Russia’s Enduring Presence in the Middle East

For centuries, the Middle East has been an arena of competition between Russia and the other major powers of the day—the Ottoman Empire, other major European powers, and most recently the United States. Such competition is largely a by-product of what Russia’s leaders and elites believe are the country’s enduring interests and the threats posed to them by other major powers. These interests have ranged from the security of the homeland to the protection of trade routes connecting Russia to global markets to cultural and religious ties to fellow Orthodox Christians and Slavs.

These enduring interests continue to drive Russian policy in the region even in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. However, the intensity of competition has surged due to the renewal of the confrontation between Russia and the West following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and the Kremlin’s increased dependence on Iran for a variety of weapons. The war in Ukraine is now a structural factor that is dramatically reordering the Kremlin’s relationships around the world. Arguably, no region outside of Europe has experienced the consequences of this reordering more than the greater Middle East.

A Long Record of Engagement in the Middle East

Russian involvement in the Middle East has been ongoing for centuries, beginning either in the ninth century assault on Constantinople by the Rus or in the reign of Russia’s first tsar, Ivan the Terrible, after the army of the Crimean Khanate sacked the Moscow Kremlin in 1571. In the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, in a series of wars with the Ottoman Empire, Russia gained a warmwater port and a secure outlet for its exports. It also captured the lands that are now part of Ukraine along the Black Sea coast, some presently occupied by Russian invaders.

With the onset of the twentieth-century Cold War, the Middle East emerged second only to Europe on the list of Soviet foreign policy priorities. The Soviet Union, in the words of senior U.S. diplomats in the mid-1950s, was “constantly maneuvering” in an effort “to bring the Middle East behind the Iron Curtain.” Over time, Soviet leaders established close relationships with counterparts in several countries—Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. To a varying degree, these countries became Soviet clients, receiving development assistance, arms, and high-level attention. The Soviet Navy became a permanent presence in the Mediterranean. The Middle East occupied a prominent place at or near the top of the Kremlin’s agenda.

But when faced with domestic turmoil and economic difficulties, the Soviet Union in its tumultuous final days drastically cut back overseas engagements, moved to repair relations with the West, and eventually dissolved itself peacefully. After 1991 Russia had little ability or appetite for foreign entanglements as it struggled with a series of crises, and it largely withdrew from the Middle East as a major geopolitical actor.

Still, Russia maintained three important relationships during that era: with Syria, where Russia had a legacy relationship and kept a naval facility; with Iran, where in 1994 Russia contracted to build a nuclear power plant at Bushehr; and with Türkiye, where a robust economic partnership was rapidly developing despite its complicated geopolitical dimension. Yet none of these relationships provided Russia with enough leverage to claim a major geopolitical role in the Middle East.

Throughout the 1990s, Russia continued to sell arms to customers in the Middle East and North Africa. These sales, however, were a means of survival for Russian defense industries that were struggling without domestic orders, rather than an instrument for projecting influence in the region.

Russia’s withdrawal from the region after the Cold War was underscored by the dominant role the United States had assumed in the region. Russia’s absence from the Middle East became the new normal. But the legacy remained, which gave Moscow a latent capability to ramp up the rivalry with the West.

Looking for Friends Old and New

Russia began its comeback in the Middle East on President Vladimir Putin’s watch. He energized Russian-Israeli relations by building personal ties with Israel’s then prime minister Ariel Sharon. Putin portrayed a bloody counterinsurgency campaign in the North Caucasus as Russia’s struggle against terrorism and militant Islam, a shared cause with Israel. Russia joined the Middle East Quartet alongside the UN, the EU, and the United States. In the decade following his 2005 visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Putin traveled extensively throughout the Middle East (including visits to Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia).

Russia’s return to the Middle East took place against the backdrop of deteriorating relations between Russia and the United States and the West in general. The 2003–2011 Iraq War provided Russia with opportunities to criticize the United States for a foreign policy blunder whose negative reverberations are still felt throughout the region.

In a symbolic but important action, in 2005 the Russian government forgave Syria nearly $10 billion in debts that had little chance of being repaid. Later, Russia restored its permanent naval presence to the Mediterranean, moved to upgrade the naval facility in the Syrian port city Tartus, and established its Mediterranean squadron in 2013. All along, it continued to sell arms to long-time customers like Algeria, despite occasional quality problems.

