in regional perceptions 

as pro-Shia and pro-Iran. Nevertheless, despite Saudi dismay, it was none other than newly 

crowned King Salman who on April 20 placed the call to Putin to discuss—according to the 

Russian account of the conversation—enhancing mutually beneficial bilateral cooperation. 

King Salman reportedly “praised” Russia’s abstention on April 14 in the UN Security Council 

vote to adopt Resolution 2216 addressing the Yemen crisis.335 Putin in return invited the new 

Saudi leader to visit Russia.336 The next day, Riyahd announced a shift into lower gear on its 

aerial bombardment campaign against Houthi targets in Yemen.337

A surprising second round in the royal succession followed a few days later. In decrees 

read over Saudi TV at dawn on April 29, King Salman announced that Prince Mohammed bin 

Nayef would replace Muqrin as Crown Prince, and that Defense Minister Prince Mohammed 

bin Salman would be the new deputy crown prince. Should Crown Prince Mohammed eventually actually replace Salman as king, he would be the first grandson rather than son of the 

kingdom’s founder, King Abdulaziz, to rise to the top. Another indicator of likely generational 

change was the designation of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, King Salman’s young son and defense minister, as deputy crown prince. In addition, long-time Saudi ambassador to Washington 

Adel al-Jubeir would replace Prince Saud as foreign minister.338

In Moscow, analysts saw especially this second round of succession changes as evidence 

that the new leadership in Riyadh had strong ties to the United States and was eager to show its 

support. Nevertheless, Russia’s stock in Riyadh was high at the moment as the Saudis remained 

on the hunt for new partners to lessen their reliance on the United States.339 Yes, direct arms 

sales were no longer part of the equation and Russia’s relationship with Saudi Arabia remained 

difficult. Yes, there continued to be genuine Russian mistrust of the Saudis, and Moscow remained focused on the Wahabi threat to the Russian homeland. All the same, Moscow clearly 

retained entrée to the top Saudi leadership.340

When Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov visited Saudi Arabia just a month after 

King Salman’s decrees amending the royal succession, he was received by King Salman, Crown 

Prince Mohammed, and Foreign Minister Jubeir.341 In a lengthy interview not long before Bogdanov’s visit, the newly appointed Saudi ambassador to Russia was remarkably upbeat on the 

prospects for developing relations.342 And it was no wonder. In a visit that took many observers 

by surprise, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman soon met with Putin in St. Petersburg on June 18.343 Such contacts seemed to confirm continued efforts on both sides to nurture 

relations and dialogue, notwithstanding deep societal mistrust of one another.
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All in all, given the general perception of declining American focus on and strength in the 

region, friction between Moscow and Washington meant more room for maneuver for countries in the Middle East. Even if they still recognized that the United States remained the most 

formidable power in the region, they all had little incentive to spite Russia over Ukraine. They 

continued to be interested in engaging at least superficially and formally with Russia in order to 

use it as a token, yet still potentially useful counter-lever or balancer to the United States. They 

did not want to join Russia against the West. They wanted instead to take advantage of both 

Russia and the West as they tilted against each other over Ukraine.344

Countries in the Middle East therefore all continued their cordial contacts with Moscow. 

Russia may have been dropped from the G-8 in March 2014,345 but Putin used travel and meetings with other counterparts, including in the Middle East, to demonstrate that Russia was not 

isolated internationally. Both before and after the shock of the shooting down of MH 17 in July, 

states like Egypt pursued closer relations with Russia, using the acrimonious dispute between 

Russia and the United States for leverage in Washington. Putin in turn used his continued welcome in the Middle East to soften the blowback against Russia from the West.

As one expert in Moscow in June 2014 summed up the situation after Crimea, the main 

impact of the Ukrainian crisis was an improvement of Russia’s image in the Middle East. It 

showed Russian strength, and that was important for the Arabs. At the Russian Foreign Ministry, this expert reported, officials were claiming that Russia was getting more respect in the 

Middle East and was being treated as a serious player. The perception in Moscow was that there 

was understanding among Arab intellectuals that Russia could not have behaved any other way. 

They agreed that Russia’s interests were threatened in Ukraine, Russia had to act, and Russia’s 

annexation of Crimea was fine.346

In September 2014, after the downing of MH 17, another expert on the region offered 

some additional nuances. This expert, fluent in Arabic and interacting frequently with Arabs 

over the years, noted that Arabs had been shocked by Crimea. They were trying to stay neutral. 

However, not one Arab with whom this expert had met had criticized Russia. When Palestinian 

and Egyptian delegations had recently been in Moscow, they had all claimed to be happy with 

what Russia had done in Ukraine. They had claimed to welcome the return to the region of a 

strong Russia and to be tired of U.S. hegemony. However, this expert thought that such lack of 

criticism was disingenuous. While using the issue to set a good atmosphere for their visits to 

Moscow, these Arabs actually still regarded the United States as more important than Russia. 

Representatives from the Gulf, however, were being more careful. They said they were neutral, 

that they were trying to have good relations with the United States, Russia, and Ukraine.
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Understanding Putin

As for Israel, observed this same expert before Putin’s April 2015 S-300 surprise, its situation was more complicated than that of the Arabs. It was difficult to do business in Ukraine, 

which was more corrupt even than Russia, yet the Israelis had still managed to do some business 

there, so they had some economic equities in Ukraine. Yes, Russian propaganda charges of antiSemitism in Ukraine may have had Israel as one of several audiences, but in fact there really 

was anti-Semitism in Ukraine.347 The Ukrainian “Right Sector” was anti-Russian and frequently 

anti-Semitic. Because of this, the Israelis could not support what was happening in Ukraine and 

they did not want to criticize Russia over its actions in Ukraine. This lack of Israeli criticism of 

Russian policy in Ukraine had helped Israel. Russia in return was not overly critical of Israel 

over the Gaza war. Russia appreciated Israel’s position on Ukraine, so Russia in return did not 

involve itself in Israel’s Gaza affair.348

If we put aside the votes on the March 27, 2014, UN General Assembly resolution on the 

annexation of Crimea, no country in the wider Middle East—except Turkey—behaved in any 

way as though it had a dog in the East-West fight over Ukraine. All countries in the Middle East, 

even Turkey and Israel, appeared determined that Ukraine not spoil their overall relations with 

Russia. Some, most notably Egypt, even seemed to welcome the return of something akin to the 

old Cold War of the Soviet era.349

After the annexation of Crimea, some expert observers in Moscow suggested that Syria 

had lost its importance to Putin as a venue for bolstering his ratings at home by posing as a 

champion for a great and independent Russia standing up to America because his Ukrainian 

gambit was now doing this much more effectively.350 The Middle East, however, including Syria, 

had now acquired another important function: to demonstrate that Russia was not an international pariah. After the downing of MH 17 and the more open Russian military intervention 

in southeastern Ukraine in August, Putin was using his contacts in the Middle East not only to 

help him soften the impact of Western economic sanctions, but especially to avoid international 

isolation. 

For reasons varying from country to country, Russia’s revived presence in the Middle 

East was successfully passing the major international stress test posed by the Ukrainian crisis. 

Leaders in the region were happy to oblige Putin in pursuit of their own goals. These included 

trade, investment, and arms deals with Russia. Their goals also included sending messages to 

the United States through contacts with Russia not to take them for granted and not to demand 

too much in the way of changing their policies, especially on human rights and domestic governance. But, with the exception of Syria’s Asad, none seemed ready or anxious to oblige Russia 
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to the point that closer contacts with Russia might spoil the prospects of gains for themselves 

pursuant to better relations or closer contacts with the United States. 

Back to the Future?

Toward the end of April 2015, Vitaly Naumkin, director of Moscow’s Institute of Oriental 

Studies, marveled at all the evidence of “vibrant” Russian activism in the Middle East in that 

month alone. He had just finished moderating a second round of inter-Syrian talks in Moscow. 

Russia was an active party in the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program that had produced the Lausanne framework agreement. Putin had made headlines with his decision to allow 

the once embargoed transfer of S-300 air defense systems to Iran.

Naumkin’s list did not stop with Syria and Iran. Arab capitals had expressed “gratitude” to 

Russia’s leadership for not vetoing the UN Security Council resolution on Yemen. Libyan Prime 

Minister Abdullah al-Thinni had again been in Moscow lobbying for the restoration of old arms 

contracts—Russia is eager to do so once UN Security Council sanctions are lifted—and other 

agreements on building a railway and exploring energy resources. And Palestinian Authority 

President Mahmoud Abbas also visited Moscow in April, and there were hints that Russia intended to become more active in the Middle East peace process.351

Similarly, commenting on Putin’s S-300 decision, Dmitri Trenin, head of the Moscow office 

of the Carnegie Institute, observed that with the flare-up of East-West tensions over Ukraine, 

“the Russian leadership has redefined its country as a non-Western power in search of new 

openings, and a new world order. Toward that goal, Russia has been expanding and deepening 

connections with major countries such as Iran.” Going back further, since the outbreak of the 

Arab Spring, “Syria has become a symbol of Russian reentry into the Middle East; Egypt, of 

Moscow’s hope for rekindling some old ties; and Turkey, of a new type of energy relations with 

the European Union.” Iran could now give Russia “strategic depth,” Trenin argued, if Moscow 

could avoid being sucked in to “increasingly complicated regional rivalries.”352

Lots of Flirting, But Still Not a Top Priority

Despite all the signs of success for Putin’s policy of using the Middle East to demonstrate 

that Russia is not isolated as a result of the Ukrainian crisis, few in Moscow are under any illusions. Over the past year, experts on the region have observed and sometimes lamented to 

me that Russia has been “flirting” with Iran, and with others in the region, and this flirting has 

been useful all around. But, as one expert with direct hands-on press and academic experience 

dealing with the region put it, it is a sorrowful situation. Russia has no real allies that share its 
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views. Russia has partners, but they are all exploiting the relationships that Russia needs, and 

Russia has to pay for the privilege.353

As this same observer evaluates the situation: Russian policy is now totally pragmatic. Russia wants to have good relations with all countries in the region. It is ready to sell arms to all, 

trade with all, have investments with all. However, Russia insists to all: don’t send your money 

to support extremists and separatists in Russia’s north Caucasus—and Russia will keep out of 

your politics.354

Russia is still valued by governments in the region as a source for weapons and for “legal” 

support through its veto power in the UNSC, this expert continues. These are serious factors, 

especially for Syria. The Middle East still sees Russia as a counterweight to the United States. 

Russia has shown that it is a great power that is willing and able to challenge the United States 

to protect Russia’s national interests. In fact, the Ukrainian crisis has actually helped Russia 

improve its standing in the Middle East. That is why Egypt has been willing to return to its 

previous “Cold War game.” These themes would continue to reverberate in conversations I had 

well into 2015.355

While not disagreeing with this overall assessment, another expert with Arabic language 

skills judges that the Middle East—in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis—is now nevertheless less 

important for Russia. Russia’s involvement in Ukraine has brought with it a lessening of interest 

in the Middle East. For state radio and TV propaganda, for example, the Middle East is a good 

point of departure for criticism of the United States and Obama. But there is little that is “real” 

in this. When this expert gets calls from state entities, it is now only for propaganda purposes. 

It is not, for example, for translations to support real business interests or concrete government 

programs. For Middle East watchers, thinks this expert, the Ukrainian crisis is making it harder 

to be professionally active in the region.356

Indeed, when Putin addressed Russian diplomats in early July 2014, he devoted only one 

glancing, catch-all sentence to the Middle East: “All of us in Europe need a sort of safety net to 

make sure that Iraqi, Libyan or Syrian—and unfortunately, I have to say also Ukrainian—precedents do not become contagious.” Apart from this, Putin made no reference at all in this speech 

to the Middle East as a region or to any individual countries in the region. The address to Russia’s top diplomats is an event that takes place every 2 years, and this was even less than Putin 

had said about the region in July 2012. Ukraine had become the commanding issue of the day, 

and dealing with the fallout of Ukraine in the Commonwealth of Independent States, in Europe, 

and with the United States had clearly become Russia’s number one diplomatic priority—not 

the Middle East.357
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A year later, evidence continues to mount that the Middle East is still not a top priority for 

Moscow. More than ever, countries like China and India far outrank the Middle East as Russian 

global geopolitical priorities. The press in Cairo, for example, made much of President Sisi’s visit 

to Moscow for the May 9, 2015, celebrations of the 70th anniversary of VE Day.358 Sisi, to be sure, 

met with Putin in the Kremlin prior to the Red Square parade.359 At the parade itself, however, 

it was China and India that got star billing. Putting an exclamation mark to a year that had seen 

accelerated development of ties between Moscow and Beijing—the pace of which impressed 

even seasoned Moscow observers of their own country’s diplomacy—it was Chinese President 

Xi Jinping who sat next to Putin throughout the parade.360

Then came not Sisi but Indian President Shri Pranab Mukherjee, just down from Xi. Sisi, 

in fact, barely made it into video coverage of the event, with even Zimbabwe President Robert 

Mugave sitting closer to Putin and thus outranking Sisi in the seating protocol.361 At the same 

time, reinforcing the impression of Egypt’s modest importance to Moscow at the VE Day anniversary celebrations, Sisi’s presence went almost unremarked on by the Russian media and 

leadership. Foreign Minister Lavrov, for example, did not even mention Egypt or Sisi in his 

remarks at the May 9 events.362

The Middle East was not just a secondary priority in Russian global policy. However disruptive in Ukraine, that policy was also conservative and not activist in the Middle East, opined 

a veteran analyst of the region in summer 2014. This was good, because no one could do much 

to solve the problems of the Middle East. There were no possibilities for a more active Russian 

policy in the region. There were many problems and no solutions. Everyone understood this, 

even the United States. Russia was not conducting a “spoiler” policy in the region, this analyst 

half-joked a year later; after all, there is so little left to spoil. 

Russia dealt with what it faced in the region, this expert emphasized. If the Muslim Brotherhood was in power in Egypt, Russia dealt with it. If Sisi was in power in Cairo, Russia dealt 

with him. Whatever was there, Russia dealt with it. And this was the correct policy. Even if one 

regarded Sisi as not legitimate, one had to deal with him eventually, so it was better to deal with 

him sooner rather than later.363

Overall, as an expert with journalistic and academic experience in the region observed, 

Middle East countries were quite comfortable with the return of East-West confrontation. They 

could now once again milk both sides, except that they were now finding a big difference compared to the Soviet period. This time around, they had to pay for weapons from Russia. 

This expert had just written an article for a Middle Eastern publication in which he 

crunched the figures on how much the Soviet Union during the Cold War had given away in 
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Understanding Putin

relieving debt for purchases of weapons and other aid. In the piece, he had warned that there 

would be no more free lunches from Russia. He had also explained the reality that Israel was 

more valuable to Russia than the Arab states as a source of technology and investments, and for 

Israel’s ability to influence the United States politically.364

True to form, Russia seemed quite happy to sit on the sidelines and earn cash by selling 

fighter planes and other weapons to Iraq while the Obama administration was in the early stages of grappling with the new ISIS threat. This actually reflected traditional Russian behavior and 

the low capabilities and capacities to act in the Middle East, which Russian analysts had underscored before Putin’s defense of Syria’s Asad began to get some traction in fall 2012, well before 

the Ukrainian crisis hit. This was typical Russian behavior. Other than selling more weapons, 

Russia’s response in the region to the rising ISIS threat was likely to be limited and not serious, 

opined a veteran Russian student of the region.365

In many respects, it could be argued, the process of defining Russian economic interests 

in the Middle East under Putin bore a broad similarity—but with a crucial difference—to what 

had obtained during the Yeltsin period. Then, as veteran Washington analyst Eugene Rumer described it, “With the exception of weapons-related trade and the notable case of Russian nuclear 

cooperation with Iran, the region has been of little commercial interest to Russia.” Furthermore, 

“powerful corporate and bureaucratic clans” pursued their interests “virtually independently” 

and “without regard for the public good or the national interest,” resulting in “multiple foreign 

policies—in the Middle East and elsewhere.”366

A free-for-all was still taking place, but only Putin associates were allowed to participate. 

As Moscow pundit Tatyana Stanovaya put it, “the fight for markets (in the geopolitical, economic and energy senses) and the maximization of profit alongside the minimization of risks 

[by] the major state corporations and the private corporations controlled by Putin’s friends” 

determined the course of Russia’s domestic and foreign policy.367

Mediterranean Expansion—Without Full-Service Bases

The Ukrainian crisis brought with it strategic implications for the allocation of Russian 

resources, including in the Middle East. As the Moscow pundit/scholar noted, Russia on the 

one hand will have to redirect some resources to the Crimea that it might otherwise have 

invested in the Middle East or elsewhere. Nevertheless, with reinforcement of the Black Sea 

Fleet based at Sevastopol, Russia eventually will be able to deploy more forces to the Mediterranean.368 One result will be the displacement of Turkey as the Black Sea’s number one naval 

power in the post-Soviet era.369
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However, Western opposition and Russian economic weakness will impose limits on Russia’s muscle-flexing in the Middle East. Foreign Minister Lavrov in November 2013, as seen, 

had reacted skittishly to the suggestion that Russia might reestablish a naval base at Alexandria 

in Egypt. According to one expert, “It is entirely unlikely . . . that Russia is actually seeking to 

establish a proper naval base in one of the Mediterranean ports.” Moreover, “the United States 

and the West have ample political instruments to stymie any Russian attempts to set up even a 

small naval supply station in almost every single county of the Mediterranean, with the exception of Syria.”370

And even in Syria, observed several experts with experience in the region, Tartus, while a 

prestige symbol, was militarily useless. As one noted, it did not allow the Russian fleet to counter the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.371 This was the case before the Ukrainian crisis began, but now even more so given the paradigm shift in relations with the United States and the 

West brought about by that crisis. Russian force projection into the Mediterranean on the basis 

of a revitalized Sevastopol naval base will be a long-term process. However, Asad’s recent enthusiasm for the expansion of Russian presence at Tartus evoked little public gusto in Moscow.372

A well-known analyst with a military background recently noted that Moscow is clearly 

interested in again becoming a prominent presence in the eastern Mediterranean. But Russia is 

nowhere near even the first steps toward expanding its naval presence in the region to that degree. In the meantime, Syria’s Tartus is not the best facility to rely on. Russia instead is courting 

Cyprus; Egypt is also potentially important. 