The 2011 Arab Spring presented Russia with another opportunity to boost its reputation with the region’s authoritarian rulers, who were furious over U.S. claims that the Arab Spring represented a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world” and the Barack Obama administration’s decision not to back its long-standing partner, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Long opposed to so-called color revolutions in various parts of the former Soviet Union and suspicious of pro-democracy uprisings, the Kremlin portrayed itself as a steadfast partner to Middle Eastern autocrats.

The Syrian Breakthrough

As Syria plunged into civil war in 2011, Russia stepped up its support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Aside from providing Damascus with diplomatic cover at the United Nations Security Council and shielding it from international sanctions, Russia extended financial assistance, sent military equipment, and shared intelligence.

Russia’s response to the U.S.-led intervention in Libya was initially tempered by the thaw in U.S.-Russian relations during the interim presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. For his part, Putin, then the prime minister of Russia, criticized the intervention harshly, and in the years since, Russian propaganda has highlighted Libya as an example of irresponsible U.S. interventionism and failed regime change policies.

The pivotal moment in Russian reengagement in the Middle East came in 2015 with the country’s military deployment to Syria, in close coordination with Iran, as the Assad regime teetered on the brink of collapse. It was the first Russian military deployment to a war zone outside the territory of the former Soviet Union since Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. It was widely predicted to fail and result in a “quagmire.” But it proved successful.

The bold action accomplished several major goals. Among other things, Moscow:

• saved the Assad regime, thereby proving that it stood by its friends;
• positioned Russia as a military player in the Middle East whose presence the United States could no longer ignore;
• halted U.S. efforts to promote a political transition in Syria;
• assured Russia a long-term presence in the Eastern Mediterranean that it could leverage against two major regional actors— Türkiye and Israel—and use as a springboard to project military power into places like Libya and beyond to the African continent;
• reinforced the long-standing partnership with Iran, a fellow ally of the Assad regime; and
• forced the hand of the Gulf Arab states to deal with Russia as a regional power broker.

The Kremlin also leveraged its economic, military, and diplomatic tools to boost anemic relationships with the Arab states in the Gulf, most importantly Saudi Arabia. In 2016, Russia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to form OPEC+, creating the framework for coordinating their oil price and production strategies. In 2017, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz arrived in Moscow for talks with Putin about oil markets and the war in Syria—the first visit by a Saudi king.

Another key aspect of Russian policy during this period was the blossoming of Russian-Israeli relations. For Russia, Israel was the most powerful Middle Eastern military power, a center of technological innovation of global importance, home to hundreds of thousands of former Soviet and Russian citizens, and a geopolitical actor with influence far in excess of its small size. Russia’s military deployment to Syria made it Israel’s de facto neighbor and an important factor in Israel’s calculations about Iran’s military and nuclear ambitions. The importance of the Russian-Israeli relationship was underscored by the fact that it was managed personally by Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Russian policy was a balancing act that called for managing multiple competing interests: military support for Syria in coordination with Iran; rapprochement with Israel and several Gulf Arab states; and active participation in talks about limiting Iran’s nuclear program, which led to the signing of the Iran nuclear deal. Russia’s reemergence in the Middle East’s power politics was a dramatic reversal of its post–Cold War absence from the region and a direct rebuttal to wishful thinking in the West about a military quagmire in Syria. Putin’s move positioned Russia at the center of a complicated web of relationships, which also included arms sales to Algeria, Egypt, and Iraq and the undisguised desire of the Gulf monarchies to hedge their bets as the United States tried to scale back its role in the region.

The defining feature of Russian policy in the Middle East has been a lack of ambition to move beyond posturing when it comes to the region’s many problems, let alone deploy meaningful capabilities and resources. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia offers no meaningful framework for tackling economic development, promoting an attractive political ideology, or bolstering regional security. Russia’s political leaders, diplomats, and military commanders may be frequent visitors, but they do not aspire to play a decisive role in defusing regional crises.

Russia’s intervention in Syria offers a valuable case in point. It was aimed primarily at propping up the Assad regime, countering U.S. influence in the region, and securing Russia’s foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean, rather than seeking a long-term solution to the country’s divisions, which had led to the civil war. Russia played a useful role in negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal, but it fretted over the possibility that Tehran was primarily interested in resetting relations with the United States and Europe. It has never been Russia’s goal to become the hegemon of the Middle East nor to supplant the United States as the security provider and choreographer of regional diplomacy—with all the attendant burdens, responsibilities, and risks. Rather, Moscow aimed to have a seat at the table (with a vote and, if possible, a veto), to advance its own interests, and to thwart U.S. dominance in the region (which, seen from Moscow, is inherently hostile to Russian interests).