Russia, however, does not need U.S.-style bases, this expert continued; lighter facilities 

would be sufficient. The USSR maintained a squadron in the Mediterranean without any major 

naval bases. During the Nasser era, Alexandria was not a U.S.-style, full-service naval base; it 

was only for refueling and resupplying ships. Russia may therefore seek rights to access and 

use facilities in the Mediterranean, but not acquire actual naval bases. Additionally, there is the 

important question of money. Bases cost a great deal of money; Russia will instead invest in 

facilities in Russia itself. The distance from Sevastopol to the eastern Mediterranean, after all, is 

not that great.373

All the same, Russia is already using joint military exercises in the Mediterranean to signal 

its continuing presence and advertise its warming relations with China and Egypt. Russian and 

Chinese ships held “Joint Sea/Naval Interaction–2015” drills from May 11–21, the fourth such 

exercises since 2012 but the first in the Mediterranean.374 Russian and Egyptian ships held their 

first-ever joint exercise, “Friendship Bridge–2015,” off the Egyptian port of Alexandria, where 

the Russian ships anchored, from June 6–14.375
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Understanding Putin

Analysts in Moscow saw the exercises with China as a smart move. Both countries were 

concerned by developments in the Middle East and eventually would have to deal with instability in the region. In the meantime, the exercises were a political message to Washington, the only 

addressee. This made sense for Russia. It sent the message, “We are not alone. Our association 

with China is increasingly close.” This was an obvious hint to the United States: “If you do not 

deal with us, we will have to find other partners.” It was actually a bolder move for the Chinese 

to associate themselves with Russia in this way. Lastly, the sea drills were also inexpensive: they 

cost each navy, which must train anyway, only a few tons of diesel fuel.376

Mark Galeotti, a long-time student of Russian domestic and foreign policy, has cautioned 

that “Russia’s current influence reflects a very efficient use of what meager assets it has, rather 

than any real strength in depth.” Some perspective is necessary. Russia’s current successes in the 

region “should not obscure the fact that the West has vastly greater military, political and economic resources. It is currently simply unable or unwilling to deploy them effectively.”377

The ISIS Threat to Russia

In the shorter term, the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq is posing an immediate threat to 

Russian interests. Regional observers in Moscow agree that the ISIS threat to the region as well 

as to Russia will last years, and that Russia should cooperate with the West against ISIS. By fall 

2014, long-time observers of Muslim communities across Russia were concluding that many 

Russian Muslims—predominantly Sunni—were not happy with Russian policy toward Alevidominated Syria, Shia-governed Iran, and Russia’s own Muslim regions. By spring 2015, some 

warned that ISIS posed a political threat to Russia because its tactics threatened to drive a wedge 

between Russia’s Muslim and Slavic populations.378

One Moscow observer argued that the Muslim Brotherhood was more popular than ISIS, 

but that ISIS was also feared. ISIS was certainly a threat to Russia, as well as a common threat 

to Russia and the United States. This expert recalled that in June 2006 a gang abducted halfa-dozen employees of the Russian embassy in Baghdad. Several were shot dead. At least one 

was beheaded. The perpetrators reportedly claimed their attack was against Russian policy in 

Chechnya.379

Another expert observed that many in Dagestan, Chechnya, and the Tatar Republic 

“loved” the Islamic State. They respected—uvazhayut—ISIS, especially after the ouster of the 

Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi in Egypt. Many in Russia’s heavily Muslim regions 

saw another victory for Islam in the successes of the Islamic State. They thought it good if ISIS 

punished the United States. And if the Islamic State attacked Putin, their view was that that it 
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would be all the better. So, the coalition being put together by the United States might kill ISIS 

as an organization, but the movement would remain and there would be those who wanted 

revenge.380

The terrorist attack on the Chechen capital of Grozny on December 4 was a worrisome 

reminder of the region’s vulnerability, even if Chechen militants and not ISIS apparently carried 

out the attack.381 At a conference in Moscow just weeks before, experts put the number of Russian citizens fighting for ISIS at 2,000, or up to 10 percent of ISIS’s total estimated force of 20,000 

to 30,000. The experts at this conference debated whether these fighters would return to Russia 

to fight once finished with their battles in Syria and Iraq. Aleksey Malashenko, a well-known 

authority on the subject, thought that most would return and present a significant if perhaps 

deferred threat.382

However, ISIS is also presenting Russia with an opportunity to deflect Western and regional pressure against the Asad regime in Damascus. Moscow argues that the fight against ISIS 

should be a much higher priority, and that the Asad regime’s opponents should join with it in 

making common cause against ISIS. This boon of sorts for Russia is magnified by the discord 

among Asad’s opponents over which should be the priority target: the Asad regime or ISIS.

 At the same time, Russian experts on the region have pointed out that if Western forces 

strike Syrian government forces, Russia would have an obligation to support Damascus.383 Conversely, Russia’s explicit official stance has been that it will not join any anti-ISIS coalition military efforts unless the UN Security Council supports them.384 Implicitly, however, Russia has not 

moved to oppose U.S.-led anti-ISIS military strikes that steered well clear of Damascus forces. 

To date, Russia has been lucky and has benefited from the West’s intervention fatigue. But 

all along, some Russian observers have claimed, Moscow’s approach to the Middle East has been 

mostly tactical and reactive, although it has been guided by several strategic biases. These have 

included the view that democracy in the Middle East simply opens the door to nondemocratic, 

extremist Islamist regimes, and that the Middle East is more a source of threats to Russia that 

must be neutralized than a region in which to nurture positive relations and advantages. 

Russia’s UN Security Council Veto Entitlement

Looking into the future, we should not overrate Russia’s aspirations or capacity to have its 

way in the region. Few in Moscow expect that the Middle East on its own merits will remain a 

top priority for Russian diplomacy in the years to come.385 At the same time, one major structural entitlement will continue to yield dividends for Russia in its campaign to level the playing 

field with the United States and Europe in the Middle East: UN Security Council veto power.386
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Understanding Putin

This will continue to contribute to Russia’s campaign to reassert what it portrays as the 

post–World War II agreed rules of the game, in particular the supremacy of the UN Charter and 

the UN Security Council in sanctioning the international community’s use of force.387 Russia’s 

embrace of these principles has been undercut by its military intervention in Ukraine. Nevertheless, Russia’s UN Security Council veto power will allow it to stay active in the Middle East. 

Even before the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, one analyst suggested with a smile that Russia 

and America should consider “peaceful coexistence” in the region.388

But while Russia has the veto, it has little confidence that the United States and its allies will 

respect Moscow’s use of the veto. In 2003, the United States had bent the interpretation of the 

UNSC-approved Iraq resolution to invade that country. After that, Russia had negotiated hard 

to make sure the 2006–2010 series of UNSC resolutions on the Iran nuclear file were based on 

a high barrier to the use of force.389 All the same, in October–November 2011, Moscow worried 

that the United States and Israel were ready to bomb Iran anyway. And in August–September 

2013, Moscow and the world believed the United States was ready to launch a military strike 

without UNSC authorization against the Damascus regime over its use of chemical weapons.

But so what if Russia’s veto power is not fireproof and does not have a broad economic 

presence or interests across the region and the world? For rulers like Asad, that may be more 

than enough, especially when Russia has the political will to flex the muscles it does have while 

major Western powers do not. 

All that Asad wants is specific, timely, and effective military-diplomatic help. It is true 

that Russia does not have a navy capable of warfighting in the Mediterranean. But as the Syrian 

Express has demonstrated, Russia does have enough of a navy to deliver to Syria critical arms, 

ammunition, and spare parts, so far unencumbered by a U.S.-NATO arms embargo enforced by 

interdiction. Moreover, Moscow can do this mostly from military reserve stocks, thus putting 

little strain on its weapons industry.390

Uncertain Refuge During Ukrainian Storm

Russia has indeed been punching above its weight in the Middle East for the past several 

years,391 but the region still is not a top priority for Russia. However, relations with the United 

States, Canada, the EU states, Japan, and Australia continue to founder over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and military intervention in the Donbas. On the first anniversary of the start 

of the Maydan protests in Kyiv, the pundit Tatyana Stanovaya rated Putin’s Ukraine policy as 

Russia’s “largest geopolitical defeat.”392
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There has been a sobering trend line even in Internet humor. In the triumphal early weeks 

after the annexation of Crimea, one entry crowed that “Russia’s introduction of troops into 

Crimea violated the most important norm of contemporary international law: only America 

has the right to employ force!”393 By November 2014, an entry markedly different in tone noted 

ironically that “A book has been published with a complete list of countries that do not love Russia. Its title is The Great World Atlas.”394

This is hyperbole, of course. Russia is not isolated in the world, however unwelcome Putin 

is in those countries that have sanctioned Russia over its Ukraine actions. On this count, there 

was a glimmer of optimism that the worst in relations with the West might be past when U.S. 

Secretary of State John Kerry met with Putin and Lavrov in Sochi on May 12.395 Not long afterward, a lifelong student of the Middle East joked that God had sent the Middle East to Russia so 

that there would be one region in the world where other countries could cooperate with Russia 

when they were not cooperating elsewhere.396 However, any optimism likely dissipated with the 

decision of the G7, at its meeting in Krun, Germany, on June 7–8, to keep sanctions on Russia over Ukraine in place. In these circumstances, Russia’s more important partners will most 

certainly be BRICS members,397 China especially, and other major non-G7 economies that have 

not joined in the condemnation of Moscow over Crimea.

But the Russian economy is under strain. Sanctions have inflicted $40 billion in losses, 

and the cost of the drop in world oil prices has been double that at $90–$100 billion. In addition, capital flight may reach $128 billion in 2014. Perhaps even more worrisome, Russian 

companies owe Western banks nearly $700 billion but are now cut off from access to refinancing to manage this debt.398 As a result, Russia’s gross domestic product could plummet by as 

much as 10 percent in 2015 according to the calculations of Anders Aslund,399 7 percent according to the Gaidar Institute,400 3.8 percent according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 

and World Bank,401 and even 2.8 percent according to Economic Development Minister Alexei 

Ulyukayev.402 Several years of stagnation will follow, with growth projections perhaps slightly 

positive and lucky to rise above zero.403

Increased trade with China, other BRICS countries, and G-20 countries not in the G7 cannot 

begin to offset such substantial damage to the Russian economy. However, Putin is taking a greater 

interest in them and the wider Middle East—and the impulse is being reciprocated in the latter 

region. President Erdogan hosted a “state visit” for Putin on December 1, during which Putin 

redirected the $22 billion South Stream pipeline project from Europe to Turkey.404 On December 

11, Putin was in India.405 And Russia will chair and host Shanghai Co-operation Organization and 

BRICS summits in Ufa in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, this summer.406
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Understanding Putin

Since the toppling of Libya’s Qadhafi in 2011, Russia has gained from U.S. and Western 

missteps and innate Middle East complexities. Moscow’s defense of Syria’s Asad turned out to 

be a stepping stone to recovered prestige on the world stage and the tactical ability and confidence to annex Crimea. Had it not been for the MH 17 shootdown, Putin might have succeeded 

in preventing a united Western sanctions response and in getting away with this Ukrainian 

adventure relatively scot free. But the MH 17 tragedy and Russian semicovert military invasion 

of the Donbas undermined its gains and engendered tension and mistrust. Even Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union partners Belarus and Kazakhstan have moved to put distance politically 

between themselves and Putin on the Ukrainian issue.407

However successful in recovering its footing in the Middle East, Russia faces ambiguity 

and uncertainty on many fronts in the region. Russia will be a key actor in negotiating any 

eventual outcome to the civil war in Syria, with or without Asad, but Iran will not want Russia 

to steal its leverage in Damascus and the Asad regime will be an obstreperous, demanding, and 

in many ways ungrateful partner to both Moscow and Tehran.408

Moscow hosted several rounds of inter-Syrian talks on January 26–29409 and April 6–9410 that 

may have served as a bridge to an upcoming third round of Geneva talks chaired by the UN Secretary General’s special envoy.411 But some have remarked on the lack of participation by serious 

elements of the real Syrian opposition, profound disagreements among those who have attended, 

the rigidness of Damascus representatives, Iranian unhappiness about the Russian initiative, and 

the faux nature of the entire enterprise.412 The strongest regime opponents did not attend, noted 

several Russian observers. For Putin, they asserted, it is not important to solve the Syrian problem, but only to keep up the appearance of a process: to demonstrate quasi-activity and Russia as 

a peacemaker.413

However, the Moscow inter-Syrian talks have not been just a device to stall while keeping Asad in power, but also a device for Moscow to pursue its own interests in Syria vis-à-vis 

those of Iran—a long goal of Russia. This is another reason for Russia to keep in close touch 

with Saudi Arabia: to balance the appearance throughout the region that Moscow has cast its 

lot entirely with Iranian-led Shia forces across the Middle East. In Tehran, some still fantasize 

that Russia and Iran are “strategic partners.”414 In Moscow, however, Foreign Ministry officials 

caution that Iran has “sharply increased” its influence in the Middle East and could become a 

“strategic partner” with the United States in the region.415 Perhaps to slow down any trend in 

that direction, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, meeting recently with his Iranian counterpart 

Zarif, “welcomed” Iran’s hazy proposal for “strategic cooperation.”416
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Iran and Russia have had some overlapping interests in the region, but these have not 

erased enduring competition for global energy markets, particularly in Europe, and centuries of 

mistrust. These will spill over into the still-not-concluded P5+1 nuclear negotiations and even 

into the selection of an air defense system with which to implement Putin’s decision to resurrect 

the old S-300 contract. In Iraq, Russia has profited from timely arms transfers and perseverance 

in protecting Lukoil’s valuable energy investments, but its influence is overshadowed by that of 

Iran and even the United States. In Yemen, Russia has opposed the Saudi-led aerial bombardment campaign even while remaining on polite terms with Iran’s nemesis.

Russia has steadfastly opposed the policies of Saudi Arabia and most of the Gulf states 

in Syria. The Saudis and the Qataris still insist that Asad must go. However, combatant and 

donor fatigue may be conducive to the ability of Moscow in the end to midwife an outcome 

suitable enough for Riyadh,417 and Moscow is still playing up the need to deepen cooperation 

across the board with Saudi Arabia.418 At the same time, Saudi determination to keep global oil 

prices low to discourage Russian and other nations’ strategic investments that will eventually 

produce competing energy supplies is wreaking havoc with the Russian economy and undermining Moscow’s potential to play the role of a great power anywhere beyond its immediate 

periphery.419

Putin has done surprisingly well in Egypt and may even be working with Riyadh to finance 

Egyptian purchases of Russian arms. But Moscow seems to be aware that it needs to proceed 

cautiously in efforts to use Egypt for Russian force projection in the Middle East, given the reversals the Soviet Union suffered there during the Cold War. 

With Israel, Russia reacted mildly to Israeli conduct in the recent Gaza war after Israel 

earlier did likewise to Russian actions in Crimea and southeastern Ukraine. Russia voted in 

favor of the UNSC draft resolution advancing Palestinian statehood, knowing that the measure 

would not pass and therefore not sour Moscow’s relations with Israel. But Moscow will be leery 

of trying to ingratiate itself with the Arab street by supporting the Palestinian Authority’s bid to 

join the International Criminal Court to press war crimes charges against Israel, or by seriously 

challenging U.S. leadership of the Israeli-Palestinian Mideast Quartet peace process. Moves in 

either direction would rock what have been stable and even warm relations between Moscow 

and Jerusalem.420

But Russia’s warm ties with Israel are beginning to cost it dearly on the Arab street, if 

not among Arab leaderships in the region. According to one study, in June 2014, 42 percent 

of respondents from 15 Arab countries regarded Russian policy in the Middle East as negative. This reflected dislike of both Russia’s support for Syria’s Asad and its lack of support for 
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Egypt’s by-then-ousted President Morsi and for the Palestinian cause. By October 2014, after 

the Gaza war, reflecting Russia’s gentle handling of Israel’s actions during that war, 59 percent 

viewed Russian policy in the region as negative. 

Meanwhile, the overall negative attitude toward Russia has risen from 20 percent to 40 

percent, and positive regard for Russia in general has dropped from 36 percent to 29 percent. 

Opinions toward the United States have been similarly negative, but the negatives that it took 

America over 30 years to gain Russia has gotten in only 2–3 years, according to polling project 

head Mohammad al-Masri.421

Sunni Arabs in the Gulf states especially are enraged over Russia’s continued support of 

Asad in Damascus. Moscow’s constancy could serve it well should Asad survive, but will not 

reflect well on Russia in the region if Moscow’s gamble does not pay off, as suggested to some 

by recent events. In April–May 2015, Syrian regime forces suffered a string of defeats, and there 

were also signs of significant discord within Asad’s inner circle.422 Reflecting on these events, 

the attitude in Moscow was that Asad has always been in trouble; Asad will still be in trouble in 

Damascus long after Obama leaves the White House; there is no realistic alternative to Asad to 

resist Sunni Islamist extremism, chaos, and fragmentation of Syria; and Russia should therefore 

continue to plod on in search of a political solution.423

The present return of Russia to the Middle East thus rests on uncertain currents and the 

politics of the moment rather than a strategic framework for the future. However, an American pivot away from energy dependence and wars in the Middle East toward the Asia-Pacific 

region and a Russian rebalance away from the West toward the East and Eurasia could portend 

at least a modest relative rise in Russia’s presence and diplomatic activism in the Middle East.424

Besides, according to Foreign Minister Lavrov, countries in the region are growing tired of 

American “recipes” for solving their problems.425

Realism will restrain all sides from believing that Russia can ever become a real alternative 

to the United States in the Middle East, whatever the extent of the U.S. pivot toward the AsiaPacific.426 Moreover, Moscow’s regional experts see too many problems with no solutions in 

the Middle East. This suggests that Russia will be careful not to be drawn in too deeply into the 

region into issues where the prospects of successful outcomes are low.427

Nevertheless, while not setting the bar of expectations overly high, Putin appears intent on 

providing more of a choice for the region than has existed since the American invasion of Iraq 

in 2003. The Western reaction to his policy in Ukraine has given him even more of an incentive 

to do so. Russia may be headed for long-term stagnation—unless oil rebounds—but not for 
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sudden economic collapse.428 Besides, Putin, in his own mind, is not going anywhere. Rather, he 

is already looking ahead to dealing—for better or worse—with President Obama’s successor.429

The same well-known strategic thinker who judged Putin at the top of his game in October 2013—before the travails of Crimea—marveled in February and May 2015 that the Russian 

president was now in even better shape than 10 years earlier. Putin, he said, feels good, is a 

fighter, and is bursting with energy. Russia was playing its game much better than anyone could 

have expected. The Middle East was a region where Moscow could exercise its political muscle 

without having to pay much. Putin’s big problem remains economic policy. But he has suppressed his domestic political opposition and co-opted many of their ideas. This was all cynical, 

of course, but well done. At this juncture, this hard-boiled observer opined, we can likely expect 

Putin to stay president for life.430
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Understanding Putin

Appendix A: Crimea—Damn the Cost

Putin did not demonstrably consult with economic experts before annexing Crimea. The 

lack of any evident input by international economic experts in the Crimea decision was striking. 

According to some accounts, Putin simply did not care what the economic impact might be. 

Only 2 months later did the Russian president ostentatiously consult economic experts when 

he invited former long-term Finance Minister Kudrin and others to the Kremlin. The meeting 

reportedly took place the evening of April 22, 2014.431

However, it is inconceivable that Putin did not make some rough estimates of the potential 

costs of subsidizing Crimea and of inevitable Western sanctions. Evidently, Putin calculated 

that Western avoidance of self-sacrifice meant that sanctions would never be all that serious. For 

much of 2014, he would try to split the Europeans away from supporting the United States on 

sanctions.432 In any event, early on in Russia’s Ukraine campaign, the view in Moscow was that 

Russia could withstand several years of sanctions before its reserves were exhausted.433

Putin likely also counted on increased trade with China and other non-Western markets. 

In fact, on May 21, 2014, Russia and China signed a 30-year, $400 billion gas deal, but kept 

the gas price a “commercial secret.” Some observers, however, suggested that the deal would 

contribute minimally to the ailing Russian state budget.

434 Moreover, experts would warn that 

Russia would now have to focus on not getting drawn into China’s economic and geopolitical 

orbit.435 All of this, of course, was before the precipitous drop in world oil prices shook Russia’s 

economy. Toward the end of the year, as the ruble depreciated some 40 percent against the dollar, Russia’s own Finance Minister Anton Siluanov calculated the impact of the oil price drop at 

$90–$100 billion and of sanctions at $40 billion.436

Curiously, Putin did not seem to have given full weight to Iran’s experience with sanctions 

when calculating the potential Western reaction to his intervention into Ukraine. In contrast, 

analysts in Moscow who had long followed Iran had by this time gained grudging respect for 

the ability of the West to enforce sanctions and to use them to bring about policy change. For 

these Iran watchers, Western sanctions were no trivial matter and Western enforcement could 

be tenacious. A decade earlier, most had dismissed the ability of U.S. and EU sanctions to slow 

down or curtail the Iranian nuclear program. By 2014, however, most agreed that it had been 

Western sanctions that had forced Iran to the P5+1 bargaining table, and might soon produce 

an agreement.437
76 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Appendix B: The Diplomatic Perils of Russian Nationalism

With the propaganda campaign accompanying his annexation of Crimea, Putin used Russian nationalist sentiment to deflate anti-Putin sentiment.438 In stoking the nationalism theme, 

however, Putin has been careful to mine its anti-Western veins while working against its racist, 

anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, and anti–guest workers strains. If Putin is not able to 

keep the racist strains in check, there will be significant domestic and diplomatic consequences 

for Russia in the Middle East, particularly in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. 

Turkey has been especially sensitive to discrimination against Crimea’s indigenous Muslim Tatars by local ethnic Russians.439 Ankara puts their numbers at 280,000, some 13 percent 

of Crimea’s population.440 Early on, Turkish Prime Minister and then President Recep Tayyip 

Erdogan repeatedly raised the issue with Putin.441 Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev 

visited the United States, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, where he lobbied the leadership of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) against Russian aggression in Crimea and on behalf of 

making Ukraine an associate member of the OIC.442

Putin in turn has dealt carefully with the issue given its potential repercussions across the 

Middle East. He signed a decree rehabilitating the Crimean Tatars, who were exiled from their 

homeland by Soviet leader Iosif Stalin during World War II. He phoned Crimean Tatar leader 

Dzhemilev. And he met with a delegation of Crimean Tatars on the eve of the 70th anniversary 

of their deportation to Central Asia.443

Putin and Erdogan seem determined not to let differences over Syria, Crimea, and now 

the Armenian genocide issue disrupt booming economic ties.444 When Putin visited Ankara on 

December 1, Erdogan at least in public notably pulled his punches on the Crimean Tatar issue, 

telling the press that he had found the Russian “approach positive.”445 The Turkish leader may 

have regarded his lenient treatment of the Tatar issue as a bargaining quid pro quo for Putin’s 

surprise redirection of the South Stream gas pipeline. A $22 billion project already under construction under the Black Sea, the new pipeline had been strenuously opposed by the United 

States and the EU, especially in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Erdogan again employed fancy verbal footwork on the Crimean Tatar issue when he visited Kyiv to meet with 

President Poroshenko on March 20, 2015, expressing concern but saying little that Moscow 

could have found offensive.446

In one sense, Putin’s annexation of Crimea was a weird and convoluted consequence of 

Russia’s long-commented demographic decline. This did not directly cause Putin to invade and 

take over the Crimea. But frictions arising from the presence in Russia of an estimated 20 mil-
77

Understanding Putin

lion or more Muslims—some 16 million permanent citizens plus migrant workers from Central 

Asia and Azerbaijan—had helped set the stage, in turn, for the racist Russian nationalist demonstrations of recent years, even in Moscow itself.447 These outbursts had arguably contributed 

to the anti-Putin sentiment that he was able finally, if only temporarily, to surmount with the 

Crimea operation.

One source of negative views toward Putin before Crimea came from Russian nationalists, particularly of the racist variety. In recent years, there had been repeated outbursts of antiimmigrant and anti-Islamic sentiment across Russia. They had begun most notably with the 

Manezh riots in central Moscow in December 2010. More recently, in October 2013, there had 

been violent disturbances in the Moscow suburb of Biryulovo.448 Both had been sparked by the 

killing of Russians by suspects from either the North Caucasus or Caucasus.449

In each case, Moscow tried hard to defuse the protests without provoking a further spread 

of the phenomenon. Putin even visited the grave of the young Russian whose killing had sparked 

the Manezh unrest. Nevertheless, just after the Biryulovo riots, a politically active Russian noted 

that Russian nationalist sentiment had been running neck and neck with anti-Putin sentiment 

in Facebook comments.450 While unscientific, the observation jibed with Levada polling at the 

time: 66 percent of respondents across Russia had supported the slogan “Russia for Russians,” 

and 71 percent approved of the call to “Stop Feeding the Caucasus.”451 Also, an academic review 

of Levada polling results detected a trend toward increased proportional communist and nationalist participation in demonstrations from December 2011 to the “March Against Scoundrels” of January 2013.452

In taking back Crimea and giving voice to Russian nationalist fervor, Putin went far in 

marginalizing the Russian opposition and minimizing any impulse among the Russian public to 

turn out again in massive demonstrations against Putin, as they had in 2011 and 2012. As long 

as the public sees Putin as caring for Russia and making sure Russia is not ignored, they will 

continue to support him, predicted some well-known Russian observers.453

At home, though, it is essential to Putin not to let the racist and xenophobic version of 

the Russian nationalist genie further out of the bottle, given Russia’s ethnic and confessional 

diversity and the sensitivity in the Middle East to the treatment of Muslims in Russia, now in 

particular to Crimean Tatars. Ten to 15 percent of Russia’s 143 million population is nominally 

Islamic and manpower shortages make Russia dependent on millions of guest workers from 

Central Asia and the Caucasus. It is also important to Putin to work toward mitigating SunniShia differences within Russia itself, not just in the Middle East. Some 3 million of Russia’s 

15–20 million Muslims are Shiite.454
78 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

The low turnout for the Russian nationalists’ march on November 4, 2014, suggested to 

many that Putin had indeed succeeded in splitting and for the time being marginalizing the 

anti-Putin Russian nationalist movement.455 Or, as Vasily Kashin perceptively put it, Putin had 

defeated “ethnic nationalism” with “state nationalism.”456 “I am the biggest nationalist in Russia,” 

Putin declared around this time, while again warning that intolerant and chauvinistic nationalism would destroy multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Russia.457
79

Understanding Putin

Notes 1 John W. Parker, Persian Dreams: Moscow and Tehran Since the Fall of the Shah (Washington, 

DC: Potomac Books, Inc., 2009).

2 John W. Parker, Russia and the Iranian Nuclear Program: Replay or Breakthrough? INSS Strategic Perspectives No. 9 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, March 2012).

3 “Transcript of speech by Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev at a conference with Russian 

ambassadors and permanent representatives to international organizations in Moscow 12 July 2010 at 

1700 hours,” En.Kremlin.ru, July 12, 2010.

4 I am grateful for the research of Adam Lukszo and Rafael Broze, interns with the Institute for 

National Strategic Studies at National Defense University, on this subject. Russia’s “strategic partnership” 

with Egypt was formalized in June 2009, during then-President Medvedev’s visit to Cairo. See Yelena 

Suponina, “Russian-Egyptian Relations Said to Reach ‘New Level’ With Medvedev Cairo Trip,” Vremya 

Novostey Online, June 24, 2009. Russia also has a strategic partnership with Algeria, but this country lies 

outside the scope of this study.

5 Parker, Persian Dreams, 83–102, 207–222.

6 For early appraisals, see Vitaly Naumkin et al., “Islam in Politics: Ideology or Pragmatism?” 

Valdai Discussion Club Analytical Report, Valdaiclub.com, August 2013; Irina Donovna Zviagelskaya, 

Russia and the Arab Spring: Perception and Policy [Россия и «арабское пробуждение»: восприятие 

и политика], Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies, Bulletin, Assessments and Ideas

1, no. 3 (April 2013); and Yelena V. Suponina, The Arab Spring: Consequences for Russian and World 

Politics [«Арабская весна»: последствия для российской и мировой политики], Russian Institute for 

Strategic Studies, no. 4 (2012), 7–38. 

7 International Monetary Fund (IMF), Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook, 2008 (Washington, DC: IMF, 2009).

8 See, for example, Dmitri Trenin, The Mythical Alliance: Russia’s Syria Policy, The Carnegie 

Papers (Washington, DC: Carnegie Moscow Center, February 2013).

9 Briefing by Alexei Sazonov, Deputy Director of the Press and Information Department of the 

Russian Foreign Ministry, April 29, 2011, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

10 “Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s Interview to the Newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta; 

21 September 2011,” September 21, 2011, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

11 “Russia Has No Special Interests in Syria—Putin,” Interfax, June 21, 2011. See also Vladimir 

Putin’s later elaborations of this theme: “Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Meets with Editors-in-chief of 

Leading Foreign Media Outlets,” March 5, 2012 (the meeting actually took place on March 2), available at <http://premier.gov.ru/en/events/>; “Working Visit to France,” June 1, 2012, available at <http://

en.kremlin.ru>; Kathy Lally, “Putin Takes Opponents’ Questions, Gives No Ground,” Washington Post, 

September 20, 2013.

12 “Decisions on Syria Possible if President Asad Fails to Restore Peace—Medvedev,” Interfax, 

August 5, 2011.

13 Liz Sly, “Bloodshed Backfiring on Syrian Government,” Washington Post, August 10, 2011.

14 J. David Goodman, “Saudi Arabia Ramps Up Pressure on Syria,” New York Times, August 9, 2011.
80 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

15 Steven Lee Myers, “U.S. Leads Allies in Call for Chief of Syria to Quit,” New York Times, 

August 19, 2011.

16 See preface. In 2010–2015, the author visited Moscow 11 times to conduct research and consult with various Russian experts. These visits are cited throughout this paper as “Author’s conversations 

in Moscow.”

17 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February and July 2011. 

18 Ibid., February 2012.

19 Ibid., October 2013. See also the more recent comparative assessment by Nikolay Kozhanov, “Russian-Syrian Dialogue: Myths and Realities,” The Journal of the Middle East and Africa 5, no. 1 

(March 2014), 1–22, available at <http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21520844.2014.883257>.

20 “Putin Raps TV Footage Showing Qadhafi Death,” Interfax, October 27, 2011. 

21 “Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Meets with Editors-in-chief.”

22 “Expressions Like ‘Crusades’ Unacceptable with Respect to Situation in Libya—Medvedev,” 

Interfax, March 21, 2011.

23 Natalya Kostenko, “The Power Castling Has Put an End to Modernization,” Vedomosti.ru, December 30, 2011, available at <www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/1467118/vse_dlya_

fronta#ixzz1iOH0yaF>.

24 Ambassador Vladimir Chamov was recalled to Moscow and reportedly fired for his objections to Russia’s abstention on Resolution 1973. However, he resurfaced at the Foreign Ministry in July 

2012, after Putin again was president. In November 2014, he was named Russian ambassador to Mauritania. See “Russian Diplomat Sacked as Ambassador to Libya under Medvedev Appointed Ambassador 

to Mauritania,” Interfax, November 11, 2014.

25 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February 2012.

26 Ibid., October 2013.

27 Two more vetoes followed on February 4, 2012, and July 19, 2012.

28 “Reset in Russian-U.S. Relations Ended Not Because of Crimea But Because of Libya—Putin,” Interfax, April 17, 2014.

29 Stepan Goncharov, “Putin in Public Opinion: Before and After the Political Castling,” Levada 

Analytic Center, October 15, 2013, available at <www.levada.ru/15-10-2013/putin-v-obshchestvennommnenii-do-i-posle-politicheskoi-rokirovki>; “Presidential Elections in March: What Russians Expect,” 

Levada-Center, January 12, 2012; Yelena Vlasenko, “Punkslavism,” April 9, 2014, available at <http://

grani.ru/Society/m.227547.html>; and Lev Gudkov, “The Kind of Country We Live In: Russian Society 

from November to March,” April 7, 2014. All polling cited in this paper is by the Levada Analytic Center, Russia’s only independent polling company.

30 “Putin Announces Presidential Bid, with Medvedev Backing,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 24, 2011, available at <www.rferl.org/content/medvedev_says_putin_should_be_next_

russian_president/24338593.html>.

31 Will Englund, “Putin Pulls in a Wave of Boos on Fight Night,” Washington Post, November 

22, 2011.

32 Mikhail Loginov, “From Shadows to Darkness,” OpenDemocracy.com, May 8, 2013, available at <www.opendemocracy.net/print/72594>. In October 2014, this same Volodin would argue that 
81

Understanding Putin

“there is no Russia today if there is no Putin.” See “‘No Putin, No Russia,’ Says Kremlin Deputy Chief of 

Staff,” Moscow Times Online, October 23, 2014.

33 David M. Herszenhorn and Ellen Barry, “Putin Contends Clinton Incited Russian Unrest,” 

New York Times, December 9, 2011.

34 On the continuing impact of the 2011–2012 protests, see Mikhail Rostovskiy, “Putin’s Reset: 

How the Kremlin Intends to Run Russia in a New Way. Regime Needs Oppositionists as Sparring Partners,” MK Online, July 11, 2014. On the campaign against Ambassador McFaul and the rise of Russian 

nationalist influence in Russian politics, see David Remnick, “Watching the Eclipse,” The New Yorker, 

August 11 and 18, 2014, 52–65.

35 David M. Herszenhorn, “Putin Wins Vote, But Opposition Keeps Pressing,” New York Times, 

March 5, 2012. On YouTube, see “Putin’s Victory Speech 2012 (with English subtitles) by isselman 

2080,” available at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=30oMuEo4eDw>.

36 Goncharov.

37 For details, see Parker, Russia and the Iranian Nuclear Program, 40–46. The intensity of the 

debate in 2009–2012 in Israeli political and security circles over striking Iran was still in evidence years 

later. See, for example, Ben Caspit, “Why Didn’t Netanyahu Attack Iran?” Al-Monitor, June 8, 2015, 

available at <www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/06/israel-jerusalem-post-conference-daganashkenazi-iran-attack.html>.

38 Jerry Markon and Karen DeYoung, “U.S. Says Iran Plotted to Kill Saudi Envoy,” Washington 

Post, October 12, 2011; Helene Cooper, “Obama Says Facts Support Accusation of Iranian Plot,” New York 

Times, October 14, 2011; Liz Sly, “Opening Old Wounds in Region,” Washington Post, October 13, 2011.

39 Ibid.

40 Liz Sly, “Syria Edging Closer to Armed Civil Conflict,” Washington Post, November 17, 2011.

41 The Foreign Ministry put out a statement asserting that Moscow was “ready to cooperate with all interested states, including the United States.” See “Russia Concerned by Reports on 

Planned Terror Attacks in USA—Ministry,” October 12, 2011, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/

main_eng>. Lavrov cautioned that Moscow would not comment on the alleged conspiracy until after hearing American experts lay out the case. See “Russia Not to Comment on Alleged Iran Murder 

Plot Before U.S. Explanations—Lavrov,” Interfax, October 18, 2011. For the plotter’s ultimate judicial fate, see Benjamin Weiser, “25-Year Prison Term in Plot to Kill Saudi Ambassador,” New York 

Times, May 31, 2013.

42 “Russia Scales Down Diplomatic Ties with Qatar after Attack on Its Ambassador,” December 

5, 2011, accessed at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>. Ambassador Titorenko became Deputy Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s Department of Crisis Management (email followup to conversation in Moscow, February 2014).

43 As Gregory Gause noted on October 24, 2013, in his presentation on Gulf diplomacy at the 

Carnegie Endowment in Washington, DC. For an analysis and overview of the ebb and flow of Turkish, Qatari, and Saudi diplomacy vis-à-vis Syria, see Emile Hokayem, Syria’s Uprising and the Fracturing 

of the Levant (New York: Routledge, 2013), 110–123. For an account of shipments of arms and equipment from Qatar and Saudi Arabia through Turkey beginning in early 2012, see C.J. Chivers and Eric 

Schmitt, “Airlift to Rebels in Syria Expands with C.I.A.’s Help,” New York Times, March 25, 2013.
82 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

44 Mark Landler and Steven Lee Myers, “Healing a Rift, U.S. Agrees to $30 Billion Fighter Jet 

Sale to Saudi Arabia,” New York Times, December 30, 2011.

45 According to one report, Russia and Saudi Arabia were negotiating contracts for helicopters, 

tanks, infantry combat vehicles, and air defense systems worth around $2 billion. See Nikolay Surkov, 

“Saudi Arabia Buys Arms from Russia,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 31, 2009; and “Russia, Saudi 

Arabia Negotiating Price of Arms Contracts,” Interfax–AVN Online, December 3, 2009. According to 

another report, Rosoboronexport and Almaz-Antei were in negotiations with Saudi Arabia on a $4-billion package that could make Saudi Arabia the first country to purchase the S-400 and Antei-2500 air 

defense systems. See Interfax, July 29, 2009. A year later, yet another report upped the total value of a 

package of contracts to $4–$6 billion. See “Russia, Saudi Arabia Finalizing Major Arms Deal—State 

Exporter,” RIA-Novosti, June 16, 2010.

46 “Experts Say Russia Will Try to Persuade Syrian President to Step Down,” RIA-Novosti, February 5, 2012.

47 United Nations (UN), “Action Group for Syria, Final Communiqué, 30.06.2012,” available at 

<www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/Syria/FinalCommuniqueActionGroupforSyria.pdf>. See also “Russia Will Not Allow UN Security Council to Sanction External Interference in Syria—Lavrov,” Interfax, 

January 18, 2012; and Will Englund, “Russia’s Top Diplomat Lists Objections to U.S. Policy,” Washington 

Post, January 19, 2012. 

48 Nick Cumming-Bruce and Rod Norland, “Powers Agree on Plan for a Syrian Transition, But 

Not for Removing Asad,” New York Times, July 1, 2012.

49 Author’s conversations in Moscow, July 2012.

50 Vladimir Putin, “Russia in a Changing World: Stable Priorities and New Opportunities,” July 

9, 2012, available at <http://eng.news.kremlin.ru/news/4145/print>. Seven months later, in the new edition of the Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, the Near East and North Africa were 

listed after the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Euro-Atlantic, and the Asia-Pacific regions 

but ahead of Latin America and Africa. See Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, Approved by President of the Russian Federation V. Putin on 12 February 2013, March 14, 2013. Russia’s 

regional priorities are listed in section IV, paragraphs 88–91.

51 Kareem Fahim, “Profiles of Syrian Officials Targeted in Damascus Blast,” New York Times, July 

18, 2012. Until he reportedly reappeared in June 2014, it was rumored that Maher Asad, the president’s 

brother and head of Syria’s feared Republican Guard, had also been killed by the July 2012 blast or in combat not long afterward. See “Maher Asad Appears for First Time in Four Years,” Naharnet, June 20, 2014, 

available at <www.naharnet.com/stories/en/135685-maher-Asad-appears-for-first-time-in-four-years>.

52 Author’s conversations in Moscow, July 2012.

53 See, for example, “Russian Commentators [Valeriy Shnyakin, Mikhail Margelov, Yevgeniy 

Satanovskiy, Aleksandr Shumilin] Link Attacks on U.S. Diplomatic Missions to Arab Spring,” Interfax, 

September 13, 2012; “Russia Has Chance to Broaden Influence in Middle East, North Africa—Zyuganov,” Interfax, September 7, 2012; and “Placing Bets on Arab Spring was U.S. Mistake—Russian 

Parliamentarian [Alexei Pushkov],” Interfax–AVN Online, September 20, 2012. 

54 Andrei Nekrasov, “Russia’s Motives in Syria Are Not All Geopolitical,” Financial Times, June 19, 

2013, available at <www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f41794d4-d738-11e2-a26a-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2WsLAqn51>.
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55 Interview with Georgiy Mirskiy, by Mariya Makutina, “The War Will Go On Until the Sides 

Run Out of Blood,” Gazeta.ru, June 7, 2013.

56 Mikhail Barabanov and Ruslan Aliyev, “Russian Interests in Syria: Myths and Reality,” Center 

for Analysis of Strategy and Technology, June 2012, available at <www.cast.ru>. 

57 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February 2012. See also Barabanov and Aliyev; and Aleksandr Golts, as quoted in “Pundit Says Syria Is Russia’s Biggest Arms Purchaser in Middle East,” Ekho 

Moskvy News Agency, January 31, 2012. Specifying lobbying by Israel but only alluding to Syria, Putin 

noted the nondelivery of S-300s to Syria in his most recent televised call-in session. See “Russia chose 

not to supply S-300 missiles to Arab country over Israel’s position—Putin,” Interfax, April 16, 2015.