Overall, Russia opted for a careful posture in the Middle East. Its military involvement in Syria consisted largely of an air campaign conducted against Syrian opposition factions that had neither an air force nor air defenses. The Assad regime relied on Iran and Hezbollah, not Russia, to provide boots on the ground. A deadly confrontation with U.S. troops in Deir al-Zour in 2018, which resulted in as many as 300 Russian casualties, involved Wagner Group mercenaries deemed expendable, not regular troops. Russian involvement in Libya was similarly carried out mostly by mercenaries. Even Russia’s financial support for the Assad regime was at least in part structured as payments to Russian companies with murky pedigrees or financing for weapons or other goods and services.

Russia complemented this careful posture with an openness to deal with any and all parties to the region’s conflicts and rivalries. Moscow has both maintained a close and growing partnership with Iran and cooperated with Saudi Arabia on setting the parameters for global oil prices and production targets. It conducted a robust trade relationship with Türkiye and coordinated activities with Iran and Hezbollah in Syria yet turned a blind eye when Israel bombed Iranian and Hezbollah targets inside the country with virtual impunity. All the while Putin and Netanyahu conducted personal diplomacy, and the Russian elite sought deeper engagement with counterparts in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

Among these relationships, three stand out for their importance: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Türkiye. Saudi Arabia is a key ally for Russia, given the role of hydrocarbons as the lifeblood of the Russian economy and Saudi Arabia’s outsized global and regional reach. Iran is a major regional power whose actions have far-ranging consequences and whose influence Moscow has long sought to hem in across the post-Soviet space. Türkiye is a more complicated story. On the one hand, it is an important economic partner and a workaround to bypass Western sanctions. On the other, it is a geopolitical frenemy that provides weapons to Ukraine while also serving as a critical conduit among Russia, Ukraine, and the West in the diplomatic sphere.

A Three-Legged Stool

With the full-scale war in Ukraine well into its third year, Russia’s return to the Middle East is paying off. The caution, the limited objectives, and the modest investments are delivering disproportionate results. All three strategic relationships in the region—with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Türkiye —have paid off.

The relationship with Saudi Arabia is vitally important for Russia. The two countries’ shared interest in oil makes them natural allies. It keeps their economies afloat but also serves as a key instrument of statecraft. They have a vital stake in safeguarding oil’s critical role in the global economy and slowing down the green transition to address climate change. To underscore the importance of this relationship, Putin traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2019, when Saudi leaders were the target of international criticism for the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Putin traveled to Saudi Arabia again in late 2023, at a time when he himself was widely ostracized over the war in Ukraine.

Russia’s partnership with Iran has grown ever closer since the start of the Ukraine war. Often a difficult partner whose interests have diverged from Russia’s, Iran has become indispensable to Moscow’s war effort as a weapons supplier and geopolitical ally. The two countries may not have a formal alliance, but Russia has provided diplomatic cover and other forms of support to Iran and its proxies following Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Russian-Turkish relationship has been reinforced by the shared preference between Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for autocratic governance and the latter’s pursuit of a foreign policy course independent of its NATO allies. While condemning the Russian land grab in Ukraine and supplying weapons to Ukraine, Türkiye did not impose sanctions on Russia and emerged as a key element in Russia’s efforts to bypass Western sanctions and export controls. It has facilitated negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and has exploited its ties to all parties to position itself as a potential power broker. Further afield in Libya, Putin and Erdoğan have built a condominium that entrenches each country’s influence.

Beyond the Big Three

Besides the relationships with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Türkiye, Russia’s investment in contacts throughout the Middle East is paying off. Qatar provides a useful diplomatic outlet for Russia at a time of its estrangement from the West. The UAE, in addition to providing Russia an opportunity to avoid Western economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation, also serves as a partner for Russia to expand its reach in various geopolitical hot spots such as Libya and, more recently, Sudan. Both the UAE and Qatar have access to the highest levels of policymaking in Washington, key European capitals, and Ukraine. Those relationships are useful for Russia’s leaders to keep in reserve. They also have been tapped for issues such as the Black Sea grain deal, prisoner-of-war exchanges, the return of Ukrainian children kidnapped during the war, and an abortive effort to limit strikes on critical infrastructure and energy facilities in Ukraine and Russia.