58 Author’s conversations in Moscow, July 2012.

59 “Russian Technical Expert Reveals Part of the Electronic War Between the Syrian Authority 

and Its Adversaries; Tehran Delivered Mohajer Drones to Syria, and Moscow Delivered ‘Avtobaza’ System, Which Hacked Thuraya and Other Satellite Transmission Networks,” Al-Haqiqah (www.syriatruth.

info), March 10, 2012; “Russia Supplies Electronic Intelligence Systems to Iran,” RIA-Novosti, October 

25, 2011; and author’s conversations in Moscow, February 2012.

60 Liz Sly and Karen DeYoung, “Strong-arming,” Washington Post, February 24, 2013.

61 Peter Baker et al., “Off-the-Cuff Obama Line Puts U.S. in Bind on Syria,” New York Times, 

May 5, 2013.

62 James Kanter, “European Nations End Weapons Embargo, Creating Path to Arming Syrian 

Rebels,” New York Times, May 28, 2013.

63 Karen DeYoung and Anne Gearan, “U.S. to Scale Up Military Support for Syrian Rebels,” 

Washington Post, June 14, 2013; and Mark Mazzetti, Michael R. Gordon, and Mark Landler, “U.S. Is Said 

to Plan to Send Weapons to Syrian Rebels,” New York Times, June 14, 2013.

64 Author’s conversations in Moscow, October 2013.

65 See, for example, Ivan Safronov and Yelena Chernenko, “By the MiG—March! Moscow 

Dramatically Steps Up Appearance of Military-Technical Cooperation With Damascus,” Kommersant, 

June 1–4, 2013; Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick, “Russia Sends Arms to Syria As It Reasserts Role 

in Region,” Washington Post, May 30, 2013; and Michael Peel, “Iran, Russia and China Prop Up Asad 

Economy,” Financial Times, June 27, 2013, available at <www.ft.com/cms/s/0/79eca81c-df48-11e2-a9f4-

00144feab7de.html>. 

66 “Russia Disappointed by EU Lifting Embargo on Arms Supplies to Syrian Opposition—Minister,” Interfax, May 29, 2013.

67 Yevgeniy Shestakov, “White House Tired Without War. Is the United States Preparing for an 

Invasion of Syria?” Rossiyskaya Gazeta Online, June 17, 2013.

68 Thomas Grove, “Insight—Syria Pays for Russian Weapons to Boost Ties with Moscow,” Reuters, August 29, 2013.

69 “Russia Basically Fulfilled Arms Contracts with Syria Before U.S. Threats of Force—Source,” 

Interfax, September 4, 2013.

70 Author’s conversations in Moscow, October 2013, and February and June 2014; Rick 

Gladstone and Ravi Somaiya, “Continuation of Monitors Inside Syria Is in Doubt,” New York Times, 

June 20, 2012; “MV Alaed to Deliver Repaired Helicopters, Air Defense Weapons to Syria—Source,” 
84 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Interfax–AVM Online, July 16, 2012; and “Russia Basically Fulfilled Arms Contracts with Syria Before 

U.S. Threats of Force.”

71 This was essentially a distinction without a difference, but one that both sides have seen 

as important to maintain. In a recent major interview, for example, Asad distinguished between 

pre-war “contracts” and subsequent “accords”: “There are contracts that were concluded before 

the beginning of the crisis that have been fulfilled during the crisis. There are also other accords 

on arms deliveries and cooperation that have been signed during the crisis and are being fulfilled 

at the present time.” See interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Asad, by Konstantin Volkov, in 

Damascus, “We Will Not Be Broken. Bashir Al-Asad: A Russian Presence in Various Regions of the 

World Is Essential in Order to Maintain the Balance of Power,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta Online, March 

27, 2015.

72 Author’s conversations in Moscow, October 2013, and February and June 2014.

73 Jackie Calmes, “Obama and Putin at Odds on Syria, But Want Talks,” New York Times, June 

18, 2013. 

74 Pavel Tarasenko, “G8 Changes Little in Syria; Authorities and Opposition Ignore G8 Summit 

Statement,” Kommersant Online, June 20, 2013.

75 Pavel Tarasenko, Ivan Safronov, and Yelena Chernenko, “Reset Paused,” Kommersant Online, 

August 12, 2013. 

76 Joby Warrick, “Spy Agencies Recorded Each Step in Alleged Attack, U.S. Report Says,” Washington Post, August 31, 2013.

77 Author’s conversations in Moscow, October 2013. For an expert American assessment, see 

Chandler P. Atwood and Jeffrey White, “Syrian Air-Defense Capabilities and the Threat to Potential U.S. 

Air Operations,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, PolicyWatch 2257, May 23, 2014, available 

at <http://washin.st/S0zyq7>. All that, however, had to be balanced against the possibility of totally 

removing chemical weapons from the Syrian battleground equation, even while leaving loopholes such 

as chlorine gas in the deal. See Rick Gladstone, “Claims of Chlorine-Filled Bombs Overshadow Progress 

by Syria on Chemical Weapons,” New York Times, April 23, 2014. In addition, given Tehran’s investment 

in the Asad regime, an American strike against it could have derailed any effort by the newly elected 

Rouhani administration to reach out to Washington and to move toward more serious negotiations 

with the P5+1 on Iran’s nuclear program.

78 Vladimir Putin, “Russia and the Changing World,” Moskovskiye Novosti, February 27, 2012.

79 Vladimir Putin, “President’s Address to Federal Assembly,” December 12, 2013.

80 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February 2014.

81 Ibid.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid.

84 Parker, Persian Dreams, passim; and Parker, Russia and the Iranian Nuclear Program, passim.

85 For expert analyses of multiple facets of Russia’s relations with Iran during Ahmadinejad’s 

presidency, see Nina Mikhaylovna Mamedova, Yelena V. Dunaeva, and many other notable Russian 

specialists, in Iran Under M. Ahmadinejad [Иран при М. Ахмадинежаде] (Moscow: Russian Academy 

of Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies, 2013).
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Understanding Putin

86 Yevgeny Primakov, Russia and the Arabs: Behind the Scenes in the Middle East from the Cold 

War to the Present, trans. Paul Gould (New York: Basic Books, 2009), 315, 368–369.

87 Parker, Persian Dreams, 216–219, 273–275, 289–292.

88 “Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Meets with Editors-in-chief.”

89 L.M. Kulagina and V.M. Akhmedov, “Iran’s Policy in the Middle East After the War in Iraq,” 

in The Role and the Place of Iran in the Region [Роль и место Ирана в регионе], ed. N.M. Mamedova 

and M. Imanipur (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies, 2007), 99–111.

90 Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2010.

91 Parker, Persian Dreams, 70–72.

92 Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2010, and thereafter. See also Dmitri Trenin, Russia’s 

Policy in the Middle East: Prospects for Consensus and Conflict with the United States (New York: The 

Century Foundation, 2010), available at <http://tcf.org/publications/pdfs/pb707/trenin.pdf>.

93 Mark A. Smith, Russia and the Persian Gulf: The Deepening of Moscow’s Middle East 

Policy, Middle East Series 07/25 (Shrivenham: Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, August 

2007). After the Soviet collapse, Russia developed a fairly robust relationship with Iran, contracting to build a nuclear power station at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf and selling Iran an array of 

weapons systems. In Iraq, Russia also profited handsomely from the UN Oil-for-Food program’s 

sweetheart deals, which it lost after the U.S. invasion in 2003. See Parker, Persian Dreams, 103–128, 

229–230. 

94 Mark N. Katz, “Saudi-Russian Relations in the Putin Era,” Middle East Journal 55, no. 4 (Autumn 2001), 612–617.

95 Renat Abdullin and Aleksandr Korzun, “Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah: Chechen Question Is 

Russia’s Internal Affair,” Izvestiya, September 6, 2003.

96 “SPA Reports on Saudi-Russian Statement at End of Prince Abdallah’s Moscow Visit,” Saudi 

Press Agency, September 2003. Andrey Baklanov was Moscow’s ambassador to Riyadh during these 

years. For his take on all of the developments discussed in this paragraph, see the notes on his own 

career at the end of his book-length tribute to his father, in Andrey Baklanov, The Youngest General

[Самый молодой генерал] (Moscow: TONCHU, 2012), 285–291, 319–322. 

97 Parker, Persian Dreams, 273–277.

98 Ibid., 261–263, 270–271, 289–290, 301–310.

99 His visit to Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian territories in April 2005 had already heralded 

the Russian leadership’s return to the region after several decades of absence. Together with Russia’s 

decision to host the Palestinian Hamas leadership for talks in Moscow in March 2006, this meant that 

Russia, unlike the United States, now had relations with all parties in the Middle East. See Smith, “Russia and the Persian Gulf.”

100 Marina Ottaway, Iran, the United States, and the Gulf: The Elusive Regional Policy, Carnegie 

Papers, Middle East Program, Number 105 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International 

Peace, November 2009). 

101 Putin and Medvedev referred to “good prospects and good potential” (“Putin Thanks Saudi 

Arabia for Resolving Problems Quickly,” Interfax, July 14, 2008) and relations “becoming increasingly 

stable” (“Medvedev Praises Dynamic Growth in Relations with Saudi Arabia,” Interfax, July 14, 2008).
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102 This decision was subsequently reinforced in September 2009 by the revelation of a new 

Iranian enrichment facility outside Qom and Iran’s turndown several months later of the P5+1 offer to 

have Russia and France enrich the bulk of Iran’s low-enriched uranium for medical use by the Tehran 

Research Reactor. By summer 2009, the reports that began to surface of Saudi negotiations for Russian 

arms must have made Tehran nervous.

103 Dana Hedgpeth, “Pentagon Plans Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia,” Washington Post, October 21, 

2010; and Mark Landler and Steven Lee Myers, “Healing a Rift, U.S. Agrees to $30 Billion Fighter Jet 

Sale to Saudi Arabia,” New York Times, December 30, 2011. More would follow in April 2013 as part of a 

$10-billion package of arms for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel. See Craig Whitlock, 

“Pentagon Reaches Deal on $10 Billion Arms Sale to Middle East Allies,” Washington Post, April 20, 2013.

104 “Russia, Saudi Arabia Sign Smaller Arms Deals Than Expected—Arms Exporter,” Interfax–

AVN Online, October 26, 2010.

105 Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2010.

106 Ibid., July 2011, February and July 2012, October 2013, and February 2014.

107 Yevgeniy Satanovskiy, “Iran, the Once and Future Empire,” Izvestiya, August 14, 2006.

108 Stanislav Khatuntsev, “Iran and the Prospects of a New War,” Izvestiya Online, May 17, 2012, 

available at <http://izvestia.ru/news/524683>. The author is grateful to Simon Williams and Matthew 

Gill for their research on Khatuntsev, whose last name has on occasion been erroneously transcribed 

into English. See also the comments of Igor Korotchenko, chief editor of the Natsionalnaya Oborona 

[National Defense] magazine, in “Russian Expert Hints at Possibility of Resuming S-300 Contract With 

Iran,” RIA Novosti, May 31, 2013.

109 Author’s conversations in Moscow, July 2012.

110 Mikhail Kalmykov, “Russia, Iran Sign Relations and Cooperation Treaty,” ITAR–TASS, March 

12, 2001. For context, see Parker, Persian Dreams, 208–211. The full text of the treaty is available at 

<www.lawrussia.ru/texts/legal_523/doc523a391x473.htm>.

111 “On the Meeting of Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council N.P. Patrushev 

with the delegation of the Supreme National Security Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” November 9, 2011, available at <www.scrf.gov.ru/news/683.html>. The deputies who prepared the draft were 

Ye. V. Lukyanov and Ali Baqeri-Kyani.

112 Igor Pankratenko, “Igor Pankratenko: Russia’s ‘Iranian Vector’: Nikolay Patrushev in Tehran,” Regnum (Regnum.ru), October 22, 2014. 

113 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February 2014.

114 Ibid., October 2013, and February, June, and September 2014.

115 “Putin, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan discuss bilateral relations, Middle East affairs,” Interfax, July 31, 2013; and “Russian President Discusses Iran, Syria with Visiting Saudi Intelligence Chief,” 

En.Kremlin.ru, December 3, 2013.

116 “On a Telephone Conversation Between Russian Foreign Minister S.V. Lavrov and Prince 

Bandar Bin-Sultan Bin-Abd-al-Aziz Al Sa’ud, Secretary-General of the Council of National Security and 

Director of General Intelligence of Saudi Arabia,” August 21, 2013, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/

main_eng>; and “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Receives Telephone Call from Russian President,” SPA Online, November 10, 2013.
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117 Author’s conversations in Moscow, October 2013, and February, June, and September 2014. 

Prince Bandar’s subsequent fate back home continued to fuel the speculation. See, for example, Thomas 

W. Lippman, “Saudi Intel Chief Prince Bandar Is Out, But Is He Really Out?” LobeLog, April 15, 2014, 

available at <www.lobelog.com/saudi-intel-chief-prince-bandar-is-out/>.

118 For a recent example, see Andrey Ivanov, “Black Prince of Terror. Russia Is Becoming a 

Scene of the Activity of the Most Exotic Outfits,” Svobodnaya Pressa (svpressa.ru), January 21, 2014. 

119 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February 2014.

120 “Prince Bandar Bin-Sultan’s Most Significant Achievement in Moscow: Establishment of 

Saudi Intelligence Bureau to Hunt Down Chechnyans,” Ra’y al-Yawm (raialyoum.com), January 4, 2014.

121 Author’s conversation in Moscow, June 2014; and Tyler Durden, “Russian Ships Carrying 

Soldiers Said to Be En Route to Sevastopol,” Zero Hedge, February 24, 2014, available at <www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-24/russian-ships-carrying-soldiers-said-be-en-route-sevastopol>. See also 

the excellent comprehensive analysis of the Crimean operation by the Moscow Center for Analysis of 

Strategies and Technologies; Colby Howard and Ruslan Pukhov, eds., Brothers Armed: Military Aspects 

of the Crisis in Ukraine (Minneapolis: East View Press, 2014), particularly the chapter by Anton Lavrov, “Russian Again: The Military Operation for Crimea.” Lavrov reports speculation that the Nikolay 

Fil’chenkov was used to spirit deposed President Viktor Yanukovich out of Ukraine to Russia.

122 “Vladimir Putin, Is That You?” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, April 7, 2015, available at <www.rferl.org/content/vladimir-putin-defends-ukraine-borders/26942991.html?utm_

medium=email>.

123 Cited in Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Washington, 

DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015), 360.

124 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June and September 2014. Even close observers of 

Russian military-political developments were caught flatfooted by the decision to annex Crimea. See, 

for example, Ruslan Pukhov, “What Putin Really Wants,” New York Times, March 5, 2014, in which 

Pukhov argued that Putin had no intention of annexing Crimea just a day or so before it became clear 

that was exactly what Putin had in mind. Several months later, Andrey Illarionov would argue that 

Putin planned the Crimea annexation beginning in 2003–2004 (available at www.echo.msk.ru/blog/

aillar/1338912-echo/). For a useful rebuttal, see Hill and Gaddy, 336–339.

125 For the text of the memorandum, see United Nations, General Assembly Security Council, 

“Letter dated 7 December 1994 from the Permanent Representatives of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, 

the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America to the United 

Nations addressed to the Secretary-General,” A/49/765*, S/1994/1399*, December 19, 1994, available at 

<www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/49/765>. For an excellent analysis and discussion, 

see Benjamin Bissell and Cody Poplin, “Throwback Thursday: The 1994 Budapest Memorandum,” Lawfare, November 20, 2014, at <www.lawfareblog.com/2014/11/throwback-thursday-the-1994-budapestmemorandum/>. The author is indebted to Nicholas Rostow for bringing this analysis to my attention.

126 “Text of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interview to TASS News Agency on 24 November 2014,” En.Kremlin.ru, November 13, 2014. 

127 “Crimea. Road to the Motherland,” Rossiya 1 Television, March 15, 2015, available at <www.

youtube.com/watch?v=qksPqLwa6KU>.
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

128 An earlier account of a meeting said to have taken place February 25–26 had the latter three 

participating but made no mention of Shoygu. See Steven Lee Myers, “Move Into Ukraine Said to Be 

Born in Shadows,” New York Times, March 8, 2014.

129 Andrew C. Kuchins, “Is Putin Having a Brezhnev Moment?” Politico.com, March 11, 2014, 

available at <www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/03/putin-brezhnev-moment-crimea-104547.html>.

130 Presentation attended by author in Washington, DC, March 2014.

131 “Russian Foreign Ministry Statement on the Events in Ukraine,” February 24, 2014, available 

at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

132 “Crimea. Road to the Motherland.”

133 On this thesis, see Pavel K. Baev, “Could Russia Become a Serious Spoiler in the Middle 

East?” Ponars Eurasia, Policy Memo 359, February 20, 2015, available at <www.ponarseurasia.org/

memo/could-russia-become-serious-spoiler-middle-east>; and Aleksey Malashenko, “From ISIL to 

Donbas. On Natural and Artificial Crises,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta Online, March 6, 2015.

134 “Russian President Vladimir Putin Tops Forbes’ 2013 Ranking of the World’s Most Powerful People,” Forbes.com, available at <www.forbes.com/sites/forbespr/2013/10/30/forbes-releases2013-ranking-of-the-worlds-most-powerful-people/>.

135 David M. Herszenhorn and Andrew E. Kramer, “Russia Offers Cash Infusion for Ukraine,” 

New York Times, December 18, 2013.

136 Author’s conversations in Moscow, October 2013.

137 “Text of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interview to TASS.”

138 Fedor Lukyanov, “Romanticism in the Place of Calculation,” Gazeta.ru, August 8, 2014, 

available at <www.gazeta.ru/comments/column/lukyanov/6163529.shtml>.

139 Ibid.

140 This attitude would linger a long time in Moscow. In March 2015, a leading commentator 

would refer to President Barack Obama on prime-time television as a “spineless peacemaker” for his 

reluctance to transfer lethal weapons to the Ukrainian government. See Mikhail Leontyev, “Odnako,” 

Channel One TV, March 11, 2015, available at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WgHe3KQA4k>.

141 Throughout all of this, Russian observers would insist that Putin was not inveterately antiAmerican. It was something different, one argued. Putin was a cool calculator. He had indeed grown to 

distrust the United States, but this was not just the distrust of a career KGB officer. Putin had accumulated a lot of experience in the previous 12 years. In Putin’s eyes, George W. Bush had double-crossed 

him, and Obama could not deliver. So Putin’s distrust had become total. Author’s conversation in 

Moscow, October 2013. Indeed, according to several veterans of the Russian establishment, the perception of many around Putin was that the United States only wanted to “screw” Russia, so it was better not 

to deal with America. In early July 2009, just days before he first met Putin in Moscow, Obama stated, 

“Medvedev understands that [the old Cold War approach to U.S.-Russia relations is outdated, but] I 

think that Putin has one [foot] in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new.” This had been 

a big insult and it never got any better. Author’s discussions in Paris, September 2014. Putin retorted the 

next day, “We don’t stand bow-legged.” See Adrian Blomfield, “Vladimir Putin rejects Barack Obama’s 

claim he has one foot in the past,” The Telegraph (London), July 3, 2009, available at <www.telegraph.

co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/5734243/Vladimir-Putin-rejects-Barack-Obamas-claim-he-has-
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one-foot-in-the-past.html>. Six years later, summing up Putin’s actions in Ukraine and the state of the 

Russian economy, Obama remarked, “You’ll recall that three or four months ago, everybody in Washington was convinced that President Putin was a genius. . . . And today, you know, I’d sense that at least 

outside of Russia, maybe some people are thinking what Putin did wasn’t so smart. National Public 

Radio, “Transcript: President Obama’s Full NPR Interview [with Steve Inskeep],” NPR.org, December 

29, 2014, available at <www.npr.org/2014/12/29/372485968/transcript-president-obamas-full-npr-interview>. Obama returned to these themes in his next State of the Union speech: “Mr. Putin’s aggression 

it was suggested was a masterful display of strategy and strength. That’s what I heard from some folks. 

Well, today . . . Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters.” See “Remarks by the President in State of 

the Union Address,” WhiteHouse.gov, January 20, 2015, available at <www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/20/remarks-president-state-union-address-january-20-2015>. Thus, mixed in with Putin’s 

security, economic, and political motives, there could also have been elements of revenge and anger. 

Putin could be emotional, argued one Moscow observer, and could be irritated. Putin likely thought 

the United States was playing games behind his back and had deceived him. So he had decided “I’ll 

show you what I can do.” Author’s conversation in Moscow, June 2014. Others pointed out that major 

Western leaders often did not treat Russia as a first-rank power; they had disrespected Putin personally 

by not joining him at the Sochi Olympics opening ceremony just over a week before he set in motion 

his Crimea action. Author’s discussions in Paris, September 2014. Late in the year, Stanislav Belkovskiy 

would describe Putin’s actions in Ukraine as those of “a classical rejected lover.” See Stanislav Belkovskiy, interview by Konstantin Amelyushkin, “Belkovskiy: I Believe I Am a Russian Patriot, But I Agree 

with Grybauskaite,” Delfi (www.ru.delfi.lt), December 5, 2014. For more from Belkovskiy on Putin’s 

personality and growing superiority complex, see his interview by K. Larina and V. Dymarskiy at Ekho 

Moskvy, December 19, 2014, available at <http://echo.msk.ru/programs/year2014/1457564-echo/>. See 

also Hill and Gaddy, 239–284.

142 Howard LaFranchi, “Western Leaders Stay Away from Sochi Olympics. Snub to Russia?” Christian Science Monitor, February 7, 2014, available at <www.csmonitor.com/World/Olympics/2014/0207/

Western-leaders-stay-away-from-Sochi-Olympics.-Snub-to-Russia?cmpid=addthis_email>.

143 A lengthy reexamination of the development concluded that Yanukovich “was not so much 

overthrown as cast adrift by his own allies.” See Andrew Higgins and Andrew E. Kramer, “Defeated 

Even Before He Was Ousted,” New York Times, January 4, 2015.

144 Henry Meyer, Stepan Kravchenko, and Donna Abu-Nasr, “Putin Defies Obama in Syria 

as Arms Fuel Asad Resurgence,” Bloomberg.com, April 4, 2014, available at <www.bloomberg.com/

news/2014-04-02/putin-defies-obama-in-syria-as-arms-fuel-Asad-resurgence.html>.

145 “Action Group for Syria, Final Communiqué, 30.06.2012.”

146 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February 2014.

147 “Russia Will Not Allow UN Security Council to Sanction External Interference in Syria—

Lavrov,” Interfax, January 18, 2012. See also Englund, “Russia’s Top Diplomat.” 

148 “Ukraine Crisis: Russia Demands Guarantees from NATO,” Interview with BBC, November 

18, 2014, available at <www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30107520>; and “‘We Have Our Red Lines’ 

says Putin’s Chief Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov,” BBC News, November 19, 2014, available at <www.

youtube.com/watch?v=ADFrdiSPaMo>. 
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149 Anders Aslund, Ukraine’s Choice: European Association Agreement or Eurasian Union? Policy 

Brief, Number PB13-22 (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, September 

2013), available at <www.piie.com/publications/pb/pb13-22.pdf>.

150 Author’s notes on presentation in Washington, DC, March 2014; and Lukyanov, “Romanticism.”

151 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June and September 2014.

152 See “Ukraine Crisis: Russia Demands Guarantees from NATO”; and “‘We Have Our Red Lines.’”

153 “Russians about Vladimir Putin,” Levada-Center, March 5, 2014, available at <www.Levada.

ru/05-03-2014/Rossiyane-o-vladimire-putine>; and Goncharov. 

154 Andrey Polunin, “President of Unfulfilled Hopes: Vladimir Putin Now Makes an Unfavorable Impression on One Third of Russians,” Svobodnaya Pressa (svpressa.ru), December 3, 2013. 

155 “Events in Ukraine and Crimea and the Reaction of Russia,” Levada-Center, March 26, 2014, 

available at <www.levada.ru/26-03-2014/proiskhodyashchee-v-ukraine-krymu-i-reaktsiya-Rossii>.

156 “Russian Attitudes to Other Countries,” Levada-Center, March 18, 2014, available at <www.

levada.ru/18-03-2014/otnoshenie-rossiyan-k-drugim-stranam>.

157 “Russian Attitudes to Other Countries,” Levada-Center, December 8, 2014, available at 

<www.levada.ru/08-12-2014/otnoshenie-rossiyan-k-drugim-stranam>.

158 “Approval and Trust Ratings in May,” Levada-Center, May 29, 2014, available at <www.

levada.ru/29-05-2014/maiskie-reitingi-odobreniya-i-doveriya>.

159 “Events in Ukraine and Crimea and the Reaction of Russia.”

160 “Possible Results of Presidential and Parliamentary Elections,” Levada-Center, April 8, 2014, 

available at <www.levada.ru/08-04-2014/vozmozhnye-rezultaty-prezidentskikh-i-parlamentskikh-vyborov>.

161 “Possible Results of Presidential and Parliamentary Elections,” Levada-Center, May 14, 2014, 

available at <www.levada.ru/14-05-2014/vozmozhnye-rezultaty-prezidentskikh-i-parlamentskikhvyborov>. Forty-nine percent of respondents declared in this late April poll that they would like to see 

Putin reelected president in 2018, up from 26 percent a year earlier and 32 percent in early March.

162 “Approval and Trust Ratings in May,” Levada-Center, May 29, 2014, available at <www.

levada.ru/29-05-2014/maiskie-reitingi-odobreniya-i-doveriya>. 

163 “Approval and Trust Ratings in April,” Levada-Center, April 22, 2015, available at <www.

levada.ru/22-04-2015/aprelskie-reitingi-odobreniya-i-doveriya>; “Approval and Trust Ratings in May,” 

Levada-Center, May 28, 2015, available at <www.levada.ru/28-05-2015/maiskie-reitingi-odobreniya-idoveriya>; and “Approval and Trust Ratings in June,” Levada-Center, June 24, 2015, available at <www.

levada.ru/24-06-2015/iyunskie-reitingi-odobreniya-i-doveriya>.

164 Danila Rozanov, “We are Not Going to Pay for Crimea. Russia’s Inhabitants Increasingly 

Fear Sanctions But Are Not Prepared to Pay for Crimea,” Gazeta.ru, December 30, 2014. For an intriguing analysis of the domestic political plusses for Putin—beyond sky-high approval ratings—toward the 

end of 2014, see Eugene Rumer, “From Inside Putin’s Parallel Universe, the Crisis Looks Bright,” Financial Times, December 22, 2014, available at <http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/12/22/from-insideputin-s-parallel-universe-crisis-looks-bright>.

165 For critiques of the concept of “hybrid war,” see Michael Kofman and Matthew Rojansky, 

A Closer Look at Russia’s “Hybrid War,” Wilson Center Kennan Cable, No. 7 (Washington, DC: Wilson 

Center, April 2015); and Ruslan Pukhov, “Nothing ‘Hybrid’ About Russia’s War in Ukraine,” Moscow 
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Times, May 27, 2015, available at <www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/nothing-hybrid-aboutrussia-s-war-in-ukraine/522471.html>.

166 “Direct Line [April 17, 2014] with Vladimir Putin,” En.Kremlin.ru, April 18, 2014.

167 “Army Supports Honoring Russia’s ‘Polite Men’ Who Annexed Crimea,” Moscow Times 

Online, October 3, 2014.

168 “Putin Establishes New ‘Polite People’ Day in Russia,” Moscow Times Online, February 27, 2015.

169 For a fascinating look at the political dynamics in Crimea and Moscow from military invasion to formal annexation, see Natalya Galimova, “‘We Are Going to Russia. I Do Not Know How.’ How 

Russia Annexed Crimea. Investigation by Gazeta.ru,” Gazeta.ru, March 12, 2015.

170 Putin’s address to the Federal Assembly (both houses of the Russian parliament), March 18, 

2014, available at <www.kremlin.ru/news/20603>.

171 See, for example, Lukyanov, “Romanticism.”

172 A valuable resource for tracking the Ukrainian crisis from November 2013 to the present 

is Center for Strategic and International Studies, “The Ukraine Crisis Timeline,” available at <csis.org/

ukraine/index.htm>. Inspired by the bloodless Crimea experience, the hope of the separatists, among 

whose leaders were adventurers who had crossed over from Russia, was to provoke Russia quickly to 

intervene militarily and also annex these additional territories. See especially the interview with Igor 

Strelkov (also known as Igor Grinkin and Strelok) by Alexandr Prokhanov, “Who Are You, ‘Strelok,’” 

Zavtra, November 20, 2014, available at <http://zavtra.ru/content/view/kto-tyi-strelok/>; and the account of this interview by Anna Dolgov, “Russia’s Igor Strelkov: I Am Responsible for War in Eastern 

Ukraine,” Moscow Times Online, November 21, 2014. Strelkov left the Donbas in August 2014, reportedly forced out by Moscow. See, for example, Pavel Kanygin, “Managed Spring,” Novaya Gazeta Online, 

December 8, 2014. By many accounts, Strelkov was a retired Russian intelligence officer who had 

participated in the taking of Crimea. Nevertheless, a Moscow analyst who knows Ukraine and Strelkov 

argued before Strelkov’s departure from the Donbas that Strelkov was not a Russian agent, but a private 

Russian adventurer. He was not the type one would entrust a secret operation to. He was a “reenactor” 

whose favorite theme was the civil war in Russia. Strelkov always played the Whites. He always thought 

of what went wrong for the Whites in the civil war after the Bolshevik Revolution. Now Strelkov was 

putting all of his fantasies and ideas to work and keeping the Ukrainian army tied up at Slovyansk. 

Author’s conversations in Moscow, June 2014.

173 Neil MacFarquhar, “Putin Hits Pause in Ukraine Crisis amid Skepticism,” New York Times, 

May 8, 2014. See also Michael Kofman, “The Battle for Ukraine: Who Is Winning?” National Interest, May 17, 2014, available at <http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-battle-ukraine-who-winning10484?page=2>; and Pew Research, Global Attitudes Project, “Despite Concerns about Governance, 

Ukrainians Want to Remain One Country,” May 8, 2014, available at <www.pewglobal.org/2014/05/08/

despite-concerns-about-governance-ukrainians-want-to-remain-one-country/>. Meanwhile, in Moscow, 

Russian nationalists such as Alexander Dugin were urging Putin to invade Ukraine to save Russia. See 

Dugin’s blogs on May 26 and 27, 2014, available at <http://vk.com/duginag?w=wall18631635_2856%2Fda

3bbaff5b82ea94aa> and <http://vk.com/duginag?w=wall18631635_2872%2Fad83b0c49f38a7e72c>.

174 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June and September 2014. For excellent early analyses of Putin’s game plan toward Ukraine, see Michael Kofman, “Putin’s Grand Strategy for Ukraine,” 
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National Interest, April 25, 2014, available at <http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/putins-grandstrategy-ukraine-10340>; and Michael Kofman, “Russia Can’t Afford to Lose,” Kyiv Post, April 15, 2014, 

available at <www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/michael-kofman-russia-cant-afford-to-lose-343541.

html?flavour=mobile>.

175 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June 2014.

176 See the scrupulous analyses of open-source data done by Bellingcat, including “Origin 

of the Separatists’ Buk: A Bellingcat Investigation,” November 8, 2014, available at <www.bellingcat.

com/news/uk-and-europe/2014/11/08/origin-of-the-separatists-buk-a-bellingcat-investigation/>; the 

International Investigation Team’s compelling video (including photographs, videos, and phone call 

transcripts) detailing the Buk-11’s movements and actions to and from Snezhnoye in Ukraine on July 

16–18, 2014, in connection with the shootdown of MH 17, posted by Vedemosti.ru, March 30, 2015, 

available at <www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2015/03/30/sledovateli-ischut-svidetelei-peredvizheniya-kompleksa-buk-po-donbassu>; Aleksandr Golts’s discussion of the identification of the retired 

Russian general in charge of the Buk-11’s movements in Ukraine in “Russia Will Not Be Forgiven for 

Downed Boeing,” Yezhednevnyy Zhurnal (www.ej.ru), April 3, 2015; and “Ukraine: Villagers Say They 

Saw Missile Just Before Civilian Jet Was Shot Down,” New York Times, March 13, 2015. Though unremarked, the downing of MH 17 with a probable surface-to-air missile underscored, to Washington’s 

credit, what could still easily go wrong were less capable U.S. man-portable air-defense systems to fall 

into the wrong hands in Syria.

177 Tatyana Stanovaya, “Does Putin Have an Exit Strategy from the Conflict with the West and 

Can the Chapter Be Closed,” Slon.ru, July 31, 2014, available at <http://slon.ru/russia/est_li_u_putina_

exit_strategy-1136088.xhtml>.

178 Golts, “Russia Will Not Be Forgiven.”

179 John W. Parker, Kremlin in Transition, vol. 1 (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1991), 43–70, 287–302.

180 Dmitri Trenin, “Welcome to Cold War II,” ForeignPolicy.com, March 4, 2014, available at <www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/04/welcome_to_cold_war_ii>; and Vasily Kashin, 

“Our Generation’s Cold War,” Vedomosti.ru, July 31, 2014, available at <www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/

news/29673481/holodnaya-vojna-nashego-pokoleniya#ixzz391dh5FfK>.

181 George Packer, “The Quiet German,” The New Yorker, December 1, 2014, 46–63, and 57–61 

in particular on this point.

182 Carlotta Gall, “Ukraine Town Bears Scars of Russian Offensive That Turned Tide in Conflict,” New York Times, September 10, 2014. 

183 “Statement by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Events in Ukraine,” August 29, 

2014, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

184 David M. Herszenhorn, “Fears Rise as Russian Military Units Pour into Ukraine,” New York 

Times, November 13, 2014. 

185 David M. Herszenhorn, “A Tilt Toward NATO in Ukraine,” New York Times, November 28, 

2014. On December 23, the Rada voted 303 to 8 in favor of the measure. See David M. Herszenhorn, 

“Ukraine Vote Takes Nation a Step Closer to NATO,” New York Times, December 24, 2014. 

186 The movement itself preferred the all-encompassing Islamic State, or IS. But others also 

referred to it as ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or in Arabic as the Da’ish.
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Understanding Putin

187 Anne Barnard, “Break in Syrian War Brings Brittle Calm,” New York Times, April 6, 

2014; Anne Barnard, “Homs Emerges as Turning Point in Shaping Syria’s Future,” New York Times, 

April 23, 2014; and Anne Barnard, “Syrian Rebels Agree to Leave a Stronghold,” New York Times, 

May 8, 2014.

188 Peter Baker and Eric Schmitt, “Many Missteps in Assessment of ISIS Threat,” New York 

Times, September 30, 2014. 

189 Mohammad al-Masri, “Arab Public Attitudes Towards the U.S.,” conference presentation on 

the findings of the Arab Opinion Index. The conference was sponsored by the Arab Center for Research 

and Policy Studies and titled “The Arab World and the U.S.: Interests and Concerns in a Changing Environment (An Academic Perspective),” Doha, Qatar, June 14–16, 2014. Zogby polling done in September 

2014 across the Middle East found Russia and America both rated poorly for their negative impact on 

the region, but with Russia doing slightly better than the United States (table 30). Russia, while still 

rated low, did better than the United States in perceptions of its positive impact on Syria (table 9). See 

Zogby Research Services, “Today’s Middle East: Pressures and Challenges,” November 2014, available 

at <www.aaiusa.org/pages/todays-middle-east-pressures-and-challenges>. For more polling on perceptions of Russia in the Middle East, see “Russia’s Global Image Negative Amid Crisis in Ukraine,” Pew 

Research Center, July 9, 2014, available at <www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/09/russias-global-image-negative-amid-crisis-in-ukraine/>.

190 Somini Sengupta, “Vote by UN General Assembly Isolates Russia,” New York Times, March 

28, 2014.

191 In all, 100 countries voted for the resolution, 11 countries voted against, 58 abstained, and 

24 were absent. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/262, available at <http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_68/262#Voting>.

192 See, for example, Bahram Amirahmadian, “Ukraine; Russia’s Revenge on the West,” Sharq 

Online, April 9, 2014; Vahid Hajipur, “A Few Words With Mr. Asgarowladi, President of the Iran-China 

and Iran-Russia Chambers of Commerce and Industries,” Javan Online, May 3, 2014; and Ali Vedayè, 

“The Gap in the International Community,” Mardom Salari Online, May 6, 2014. 

193 For contrasting commentaries in Tehran, see Mohammad Safari, “Formation of an AntiAmerican Alliance,” Siyasat-e Ruz Online, July 20, 2014; and Hoseyn Musavian, “The Need for Cooperation Between Iran and America to Save the Middle East,” Sharq Online, August 4, 2014.

194 Olga Golovanova, interview with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, “Russia 

Against ‘Game To Raise Stakes’ at Iran Talks,” Interfax, March 20, 2014.

195 Yelena Chernenko interview with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, “‘We 

Are Dealing With a New Offensive Type of Weapon’; Russian Federation Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov on the Crisis in Russian-U.S. Relations,” Kommersant Online, July 4, 2014. 

196 Igor Pankratenko, “Igor Pankratenko: Russia’s ‘Iranian Vector’: Nikolay Patrushev in Tehran,” Regnum (Regnum.ru), October 22, 2014.

197 Seyyed Nèmatollah Abdolrahimzadeh, “The Approach to Iran-Russia Relations,” Javan 

Online, October 22, 2014.

198 “Iran Still Demands Some $4 Billion From Rosoboronexport for Unsupplied S-300 Systems,” 

Interfax, August 20, 2014. 
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199 On the decision to cancel the contract, see Parker, Russia and the Iranian Nuclear Program, 15–17. The author has heard regret and criticism of the decision during many of his visits to 

Moscow.

200 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June 2014. 

201 On the margins of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia 

summit in Shanghai in May, the Shanghai Co-operation Organization summit in Dushanbe in September, and the Caspian Sea Littoral States’ summit in Astrakhan at the end of the same month.

202 Parker, Persian Dreams, 31.

203 Ibid., 213.

204 N.M. Mamedova, “Cooperation between Russia and Iran: Correlation between Geopolitics 

and Geoeconomy,” 51–63, table on 56 on 2000–2013 bilateral trade, in Russian-Iranian Relations: Issues 

and Prospects [Российско-иранские отношения. Проблемы и перспективы], ed. Ye. V. Dunaeva and 

V. I. Sazhin (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies, 2015). By comparison, 

Russia’s trade with Israel was $3.5–$4 billion in 2013, more than three times the trade with much bigger 

Iran. Author’s conversations in Moscow, February and June 2014.

205 Aleksandr Braterskiy, “Iran That We Are Losing,” Gazeta.ru, April 2, 2015. 

206 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February 2015.

207 Ibid., May 2015.

208 Ibid., October 2013, and February, June, and September 2014.

209 Kirill Melnikov and Yelena Chernenko, “For Iranian Oil There Is No Access to Russia. Its 

Delivery Has Run Into the Problems of Logistics,” Kommersant.ru, April 4, 2014, available at <www.

kommersant.ru/doc/2444589>; “Iran Russia Sign Electricity Deals,” Islamic Republic News Agency, 

April 28, 2014; Yevgeniya Novikova, “Moscow and Tehran Resist Sanctions. Forthcoming Energy 

Contract Between Russia and Iran Confounds Washington,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta Online, April 30, 

2014; Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak’s August 6, 2014, comments on the Russian-Iranian 

energy memorandum of understanding, available at <http://minenergo.gov.ru/press/min_news/19359.

html?print=Y&bitrix_include_areas=Y>; and Andrey Polunin, “Moscow’s Oil Torpedo. In Spite of U.S., 

Russia Plans To Buy ‘Black Gold’ From Iran” (includes interviews with experts Nikita Maslennikov and 

Yevgeniy Satanovskiy), Svobodnaya Pressa (svpressa.ru), August 6, 2014.

210 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June and September 2014.

211 “News Conference of Vladimir Putin,” En.Kremlin.ru, December 18, 2014.

212 “Russia, Iran Agree on Construction of 2 New Blocks at Bushehr, Option to Expand to 4,” 

Interfax, November 11, 2014. On Russia’s nuclear power plant sales to the Middle East, see Jonathan 

Saunders, “Russia’s nuclear diplomacy,” Al-Monitor, January 28, 2015, available at <www.al-monitor.

com/pulse/originals/2015/01/russia-nuclear-diplomacy.html>.

213 For a Russian discussion of the pros and cons as negotiations entered the final stages, see 

Nikolay Kozhanov, “Russia Weighs Nuclear Cooperation with Iran,” The Gulf States Newsletter 38, no. 

980 (October 30, 2014), 9–11. For a jaundiced Iranian view of the new contract, see the unattributed 

commentary “How Long Will the Russians Take to Build a Power Plant for Iran This Time?” Tabnak

(www.tabnak.ir), November 17, 2014. 

214 Fedor Lukyanov, “Doubtful Role,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta Online, December 10, 2014. 
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215 This view is reciprocated in some quarters in Tehran. See, for example, the interview with 

“professor of international relations” Ali Khorram, “Tehran-Moscow Relations Are Friendly Not Strategic,” Sharq Online, January 13, 2015.

216 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June and September 2014. 

217 Ibid., February 2015.

218 Ibid.

219 “EU Hails ‘Serious’ Iran Nuclear Talks, Says New Round in February,” Agence France-Presse, 

January 18, 2015.

220 Igor Sergeyev visited Tehran in early December 2000. See Parker, Persian Dreams, 144–146, 

211–212, on that visit as well as the debate over arms sales to Iran at the time that Pukhov participated in.

221 “Iranian Leader’s Senior Adviser Discusses Nuclear Talks With Russian President in Moscow,” Fars News Agency, January 28, 2015.

222 “Defense Minister’s Visit May Remove Problems in Russia-Iran Arms Trade—Analyst,” 

Interfax, January 15, 2015.

223Matthew Bodner, “Mistrust Dogs Russia-Iran Arms Talks as Shoigu Heads for Tehran,” Moscow Times Online, January 19, 2015, available at <www.themoscowtimes.com/article/514581.html>.

224 “Defense Ministers Says Iran, Russia To Find Solution for S-300 Missile Deal,” Tasnim (tasnimnews.com), January 20, 2015.

225 Ivan Safronov and Yelena Chernenko, “Surface-To-Air Package. Russia Offers Iran the Antey-2500 Instead of the S-300s That Were Subject to Sanctions,” Kommersant Online, February 24, 2015. 

226 Department of State, “Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Regarding the 

Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program,” Media Note, Office of the Spokesperson, Washington, DC, 

April 2, 2015, available at <www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2015/04/240170.htm>; “Joint Statement by EU High 

Representative Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif Switzerland,” Europa (www.

europa.eu), April 2, 2015; and “Press release by the Russian Foreign Ministry following talks in Lausanne 

between the foreign ministers from the ‘group of six’ [P5+1] and Iran on the issue of settling the situation 

around the Iranian nuclear program,” April 2, 2015, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>. 

227 “Russia ready to sell air defense systems to Iran if new deal signed—source,” Interfax, April 

3, 2015; and “Russia Will Sell S-300 Missile Systems to Iran if Sanctions Lifted—Experts,” RIA Novosti, 

April 3, 2015.

228 See, for example, “Russia explores possible cooperation with Iran in Fordow, composition 

of Arak JV unclear—Ryabkov,” Interfax, April 3, 2015; Aleksandr Braterskiy, “Iran That We Are Losing,” 

Gazeta.ru, April 2, 2015; “Russia sees Iranian market as extremely promising after sanctions lifted—

minister,” Interfax, April 4, 2015; “Following Lausanne deal, Russia to face growing competition in trade 

with Tehran—expert,” Interfax, April 3, 2015; and “Russia May Supply Iran With New Weapons After 

Sanctions Lift—Tech Corporation,” RIA Novosti, April 7, 2015. See also the thoughtful analysis by Paul J. 

Saunders, “Russia eyes Iranian arms deal after Lausanne,” Al-Monitor, April 6, 2015, available at <www.

al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/04/iran-s300-sale.html>.

229 Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper, “Sale of U.S. Arms Fuels the Wars of Arab States,” New 

York Times, April 19, 2015; and Karoun Demirjian, “Russia’s preemptive strike as Iran warms to West,” 

Washington Post, April 19, 2015.
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230 “Amendment to Executive Order on measures for implementing UN Security Council 

Resolution No. 1929,” En.Kremlin.ru, April 14, 2015. According to this, the executive order lifts the ban 

on transit of the S-300 air defense missile systems via Russian Federation territory (including by air), 

export from the Russian Federation to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and transfer of the S-300 to the 

Islamic Republic of Iran outside the Russian Federation’s territory, using ships or aircraft flying the Russian Federation flag. See also “Statement by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the Russian President’s 

decision to lift the ban on selling S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Iran,” April 13, 2015, available 

at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>. 

231 “Iranian Security Chief: Russia Decree on S-300 Missile System Putin’s ‘Good Will,’” Islamic 

Republic News Agency, April 13, 2015.

232 Parker, Persian Dreams, 213.

233 “Russia, Iran to develop cooperation in sphere of regional security—Iranian defense minister,” Interfax, April 17, 2015.

234 For speculation to the contrary, see Mark Katz, “Does Putin Want to Derail the Iranian 

Nuclear Negotiations?” April 13, 2015, available at <https://katzeyeview.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/

does-putin-wan-to-derail-the-iranian-nuclear-negotiations/>.

235 Dmitri Trenin, “Russia’s Missile Moves Explained: The S-300 Challenge,” The National Interest, April 15, 2015.

236 “Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Rossiya Segodnya,” April 8, 2015, accessed 

at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

237 “Russian Energy Minister Denies Existence of Oil for Goods Deal with Iran,” RIA Novosti, 

April 15, 2015; and “Program with Iran not envisaging Iranian oil exports to Russia—Novak,” Interfax, 

April 15, 2015.

238 Parker, Russia and the Iranian Nuclear Program, 15–17.

239 Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2015.

240 After much back-and-forth speculation in the press, an unnamed “high-ranking source” 

certainly had it right in June 2015 when he stated, “We hope that the issue concerning this lawsuit and 

the signing of a new contract . . . will be resolved before the end of the year.” See “No final decision yet 

on deliveries of Russian missile systems to Iran—source,” Interfax, June 23, 2015.

241 Irina Zvyagelskaya, The Middle East Clinch: Conflict in the Middle East and Russian Policy 

[Ближневосточный клинч: Конфликт на Ближнем Востоке и политика Россия] (Moscow: Aspect 

Press, 2014), 126–127.

242 Herb Keinon, “Israel Not About to Enter Russia, Ukraine Fray, FM Lieberman Says,” Jerusalem Post Online, April 22, 2014.

243 “Israeli Diplomats Nix Sale of Drones to Ukraine—Report,” Times of Israel, September 15, 

2014, available at <www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-diplomats-nix-drone-sale-to-ukraine-report/>.

244 “Russian S-300 Missiles Made for Syria Could Be Sold Elsewhere—Maker,” Interfax, August 

15, 2014. 

245 See “Commentary of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department 

about the Situation around Gaza,” July 25, 2014, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>. A former Israeli ambassador to Ukraine speculated that a possible explanation for Russia’s gentle comments 
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on the Gaza conflict was Israel’s neutral stance on the Ukrainian crisis. See Tzvi Magen and Olena 

Bagno-Moldavsky, “Ukraine and Operation Protective Edge: Two Sides to Russia’s Foreign Policy Coin,” 

Institute for National Security Studies, August 14, 2014.

246 Author’s conversations in Moscow, September 2014.

247 Gil Ronen, “PM: Russian Supply of S-300 Missile System to Iran ‘Very Grave,’” Arutz Sheva

(www.israelnationalnews.com), April 19, 2015.

248 Sergey Brilev interview of Putin, The News on Saturday, Rossiya 1 Television, April 18, 2015, 

available at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io09P7P-GF8>.

249 Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2015.

250 For a chronology of the rise of ISIL, see Peter Baker and Eric Schmitt, “Many Missteps in 

Assessment of ISIS Threat,” New York Times, September 30, 2014.

251 “ISIS Vows Dethroning Putin for His Support to Syria,” Lebanese National News Agency 

Online, September 4, 2014.

252 Karen DeYoung and Anne Gearan, “Obama Sending 300 Advisers to Bolster Iraq against 

Rebels, Washington Post, June 20, 2014; and Mark Landler and Michael R. Gordon, “Obama Orders 300 

Advisers to Iraq,” New York Times, June 20, 2014.

253 Karen DeYoung and Liz Sly, “Obama Hails Progress Made Against Islamic State,” Washington Post, August 18, 2014.

254 Karen DeYoung, “Obama: ‘We Don’t Have a Strategy Yet’ on Syria,” Washington Post, August 

29, 2014. In the same August 28 press conference, President Obama declared that the United States 

might increase sanctions against Russia but would not intervene militarily in Ukraine.

255 “Statement by the President on Iraq,” The White House, June 13, 2014, available at <www.

whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/13/statement-president-iraq>.

256 Rod Norland, “Russian Jets and Experts Sent to Iraq to Aid Army,” New York Times, June 

30, 2014; and Andrey Frolov, “Results of Military-Technical Cooperation between Russia and Foreign 

States in 2014,” Arms Exports [Экспорт вооружений] 6, no. 115 (November–December 2014), 4, 9. 

In Moscow, some reportedly stated that Iran had sent pilots for the SU-25s; if so, one expert observer 

joked, it was an Iranian “joint venture” with Russia. Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2015. Iran 

was also quick off the mark in rushing aid to Iraq. Tehran’s help was more consequential than that 

of Moscow and thus undoubtedly even more appreciated in Baghdad. See Tim Arango and Thomas 

Erdbrink, “U.S. and Iran Both Attack ISIS, But Try Not to Look Like Allies,” New York Times, December 

4, 2014; and Middy Ryan and Loveday Morris, “In Iraq, a Shared Goal for U.S., Iran,” Washington Post, 

December 28, 2014.

257 “Russian Sale of Weapons Worth over $1 bln to Iraq—Newspaper,” Interfax, July 30, 2014; 

and “Military, Technical Cooperation Between Russia, Iraq Developing Successfully—Shoigu,” Interfax, 

July 24, 2014. By September 2014, according to a Moscow expert, Russian arms transfers to Iraq were 

considerable, including what was now put at some $1.5 billion in new contracts that summer. This latest 

tranche was mostly for ground weapons: a “huge” number of artillery pieces and ammunition, including 

152mm howitzers and thermobaric multiple rocket launching systems; and both Buratino (“Pinocchio”) 

and its Solntsepog (“Scorching Sun”) upgrade. These weapons were sent to Iraq on an urgent basis. The 

flamethrowers proved effective in the Caucasus, noted another Russian area expert, where insurgents 
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ran away whenever Buratinos advanced. In addition, there were at least several dozen Russian technicians in Iraq. Author’s conversations in Moscow, September 2014. Judging by videos of the Buratino 

system available on YouTube, they are indeed fearful.

258 An Iraqi cabinet member put the total of purchases of Russian weapons at $5–$7 billion. 

This was said to include “weapons, armored vehicles, tanks, and Mi-35M attack helicopters” to be 

used in the campaign against ISIL. See “Moscow Appeases Baghdad With Modern Weapons on Future 

Payment-Basis,” Al-Arabi al-Jadid Online, January 20, 2015. 

259 “Russia Plans to Supply Arms Worth ‘Hundreds of Millions’ to Iraq—Putin’s Aide,” RIA Novosti, June 2, 2015; and “Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi Says Sanctions on Russia, Iran Blocking 

Arms Purchases,” Agence France-Presse, June 2, 2015.

260 Frolov, “Results . . . 2014,” 4–5.

261 Darya Tsilyurik-Frants, “Russia and United States Strengthen Iraq’s Military Might. Baghdad 

Striving Not to Let Weapons Fall into Jihadist Hands,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta Online, May 22, 2015. 

262 Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2015.

263 “Lukoil Ships First Cost Oil from West Qurna 2 in Iraq,” Interfax, August 19, 2014. 

264 Also see “Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and responses to media questions at a 

joint news conference following talks with Foreign Minister of the Republic of Iraq Ibrahim al-Jaafari, 

Moscow, March 19, 2015,” March 20, 2015, available at <http://archive.mid.ru//brp_4.nsf/main_eng>. 

Lavrov put annual trade with Iraq at almost $2 billion.

265 “Russia Outlaws Number of Islamic Organizations as Terrorist,” Interfax, February 14, 2003.

266 Sabri Abd-al-Hafiz Hasanayn, “A Syrian Oppositionist Says Mursi Reneged on His Promises 

and Put His Hand in the Hands of the Syrian People’s Enemies. Syrian Oppositionist Jabr al-Shufi Disapproved of the Close Relations that Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi Is Establishing with Iran, Russia, 

and China, Enemies of the Syrian People, After He Previously Announced that He Refuses to Shake Hands 

With Any Figure Who Supports Bashar al-Asad,” Ilaf (www.elaph.com), April 23–24, 2013.

267 “Egypt Urges Russia to Join Aswan HPP Project,” Interfax, April 22, 2013. 

268 Michael R. Gordon and Mark Landler, “In Crackdown Response, U.S. Temporarily Freezes 

Some Military Aid to Egypt,” New York Times, October 10, 2013. The United States would not begin releasing the helicopters until fall 2014. See “Delivery of Helicopters Shows Mending of U.S.-Egypt Ties,” 

New York Times, December 21, 2014.

269 Moscow spokesmen began to parse their references to the Muslim Brotherhood quite carefully. For example, Mikhail Margelov, who was then head of the Federation Council’s International 

Affairs Committee, claimed that the Sisi regime had declared war on Islamist terrorists alone and not on 

the Muslim Brotherhood as a whole. See “Sisi Victory in Egypt Presidential Poll Means Closer Ties with 

Russia—Lawmaker,” Interfax, May 29, 2014.

270 Author’s conversations in Moscow, September 2014.

271 One billion dollars, according to Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for the Analysis of 

Strategies and Technologies. See Yevgeniya Novikova, “Cairo Buys Russian Arms. Saudi Arabia May 

Settle Rosoboronexport’s Account on Egypt’s Behalf,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta Online, November 15, 2013. 

Two billion dollars, according to retired General Hussam Sweilem, an Egyptian military expert, in an 

interview on the Voice of Russia radio, who also stated transfers would begin in mid-2014 and would be 
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paid for by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. See “Russia to Start Arms Supplies to Egypt in 

mid-2014—Expert,” Interfax, February 17, 2014.

272 David D. Kirkpatrick, “Putin Encourages Egyptian’s Presidential Ambitions,” New York 

Times, February 14, 2014. 

273 Russia’s “strategic partnership” with Egypt was formalized in June 2009, during then-President Medvedev’s visit to Cairo. See Yelena Suponina, “Russian-Egyptian Relations Said To Reach ‘New 

Level’ With Medvedev Cairo Trip,” Vremya Novostey Online, June 24, 2009.

274 “Speech by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, and His Answers to Questions from 

the Mass Media during the Press Conference Summarizing the Results of the Negotiations Between the 

Russian and the Egyptian Foreign and Defense Ministers, Moscow, February 13, 2014,” February 18, 

2014, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

275 “Russia Is Planning to Renew Its Military Presence in Egypt,” Izvestiya Online, April 29, 2014.

276 “Text of a Press Statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin Following Russian-Egyptian 

Talks on 12 August 2014,” En.Kremlin.ru, August 12, 2014. 

277 Amr Abd-al-Samí, “Egyptian-Russian Messages to the United States,” Al-Ahram, August 

14, 2014.

278 “Jumping, Not Walking, out of Egypt’s Crisis: El-Sisi Interview, Part 2,” Ahram Online, May 

7, 2014, available at <http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/100663/Egypt/Politics-/Jumping,-

not-walking,-out-of-Egypts-crisis-ElSisi-.aspx>.

279 “V for Vindication,” Al-Ahram Weekly Online, October 2, 2014.

280 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June 2014.

281 Anton Mardasov, “A Base in the Land of the Pharaohs. Will Russia Revive Its Military Presence in Egypt?” Svobodnaya Pressa (svpressa.ru), August 13, 2014. 

282 Yevgeniya Novikova, “Cairo Buys Russian Arms. Saudi Arabia May Settle Rosoboronexport’s 

Account on Egypt’s Behalf,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta Online, November 15, 2013.

283 “Egypt to Get Arms Worth $3.5 Bln from Russia under Initialed Deals,” Interfax, September 

17, 2014.

284 Frolov, “Results . . . 2014,” 3, 6–7, 11.

285 Mardasov.

286 “Lavrov: Moscow-Cairo Cooperation Is Not Meant to Spite U.S.,” Interfax, November 19, 

2013. However, Deputy Defense Minister Anatoliy Antonov later stated that Russia was exploring the 

establishment of naval “support facilities” in several countries in the Middle East. See “Russia Seeking 

Naval Support Facilities in Middle East—Senior Official,” Interfax–AVN Online, May 19, 2014.

287 “Russian-Egyptian deal envisions construction of 4-unit NPP,” Interfax, February 11, 2015.

288 Vitaly Naumkin, “Russia and Egypt’s ‘New Partnership’,” Al-Monitor, February 11, 2015, 

available at <www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/02/moscow-cairo-relations-sisi-putin-egyptvisit.html>.

289 “Russian president makes press statement after Egypt talks—Kremlin text,” En.Kremlin.ru, 

February 10, 2015.

290 “Press Conference of Vladimir Putin and the President of Egypt,” February 10, 2015, available at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP5zLJJDfAE>.
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291 Nicola Clark, “Egypt to Purchase Fighter Jets and a Warship From France,” New York Times, 

February 13, 2015.

292 “Egypt Seeks To ‘Diversify’ Weapon Providers: Experts,” Daily News Egypt Online, February 

16, 2015.

293 See the roundup of speculation on this score in Naumkin, “Russia and Egypt’s ‘New Partnership’”; and Ayah Aman, “Gulf states to cut aid to Egypt,” Al-Monitor, February 17, 2015, available at 

<www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/02/egypt-gulf-aid-economy-conference.html>.

294 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February 2015.

295 Ayah Aman, “Egypt acts as middleman for Russia-Libya arms deal,” Al-Monitor, February 

19, 2015, available at <www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/02/egypt-efforts-libya-army-russiaweapons.html>; and “Aircraft From Al-Sisi to Haftar, and Egyptian Army Soldiers Killed in Libya,” 

Al-Arabi al-Jadid Online, March 19, 2015.

296 “EU sanctions obstructing Russia-Lebanon arms deal: report,” Daily Star Online, March 24, 

2015. For details on Lebanon’s purchases, see Sa’id Tanyos, “Lebanon Bolsters Its Security with Russian 

Weapons Paid for by a Saudi Grant,” Al-Jazirah Online, February 22, 2015.

297 “Russia, Egypt Sign Military Cooperation Agreement,” RIA Novosti, March 4, 2015.

298 “Russia starts deliveries of Antey-2500 missile systems to Egypt—source,” Interfax, March 5, 

2015. At the end of the month, the United States fully lifted its hold on $1.3 billion in military assistance to Egypt, imposed in October 2013. A partial lift in April 2014 had allowed the transfer of Apache 

helicopters to go forward. Now F-16 fighter jets, Harpoon missiles, and Abrams M1A1 tank kits could 

follow. See Missy Ryan, “Obama Administration Ends Hold on U.S. Military Aid to Egypt,” Washington 

Post, April 1, 2015. 

299 According to Interfax citing the Vedemosti newspaper. See “Russia, Egypt agree on major 

contract for fighter aircraft supply—paper,” Interfax, May 25, 2015.

300 Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2015.

301 Author’s conversations in Moscow, September 2014.

302 For the chronology of these U.S.-Iranian contacts, see Bradley Klapper, Matthew Lee, and 

Julie Pace, “Secret U.S.-Iran Talks Set Stage for Nuke Deal,” Associated Press, November 24, 2014, available at <http://bigstory.ap.org/article/secret-us-iran-talks-set-stage-nuke-deal>. The P5+1 consists of 

UN Security Council permanent members: the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China, plus 

Germany.

303 “Speech by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, and His Answer to the Question 

from the Mass Media after His Visit to Saudi Arabia, Jeddah, 21 January 2014,” June 23, 2014, available 

at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

304 Some of the speculation that follows has points in common with the thoughts offered in a 

blog posted by the anonymous author “Crimson Alter” in “Lavrov Tames Tehran,” July 5, 2014, available at <http://aftershock-1.livejournal.com/2400573.html> and <http://politrussia.com/world/lavrovukroshchaet-tegeran-716/>. 

305 “Russian PM Vladimir Putin Meets With Experts in Sarov to Discuss Global Threat,” February 24, 2012, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

306 “Putin April 17, 2014, on Saudi Friends and Close Relations,” Interfax, April 17, 2014.
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307 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June 2014.

308 Elsewhere, on this point, see Simon Henderson, “Saudi Arabia’s Family Feud,” Washington 

Institute for Near East Policy, July 7, 2014, available at <http://washin.st/TYZS4X>, and other Henderson analyses of Saudi domestic and foreign policy.

309 Supporting this point, there were even some intriguing Saudi-Iranian contacts. See Alex 

Vatanka, “Iran and Saudi Arabia: Detente on the Horizon?” The National Interest, September 8, 2014, 

available at <http://nationalinterest.org/feature/iran-saudi-arabia-detente-the-horizon-11223>.

310 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June 2014.

311 Ibid., June and September 2014.

312 Ibid., June 2014.

313 Ibid., September 2014. On the dissension in the Middle East over Obama’s resistance to 

boots on the ground, see Anne Barnard, “Conflicting Policies on Syria and Islamic State Erode U.S. 

Standing in Mideast,” New York Times, November 28, 2014. On Obama’s explication of U.S. strategy 

against ISIL, see Mark Landler, “Obama Calls for Sustained Drive to Rout Militants,” New York Times, 

September 11, 2014.

314 “Opening Remarks and Answers to Media Questions by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov 

Following Talks with Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal Moscow, 21 November 

2014,” November 22, 2014, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>; and “Joint Press Statement 

Issued by Sergei V. Lavrov, Foreign Minister of the Russia, and His Royal Highness Prince Saud al-Feisal, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” November 21, 2014, accessed at <www.

mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

315 “Prince Bandar Bin-Sultan’s Most Significant Achievement in Moscow: Establishment of Saudi 

Intelligence Bureau To Hunt Down Chechnyans,” Ra’y al-Yawm (www.raialyoum.com), January 4, 2014.

316 “Text of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Interview to TASS. The private Russian company 

Lukoil, incidentally, has been active in Saudi Arabia since at least 2009.

317 “News Conference of Vladimir Putin,” En.Kremlin.ru, December 18, 2014.

318 Douglas Martin and Ben Hubbard, “King Abdullah, Who Reshaped His Country Amid 

Arab Revolts, Dies,” New York Times, January 23, 2015; and Ben Hubbard, “Salman Ascends Throne to 

Become Saudi King,” New York Times, January 23, 2015.

319 “Press release on antiterrorist consultations with Arabia,” January 20, 2015, available at 

<www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

320 Ben Hubbard and David D. Kirkpatrick, “Saudi Succession Hinting at Shift in Foreign Role,” 

New York Times, January 27, 2015.

321 David Ottaway, Mohammed bin Nayef: Washington’s New Favorite Saudi Prince, Viewpoints, 

No. 70 (Washington, DC: Wilson Center, January 2015), available at <www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/

mohammed-bin-nayef-washington%E2%80%99s-new-favorite-saudi-prince>; Ben Hubbard and David 

D. Kirkpatrick, “Saudi Succession Hinting at Shift in Foreign Role,” New York Times, January 27, 2015.

322 Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2015.

323 “Crown Prince Receives Russian Ambassador,” SPA Online, February 22, 2015.

324 “Russia, Saudi Arabia discuss Yemen’s impasse,” SABA (www.sabanews.net/en), March 

24, 2015.
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

325 “Comment by the Foreign Ministry on the Situation in Yemen,” March 26, 2015, available at 

<www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

326 See, for example, “Saudi Arabia may suffer defeat in Yemen—Russian expert [Leonid 

Isayev],” Interfax, March 26, 2015; “Yemen may break up in case of military intervention—expert 

[Yelena Suponina],” Interfax, March 26, 2015; and Mikhail Leontyev on “Odnako,” Channel One TV, 

March 31, 2015, available at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw2h75w64tg>. 

327 See the comments by Mikhail Aleksandrov in Andrey Polunin, “Why Should Russia Help 

the Shiites at War With Saudi Arabia?” Svobodnaya Pressa, March 29, 2015. 

328 “Minister of Defense Meets Russian Ambassador to the Kingdom,” SPA Online, March 28, 2015.

329 “Minister of Defense Receives Russian Ambassador to the Kingdom,” SPA Online, April 15, 2015.

330 See, for example, Olga Kuznetsova and Yelena Chernenko, “Binding the Arab World With a 

Single Army. Joint Armed Forces Thrown Into the Struggle Against Regional Threats,” Kommersant Online, March 30, 2015; and “Al-Asad and Putin Strain Saudi Relationship With Al-Sisi,” Al-Arabi al-Jadid 

Online (www.alaraby.co.uk/portal), April 1, 2015.

331 Russia had been an early proponent of peace talks in Yemen. Beginning as early as January 

21, it called for negotiations to end the mounting crisis. See “Russia, Turkey call for peaceful solutions 

to Yemen’s crisis,” SABA, January 22, 2015. For Putin’s greetings to the Arab League summit, see “Putin 

insists on settling crises in Syria, Libya, Yemen based on intl law principles,” Interfax, March 30, 2015. 

For Foreign Minister Prince Saud’s critical intervention, see “Al-Faysal: The Saudi Support for Al-Asad’s 

Regime Is a Major Part of the Disasters Which Face the Syrian People. The Saudi Foreign Minister Responds to Putin’s Message to Sharm al-Shaykh’s Summit,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat Online, March 30, 2015.

332 “UN Security Council should denounce violence in Yemen without taking sides—Lavrov,” 

Interfax, April 2, 2015; “Russia, Red Cross Seek Halt to Fighting in Yemen,” Washington Post, April 5, 

2015; and “Russia denies accusation it is arming Yemen rebels,” April 5, 2015, available at <www.mid.ru/

brp_4.nsf/main_eng>. 

333 “On a telephone conversation between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Foreign 

Minister of Saudi Arabia Sa’ud al-Faysal,” April 6, 2015, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

334 “Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Rossiya Segodnya,” April 8, 2015, available 

at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>. 

335 Hugh Naylor, “UN panel bans arms to Yemeni rebels,” Washington Post, April 15, 2015.

336 “Russian president, Saudi king discuss situation in Yemen, other issues by phone,” Interfax, 

April 20, 2015.

337 Kareem Fahim and Mark Mazzetti, “Saudis Announce Halt to Bombing of Yemen Rebels,” 

New York Times, April 22, 2015; and Karen DeYoung and Ali Al-Mujahed, “Saudi Arabia Launches New 

Strikes in Yemen,” Washington Post, April 23, 2015. 

338 Ben Hubbard, “Saudi King Changes Line of Succession,” New York Times, April 29, 2015.

339 Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2015. 

340 Ibid.

341 “On the Russian president’s special representative on the Middle East and African countries, 

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister M.L. Bogdanov’s working trip to Saudi Arabia,” May 27, 2015, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.
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Understanding Putin

342 Interview with Abdulrahman Ibrahim al-Rassi, “Saudi Ambassador: There Is No Such Thing 

As Total Agreement Even Between Brothers,” RIA Novosti, May 22, 2015.

343 See, for example, Simon Henderson, “Riyadh Looks to Moscow,” Washington Institute for 

Near East Policy, June 17, 2015, available at <http://washin.st/1|Pi1Xs>. 

344 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June and September 2014.

345 Alison Smale and Michael D. Shear, “U.S. and Allies Put Russia Out of Group of 8,” New 

York Times, March 25, 2014.

346 Author’s conversation in Moscow, June 2014.

347 Another Middle East expert in Moscow around this time commented that Russian Jews 

were taken in by this propaganda, but might now (September 2014) be beginning to see the light. Author’s conversation in Moscow, September 2014.

348 Author’s conversations in Moscow, September 2014. Several experts underscored this last 

point in separate conversations around this same time. In fact, the Russian Foreign Ministry had merely 

expressed “growing concern” after the Israeli army shelled a UN agency school in Bayt Hanum on July 

24. See “Commentary of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department about the 

Situation around Gaza,” July 25, 2014, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

349 As for Turkey, Ankara was sensitive to discrimination against Crimea’s indigenous Muslim 

Tatars by local ethnic Russians. Putin in turn dealt gingerly and at length with the subject given its 

potential repercussions across the Middle East and especially in Turkey. With bilateral trade reaching 

$33 billion a year, and Erdogan and Putin aspiring to push this to $100 billion a year, the two leaders 

seemed determined not to let differences over Syria and Crimea disrupt economic ties. A member of 

NATO but not the EU, Turkey demonstrably refrained from sanctioning Russia over Ukraine. Moreover, ignoring Western efforts to isolate Putin, Erdogan invited the Russian leader to Ankara for a state 

visit on December 1. There Putin announced that Russia would redirect the $22 billion South Stream 

gas pipeline project under the Black Sea from landfall in Bulgaria to Turkey. Turkey thus joined the 

rolls of countries in the wider Middle East region benefiting at least in a material way from the heightened tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine and offering Putin a bit of an escape hatch 

from Western sanctions and diplomatic pressures. See “Turkey Says Russia Ready to Improve Rights of 

Crimean Tatars—Russian President Putin in Visit to Turkey as He and Turkish President Erdogan Hold 

Joint Press Conference Monday on Bilateral Relations and Crises in Ukraine and Syria,” Anadolu Agency 

Online, December 1, 2014; “Text of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Remarks at a News Conference 

Following His State Visit to Turkey on 1 December,” En.Kremlin.ru, December 2, 2014; Andrew Roth, 

“Putin, in Defeat, Diverts Pipeline,” New York Times, December 2, 2014; and Jim Yardley and Jo Becker, 

“How Putin Forged a Pipeline Deal That Derailed,” New York Times, December 31, 2014.

350 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June 2014.

351 Vitaly Naumkin, “The Kremlin’s Unexpected Decisions,” Al-Monitor, April 23, 2015, available at <www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/04/kremlin-unexpected-syria-iran-yemen-israeldecisions.html>.

352 Dmitri Trenin, “Russia’s Missile Moves Explained: The S-300 Challenge,” The National Interest, April 15, 2015.

353 Author’s conversation in Moscow, February 2015. 
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

354 Ibid., September 2014. 

355 Ibid., September 2014, and February and May 2015. On these themes, see Dmitri Trenin, 

The Ukraine Crisis and the Resumption of Great-Power Rivalry (Washington, DC: Carnegie Moscow 

Center, July 9, 2014), available at <http://carnegie.ru/2014/07/09/ukraine-crisis-and-resumption-ofgreat-power-rivalry/hfgs#>.

356 Author’s conversations in Moscow, September 2014. 

357 “Conference of Russian Ambassadors and Permanent Representatives, 1 July 2014, Moscow,” 

En.Kremlin.ru, July 2, 2014. For an exhaustive analysis of the contradictions in Putin’s speech and current Russian foreign policy, see the unsigned editorial, “Contradictions of Speech. What, In President’s 

Opinion, Will Happen In Foreign Policy In Coming Years,” Gazeta.ru, July 1, 2014 available at <www.

gazeta.ru/comments/2014/07/01_e_6093657.shtml>.

358 See, for example, Ahmed Eleiba, “What does Russia mean to Egypt?” Al-Ahram Weekly 

Online, May 14, 2015.

359 “Russia and Egypt will work for the benefit of two countries through joint efforts—Putin,” 

Interfax, May 9, 2015.

360 Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2015. These well-known experts saw Moscow as still 

interested in good relations with the United States and the West and under no illusions about China. 

For Russia, in fact, the gains from the emerging relationship with China did not compensate for the 

losses from the broken connections with Europe. Russia and China had been working on building ties 

for a long time, but the Ukrainian crisis had accelerated and pushed the dynamic much further.

361 For a still photograph, see “President Putin and visiting international leaders attend Victory 

Day celebrations in Moscow, May 9, 2015 xin.jpg (900×552),” Al Jazeerah, May 9, 2015, available at <http://

aljazeerah.info/images/2015/May/10%20p/President%20Putin%20and%20visiting%20international%20

leaders%20attend%20Victory%20Day%20celebrations%20in%20Moscow,%20May%209,%202015%20xin.

jpg>. For video, see “#Victory70: Largest May 9 parade in Russian and Soviet history since WW2 (FULL 

VIDEO)—YouTube,” Russia Today, available at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPCXiyo-3L8>. The length 

of this video is 1:31:15; a clear pan of Putin et al. is at the 33:10 mark.

362 Interview by Nikolay Dolgopolov and Yevgeniy Shestakov, “Business Breakfast: Major Note,” 

Rossiyskaya Gazeta Online, May 18, 2015.

363 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June 2014 and May 2015. 

364 Ibid., September 2014. On this theme, see also Nikolay Surkov, “Russia Will Not Fight with 

the USA for the Arab World,” Al-Arabiy al-Jadeed, August 10, 2014, available at <www.alaraby.co.uk/

opinion/7e65d03b-d01c-4a00-88a0-b5ec9e8ea278>. See also Nikolay Surkov, “Israel Is the Most Important in Moscow from the Arab World,” Al-Arabiy al-Jadeed, August 10, 2014, available at <www.alaraby.

co.uk/opinion/f2e1464d-f6d9-4c66-9c3f-613b3b1ea6b6>.

365 Author’s conversations in Moscow, September 2014.

366 Eugene B. Rumer, Dangerous Drift: Russia’s Middle East Policy (Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000), xi–xii.

367 Tatyana Stanovaya, “Putin’s Era: Start,” Slon (slon.ru), June 16, 2014.

368 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June 2014. By the end of the year, Black Sea Fleet Commander Admiral Aleksandr Vitko was touting the reestablishment of the Crimean naval base. See Pavel 
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Understanding Putin

Zavolokin, “Crimean Naval Base: A Revival of What Was Lost,” Krasnaya Zvezda Online, December 6, 

2014.

369 Trenin, “The Ukraine Crisis and the Resumption of Great-Power Rivalry.”

370 Aleksey Nikolsky, “Russian Naval Presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Problem 

of Projected Naval Basing,” Moscow Defense Brief 40, no. 2 (2014), 5–8, 8.

371 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February and July 2012. For a devastating critique of 

Russian naval forces in the Mediterranean, see Sergey Ishchenko, “Rapid Jump-Off Squadron. Why the 

Pentagon Does Not Regard Our Warships in the Mediterranean as a Factor in the War,” Svobodnaya 

Pressa (svpressa.ru), September 24, 2014.

372 See the interview of Asad by Konstantin Volkov, “We Will Not Be Broken. Bashir Al-Asad: 

A Russian Presence in Various Regions of the World Is Essential In Order To Maintain the Balance 

of Power,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta Online, March 27, 2015. For several Russian reactions, see “Russia not 

planning to have fully-fledged naval base in Syria’s Tartus so far—source,” Interfax, March 27, 2015; and 

“Federation Council: Russia won’t deploy Navy base in Tartous,” Interfax, March 27, 2015. 

373 Author’s conversation in Moscow, May 2015.

374 “China, Russia End Joint Naval Exercises,” Jiefangjun Bao Online, May 22, 2015; and “RussiaChina navy exercise ends successfully in Mediterranean—ministry,” Interfax, May 21, 2015.

375 “Russia and Egypt hold joint naval exercise,” Al-Masry Al-Youm Online, June 6, 2015; “Russia, Egypt coordinate Friendship Bridge 2015 naval drills plan,” Interfax, June 8, 2015; and “RussiaEgypt to hold first-ever naval exercise,” Interfax, June 8, 2015. 

376 Author’s conversations in Moscow, May 2015.

377 Mark Galeotti, “Russia Is Punching Above Its Weight,” Moscow Times Online, July 1, 

2014, available at <www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/russia-is-punching-above-itsweight/502810.html?utm_source=Active+Subscribers&utm_campaign=fde3f6cf71-MR_070214&utm_

medium=email&utm_term=0_35c49cbd51-fde3f6cf71-62626989>.

378 Darya Tsilyurik-Frants, “Fifth Column of Radical Islamists. Middle Eastern Terrorists are 

Driving a Wedge Between Russia’s Slavic and Muslim Population,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta Online, May 

26, 2015.

379 Author’s conversations in Moscow, September 2014. 

380 Ibid. 

381 “Russian Pundits Offer Mixed Views on Nature of 4 December Groznyy Attack,” Kavkazskiy 

Uzel (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru), December 4, 2014; and Vitaly Naumkin, “Russia Steps Up Its Middle East 

Policy,” Al-Monitor, December 11, 2014, available at <www2.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/12/

russia-middle-east-policy-palestine-israel.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+%5BEnglish%5D

&utm_campaign=01b0bc734e-December_12_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-

01b0bc734e-102428765#>.

382 Igor Gashkov, “ISIL’s Caucasus Trail. Two Thousand of Our Compatriots Are Fighting on 

the Side of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta Online, December 3, 2014. The 

conference on “Security in the Caucasus—In the Interests of the Peoples of the Region” was held on November 18, 2014. Not long after, the Russian Foreign Ministry would put the number at “over 800,” and 

Aleksandr Bortnikov, director of the Russian Federal Security Service, at “at least” 1,700. See “Foreign 
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

Ministry: Over 800 of Russians fighting for ISIL,” Interfax, January 16, 2015; and Vladimir Mukhin, 

“‘Caliphate’ Threatens North Caucasus. Insurgency Already Using ISIL Slogans in Simmering Conflicts 

in Southern Russia,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta Online, March 2, 2015.

383 Author’s conversations in Moscow, September 2014.

384 “Commentary by the Department of Information and the Press of the Russian Foreign Ministry on the U.S. Air Strikes on Terrorist Positions in Syria and Iraq,” September 24, 2014, available at 

<www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>; and “UN Antiterrorist Resolution Issue of ‘Fundamental Importance’—Russia’s Lavrov,” Interfax, September 24, 2014. 

385 Author’s conversations in Moscow, July 2011–February 2014. Also see, for example, Fedor Lukyanov, “Side Success,” Gazeta.ru, November 21, 2013; and Vladimir Sotnikov in Andrey Polunin, “Geneva 

Agreements: Breakthrough or Historic Mistake?” Svobodnaya Pressa (svpressa.ru), November 25, 2013.

386 A.I. Shumilin (lead author), I.S. Ivanov (chief editor), Russia and the “New Elites” of the 

“Arab Spring” Countries: Possibilities and Prospects for Interaction: Working Notebook [Россия и «новые 

элиты» стран «Арабской весны»: возможности и перспективы взаимодейства: рабочая тетрадь] 

(Moscow: Spetskniga, 2013), 36. To this could also be added Russia’s largely derivative membership in 

the Palestinian-Israeli peace process Quartet; participation in the P5+1 on the Iranian nuclear issue; 

and co-equal lead with the United States in the Geneva Syrian peace process.

387 See, for example, “Lavrov Speech at the Event Dedicated to 70 years of the Moscow Conference,” October 25, 2013, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>. 

388 Author’s conversation in Moscow, February 2014.

389 The matter of ruling out the threat of force against Iran is an old issue for Russia. Russia does 

not have a problem with putting more pressure on Iran, as long as it is twinned with engagement and 

not the threat of force and isolation. When the UNSC passed its first resolution on the Iranian nuclear 

program, Moscow made sure it excluded any Chapter VII, Article 42, threat of force (Parker, Persian 

Dreams, 250, 270). Russia has been consistent on this point over the years, and all the subsequent resolutions on Iran have been bounded by the original resolution’s noninvocation of Article 42.

390 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February 2013 and February 2014; and Aleksey Nikolsky, 

“Russian Naval Presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Problem of Projected Naval Basing,” 

Moscow Defense Brief 40, no. 2 (2014), 5–8.

391 Galeotti.

392 See her box score of wins and loses in Tatyana Stanovaya, “A Year Since EuroMaydan: What 

Has Russia Gained and Lost?” Slon.ru, November 21, 2014, available at <http://slon.ru/russia/god_posle_evromaydana_chto_priobrela_i_proigrala_rossiya-1187020.xhtml>.

393 “Вводом войск в Крым Россия нарушила главную норму современного 

международного права: Применять сила имеет право только Америка!”

394 “Вышла книга с полным перечнем стран, которые не любят Россию. Она называется 

Большой атлас мира.”

395 Lavrov afterwards stated, “I hope that our Americans partners, after they have analyzed the 

results of the talks with Kerry, will take steps to resume collaboration. We are prepared for this.” See interview with Lavrov by Nikolay Dolgopolov and Yevgeniy Shestakov, “Business Breakfast: Major Note,” 

Rossiyskaya Gazeta Online, May 18, 2015.
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396 Author’s conversation in Moscow, May 2015.

397 The “BRICS” grouping of five emerging economic powers consists of Brazil, Russia, India, 

China, and South Africa.

398 Michael Birnbaum, “The Plunging Price of Oil Is Causing Russia Deeper Pain Than Western 

Sanctions,” Washington Post, December 3, 2014; Neil MacFarquhar and Andrew E. Kramer, “With Russia on Brink of Recession, Putin Faces ‘New Reality,’” New York Times, December 3, 2014; and Anders 

Aslund, “The Russian Economy Is Heading Toward Disaster,” Peterson Institute for International Economics, December 8, 2014, available at <http://blogs.piie.com/realtime/?p=4644>.

399 Anders Aslund, “Russia’s Output Will Slump Sharply in 2015,” The American Interest, January 15, 2015, available at <www.the-american-interest.com/2015/01/15/russias-output-will-slumpsharply-in-2015/>. 

400 Anastasiya Bashkatova, “Catastrophe Again Being Predicted for Russia,” Nezavisimaya 

Gazeta Online, March 6, 2015.

401 “IMF worsens Russian economic outlook, GDP to fall 3.8% in 2015,” Interfax, April 14, 

2015; and “World Bank expects lengthy recession in Russia, GDP to fall 3.8% in 2015, 0.3% in 2016,” 

Interfax, April 1, 2015. 

402 “Ulyukayev: economy to slow further in Q2, stabilize in Q3, improve in Q4,” Interfax, April 

22, 2015.

403 “Kudrin expects Russian GDP to shrink 4% in 2015, zero growth in 2016,” Interfax, June 

3, 2015; and “Russian Econ Ministry updates forecast to 2018, leaves 2015 GDP, inflation unchanged,” 

Interfax, May 28, 2015.

404 “Text of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Remarks at a News Conference Following His 

State Visit to Turkey on 1 December,” En.Kremlin.ru, December 2, 2014; Andrew Roth, “Putin, in Defeat, 

Diverts Pipeline,” New York Times, December 2, 2014; and Jim Yardley and Jo Becker, “How Putin Forged 

a Pipeline Deal That Derailed,” New York Times, December 31, 2014. Russia’s Rosatom is also building a 

nuclear power station in Turkey; see “Russia, Turkey break ground on NPP plant,” Interfax, April 14, 2015.

405 Annie Gowen and Michael Birnbaum, “India in Middle as Suitors U.S., Russia Feud,” Washington Post, December 11, 2014; and Ellen Barry, “Putin, Shunned by West, Visits India, a Friend Whose 

Interests May Lie Elsewhere,” New York Times, December 11, 2014.

406 “Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Answers Questions from Interfax, 29 December 2014,” 

December 30, 2014, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>. 

407 “Expert Makarkin: Minsk, Astana Wish to Distance Themselves from Kremlin in Ukraine 

Issue,” Interfax, December 22, 2014.

408 On Damascus’s pursuit of sizable financial credits from Moscow and especially Tehran, see 

Ibrahim Hamidi, “Iran Demands ‘Sovereign Guarantees’ to Continue Supporting Regime,” Al-Hayah 

Online, February 3, 2015.

409 “Remarks by moderator of the Inter-Syrian Moscow meeting Vitaly Naumkin at a news conference, Moscow, January 29, 2015,” January 31, 2015, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

410 “MOSCOW PLATFORM—Provisions on which mutual agreement was reached at the second intra-Syrian consultative meeting, Moscow, 9 April 2015,” April 11, 2015, available at <www.mid.

ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 19

411 Somini Sengupta, “UN’s Syria Envoy Looks to Revive Talks,” New York Times, April 15, 2015. 

As described earlier, Geneva 1 took place in late June 2012 and Geneva 2 in late January–early February 

2014.

412 Olga Kuznetsova and Mariya Yefimova, “Syrian Opposition Divided by Moscow. Opinions 

of Bashar al-Asad’s Opponents Concerning Peace Conference Differ,” Kommersant Online, January 13, 

2015; Paula Istayh, “Coordination Body Reluctant to Participate in Moscow II; Mundhir Khaddam to 

Al-Sharq al-Awsat: ‘Will Think Thoroughly Before Agreeing to New Meeting in Russia,’” Al-Sharq alAwsat Online, February 1, 2015; Rayyan Muhammad, “Second Moscow Forum Invites 26 Opposition 

Figures . . . and the Syrian Regime Is Upset,” Al-Arabi al-Jadid Online, March 21, 2015; and “Syria talks 

in Moscow ‘positive,’ diplomat tells Russian media,” Interfax, April 10, 2015.

413 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February 2015.

414 “Russia-Iran relations strategic, not limited to nuclear talks—Iranian parliamentarian 

[Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Committee for National Security and Foreign Policy of the Islamic 

Consultative Assembly],” Interfax, April 14, 2015.

415 “Russia not ruling out strategic partnership between Iran, U.S,” Interfax, April 13, 2015. In 

this case, the official was Alexander Pankin, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s department of 

international relations, speaking in the Duma.

416 “Iran Says Ready To Work on Strategic Cooperation Proposal With Russia,” Islamic Republic 

News Agency (www.irna.ir), June 4, 2015.

417 On combatant fatigue, see Anne Barnard, “Vanguard of Syrian Uprising, Now on the Run, 

Weighs a Bleak Future,” New York Times, January 2, 2015.

418 See, for example, “Russia, S. Arabia Determined to Bolster Trade-Economic Cooperation—

Russian Foreign Ministry,” Interfax, January 14, 2015.

419 In an interview for the Argus Global Markets newsletter, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi 

reportedly displayed little sympathy for the impact of Saudi policy on Russia and Iran. In his view, they 

are currently paying the price for political behavior that has provoked sanctions, a factor more basic 

than oil prices. See Steven Mufson, “As Oil Prices Keep Dropping, Remember, This Is the Old Normal,” 

Washington Post, January 13, 2015.

420 Michael R. Gordon and Somini Sengupta, “Draft Resolution Setting Deadline for Palestinian State Fails in Security Council,” New York Times, December 31, 2014; and “Moscow Calls 

for Urgent Mideast Quartet meeting,” Interfax, December 31, 2014. A serious bid to displace the 

American lead in the Quartet seems unlikely since Russia would do no better and would lose the 

U.S. scapegoat. See Paul J. Saunders, “Could Russia Broker Middle East Peace?” Al-Monitor, January 9, 2015, available at <www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/russia-cannot-mediateisrael-palestine-peace.html>.

421 Mohammad al-Masri, presentation on “Arab Public Opinion toward Russia,” conference on 

“The Arab World and Russia: Current Transformations of an Enduring Relationship,” Arab Center for 

Research and Policy Studies, Doha, Qatar, May 23–24, 2015. The study involved 26,000 respondents 

from 15 Arab countries.

422 Liz Sly, “Rebel resurgence puts Syrian regime in peril,” Washington Post, April 27, 2015; 

Anne Barnard, Hwaida Saad, and Eric Schmitt, “An Eroding Army Points to Strain in Syria,” New York 
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Times, April 29, 2015; “Insurgents Carry Out Rare Damascus Attack,” Washington Post, May 5, 2015; 

and Hugh Naylor, “Assad confirms battlefield defeats,” Washington Post, May 7, 2015.

423 Author’s conversations in Moscow and Doha, May 2015. See also Vitaly Naumkin, “Russia 

mulls strategy to solve Syrian conflict,” Al-Monitor, June 3, 2015, available at <www.al-monitor.com/

pulse/originals/2015/06/russia-syria-conflict-strategy-moscow-meetings.html>.

424 Read together, these three analyses are suggestive of current trends: Fedor Lukyanov, “Apologia of Unspoken Words,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta Online, December 24, 2014; “Obama’s Five Key Middle 

East Battlegrounds in 2015,” BBC Online, January 7, 2015; and Vitaly Naumkin, “Russia steps up its 

Middle East policy,” Al-Monitor, December 11, 2014. 

425 “Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with the RBK TV channel on the sidelines of 

the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, St. Petersburg, June 19, 2015,” June 20, 2015, available at <www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng>.

426 Overall, according to Lukyanov, “Russia will gradually change and fit into the niche that has 

been assigned to it in the world design—an important player but not a decisive one, independent to the 

extent that its share of the global economy permits. In other words, extremely moderately.” See Fedor 

Lukyanov, “Apologia of Unspoken Words,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta Online, December 24, 2014.

427 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June 2014; and, for example, Vitaly Naumkin, “Are There 

Any Prospects for Moscow-Libya Cooperation?” Al-Monitor, January 13, 2015, available at <www.almonitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/russia-libya-cooperation-militia-islamists-egypt.html>.

428 Presentation attended by author in Washington, DC, April 2015. See also Sergey Aleksashenko, former Deputy Finance Minister of Russia, “Russia Sanctions One Year On: Do Sanctions 

Matter?” Policy Memo, Center on Global Interests, March 6, 2015, available at <http://us8.campaignarchive2.com/?u=58302957030514c7235a5b1a1&id=decd74553c&e=355db3f006>; and Sergey Aleksashenko, “ The Russian Economy in 2050: Heading for Labor-Based Stagnation,” Brookings Institution, 

April 2, 2015, available at <www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2015/04/02-russia-economylabor-based-stagnation-aleksashenko>.

429 Brilev interview of Putin.

430 Author’s conversations in Moscow, February and May 2015. A few others seem to share this 

view. See Nolan Feeney, “Vladimir Putin Wins TIME 100 Reader’s Poll,” Time, April 13, 2015, available 

at <http://time.com/3820069/time-100-readers-poll-results/?xid=emailshare>.

431 “The Mystery of Putin’s night-time meeting with the Economists. Why Did He Summon 

Kudrin?” Mk.ru, April 23, 2014, available at <www.mk.ru/economics/2014/04/23/1019096-tayna-nochnoy-vstrechi-putina-s-ekonomistami-zachem-on-pozval-kudrina.html>. 

432 In his Valday presentation in October, for example, Putin concentrated all his critical fire against 

the United States. See “Transcript of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Speech and Answers to Questions 

at the 24 October Valday Discussion Club in Sochi: Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club” on 

the theme of “The World Order: New Rules or a Game without Rules,” En.Kremlin.ru, October 28, 2014.

433 Presentation attended by author in Washington, DC, April 2014.

434 Maksim Trudolyubov, “How Russian and Chinese Elite Will Deceive Each Other. RussiaEast Relations Will Be Principally Different in Nature Than Customary and Intelligible Russia-West 

Relations,” Vedomosti Online, May 22, 2014.
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435 Vasily Kashin, “How the West Saved Russia,” Vedemosti.ru, November 24, 2014, available at 

<www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/news/36360161/kak-zapad-spas-putina?full#cut>.

436 Neil MacFarquhar and Andrew E. Kramer, “With Russia on Brink of Recession, Putin Faces 

‘New Reality,’” New York Times, December 3, 2014; and Michael Birnbaum, “For Russia, Oil Prices Hit 

Harder Than Sanctions,” Washington Post, December 3, 2014.

437 Author’s conversations in Moscow, June and September 2014.

438 Ellen Barry, “Russia Hard-liners Relish Crimea Crisis. Some Eyeing New Cold War,” New 

York Times, March 16, 2014.

439 For an overview of Russian-Turkish relations, see Trenin, “The Ukraine Crisis and the Resumption of Great-Power Rivalry.”

440 Interview with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, “Turkey Does Not Recognize 

Russia’s Crimea Annexation,” Anadolu Agency Online, January 14, 2015. 

441 “Telephone conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” En.Kremlin.

ru, March 4, 2014; and “Turkey’s Erdogan, Russia’s Putin Talk Ukraine on Phone,” Anadolu Agency Online, May 30, 2014. Erdogan was sworn in as Turkey’s first directly elected president on August 28 after 

elections on August 10, 2014.

442 Arkadiy Dubnov, “Crimean Tatars: Rehabilitation or Threat of Deportation?” Yezhednevnyy 

Zhurnal (www.ej.ru), April 22, 2014; and Denis Kiryukhin, “The Crimean Tatars and the New Political 

Reality,” Politkom.ru, April 24, 2014.

443 Olga Kuznetsova, “Lightning interview” with Ukrainian People’s Deputy Mustafa Dzhemilev, 

leader of Crimean Tatar people, “Under No Circumstances Will We Leave Crimea,” Kommersant Online, 

March 14, 2014; Aleksandra Samarina, “Putin Sends Kozak To Crimea; President Creates Commission for 

Peninsula’s Affairs and Rehabilitates Repressed Peoples,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta Online, April 22, 2014; and 

“Putin Meets Representatives of Crimean Tatars—Kremlin Transcript,” En.Kremlin.ru, May 16, 2014.

444 On this most recent issue, see Semih Idiz, “Russia’s recognition of Armenian genocide 

strains ties with Turkey,” Al-Monitor, April 28, 2015, available at <www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/04/turkey-russia-armenia-ties-lost-magic.html#>.

445 “Turkey Says Russia Ready to Improve Rights of Crimean Tatars—Russian President Putin 

in Visit to Turkey as He and Turkish President Erdogan Hold Joint Press Conference Monday on Bilateral Relations and Crises in Ukraine and Syria,” Anadolu Agency Online, December 1, 2014.

446 Semih Idiz, “Erdogan delicate balancing act in Kiev,” Al-Monitor, March 24, 2015, available 

at <www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/turkey-russia-ukraine-balancing-act-kiev.html>.

447 Alexei Malashenko, “Islam in Russia,” Russia in Global Affairs, September 23, 2014, available 

at <http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/Islam-in-Russia-17002>; and “A Hard Year for Migrant Workers 

in Russia,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, December 27, 2013, available at <www.rferl.org/content/

russia-migrants-tough-year/25214624.html>.

448 According to Lev Gudkov of the Levada-Center, there had been 360–370 incidents similar 

to Biryulovo in 2013. Gudkov, however, did not attribute these incidents to Russian xenophobia, but to 

disgust with corruption and other seamy features of life in Russia. Lev Gudkov interview with Kseniya 

Larina and Vitaly Dymarskiy, “The Russia That the Majority Chooses—Which Is It?” Echo Moskvy, June 

20, 2014, available at <www.echo.msk.ru/programs/year2014/1343750-echo/>.
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449 Three months into the Ukraine crisis, another incident took place in the Moscow region 

town of Pushkino after a young Russian soccer fan was killed by an Uzbek migrant on May 13. See “The 

Pogrom’s Fellow Travelers: ‘The Russian Spring’ Can Be Aimed Against Russia Itself,” Gazeta.ru, May 

15, 2014, available at <www.gazeta.ru/comments/2014/05/16_e_6036425.shtml>.

450 Presentation attended by author in Washington, DC, November 2013.

451 “Russians on Migration and Tension Between Nationalities,” Levada-Center, November 5, 2013, 

available at <www.levada.ru/05-11-2013/rossiyane-o-migratsii-i-mezhnatsionalnoi-napryazhennosti>.

452 Regina Smyth, Anton Sobolev, and Irina Soboleva, “Patterns of Discontent: Identifying the 

Participant Core in Russian Post-Election Protest,” paper prepared for the conference “Russia’s Winter 

of Discontent: Taking Stock of Changing State-Society Relationships,” Uppsala University, Sweden, 

September 6–7, 2013, 6, available at <www.ucrs.uu.se/digitalAssets/172/172857_discontentconfsmythpatternsofdiscontent.pdf>.

453 Author’s discussions in Paris, September 2014.

454 Yelena Suponina, “Shiites and Sunnis: The Danger of Major War from Syria to Pakistan,” 

Russian International Affairs Council, April 25, 2014, available at <http://russiancouncil.ru/en/

inner/?id_4=3588#top>. 

455 Neil MacFarquhar and Andrew Roth, “Memo from Moscow: On Unity Day, Putin Divides 

Nationalists,” New York Times, November 6, 2014; and Alexey Eremenko, “National Unity Day March 

Shows Decline of Anti-Kremlin Nationalism,” Moscow Times Online, November 4, 2014; Amaliya 

Zatari, “Ukraine Has Split Russian Nationalists—Searches of Nationalists’ Homes Carried Out, But 

Experts Talk Of Split in Nationalist Movement,” Gazeta.ru, March 26, 2015.

456 Kashin, “How the West Saved Russia.”

457 Transcript of Putin’s speech and answers to questions at the October 24 Valday Discussion 

Club in Sochi, Russia, “Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club,” En.Kremlin.ru, October 

28, 2014.

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Understanding Putin

About the Author

John W. Parker is a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Center for Strategic Research, Institute 

for National Strategic Studies, at the National Defense University. He served previously in the 

U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, where he was Deputy Office 

Director and Chief of the Division for Caucasus and Central Asia in the Office for Russian 

and Eurasian Analysis. His principal areas of expertise are Russia and the states of the former 

Soviet Union and Russian-Iranian relations. He has served two tours at the American Embassy 

in Moscow, where he was Chief of the Political/Internal Section from 1989 to 1991, and was 

Deputy Director of the U.S. Information Agency’s “Research and Development—USA” exhibit 

in the Soviet Union in 1972. Dr. Parker has also been a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow 

Wilson International Center for Scholars and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution. He 

holds a Bachelor of Arts from Indiana University and a Ph.D. from Yale University. 



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