The sanctions the United States and its allies and partners have imposed on Russia have triggered an unparalleled reordering of Russian trading relationships. Largely banned from Western capitals and financial centers, Russia has redirected some of that business to Gulf Arab capitals and implemented these changes at remarkable scale, scope, and speed. Russian officials and business leaders have cultivated mutually lucrative arrangements and relationships in the Gulf for some time, and since 2022 they have encountered a warm welcome. These Gulf Arab states have also emerged as an alternative destination for Russia’s pleasure-seeking elites after their money was no longer welcome in the West. However, U.S. officials have steadily ratcheted up pressure on Emirati rulers to curb circumvention of Western financial sanctions and transshipments of dual-use items, including through the use of targeted financial sanctions and warnings about the application of secondary sanctions.

The Russian military intervention in Syria has proved consequential as a laboratory for testing new tools for power projection, such as mercenaries or private miliary contractors. The most notorious of these has been the Wagner Group, which has long been involved in Ukraine and Syria. Outside of Syria and Ukraine, Wagner units—rebranded in 2023 as the Africa Corps after the failed rebellion led by their founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin (known by the moniker “Putin’s chef”)—have been deployed in Libya on the side of the Libyan National Army (LNA).

Wagner’s presence in Libya, dating from 2018, is driven by multiple Russian objectives: ensuring access to the oil-rich country, exploiting Libya’s strategic location for challenging the U.S./NATO naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea, and securing a springboard into Africa, where Russia seeks to expand its web of relationships, counter the West’s influence, and distract the West from the war in Ukraine. Indirectly, the deployment reinforces Russia’s relationships with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who also have supported the LNA. The UAE and possibly Saudi Arabia have reportedly financed Wagner’s operations in Libya.

Wagner’s involvement in Libya has been a boon to Russia’s relationship with Egypt. Cairo has warmed toward Russia since the 2013 coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohamed Morsi. Putin has embraced Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as Egypt’s new leader. The two leaders have maintained close relations since then, resulting in a 2014 deal for Egypt to purchase $2 billion in Russian arms and a 2015 agreement for Russia to build a nuclear power plant in Egypt, a project reportedly worth $30 billion, mostly financed by Russia. With a life cycle of many decades, this project is poised to anchor the Russian-Egyptian relationship for a long time.

What Next?

Russia’s foreign policy is unburdened by ethical considerations or moral principles. Its national security apparatus remains nimble and opportunistic, notwithstanding the demands of the war in Ukraine. Moscow is well positioned to sustain and, whenever possible, to expand a web of relationships throughout the Middle East. Russia has turned to the Middle East when its relationship with the West imploded in the wake of its aggression against Ukraine. Political leaders in the Middle East—where authoritarian governance is the norm—have been largely indifferent to the plight of Ukraine and accepted Russia as a convenient partner devoid of reservations or scruples.

For Russia and its partners, this turn of events has been a win-win, as rewards come in the form of upgraded security relationships, geopolitical gains, influence over the direction of the global economy and energy markets, and the creation of new supply chains and financial flows free from the constraints of U.S.- and European-led sanctions and export controls. But is this a permanent shift in Russian foreign policy? How long will it last? After all, the importance of the Middle East to Russia since 2022 has grown mostly as a by-product of the breakdown in relations with the West, which promises to last well beyond Putin’s time at the helm.

Russia’s new or renewed relationships established since its return to the region in the early 2000s have served it well, and the possibility of repairing ties with the West does not preclude a continued, robust engagement with the Middle East. If one were to imagine a reversal in Russia’s position in the Middle East, it is more likely to be due to changes in the region itself than to Russia severing its ties there.

Russia remains a well-resourced economy with a powerful military and defense-industrial base, despite the setbacks suffered during the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin retains the ambition to act on the world stage and to project power and influence beyond its periphery. That, combined with its rivalry with the West, will translate into a continuing and influential presence in the Middle East.

For the foreseeable future, Russia’s expanded presence in the Middle East presents a nagging problem for the West. Moscow has disregarded and cast aside the few remaining guardrails and global norms. By acting as a rogue power with a global reach, today’s Russia feels comfortable flouting its nonproliferation commitments and supporting rebel groups such as Hamas and the Houthis. At the same time, it is necessary to recognize that Russia is not the author of the enormous security problems facing Israel and other U.S. partners in the region. Nor is it driving Iran’s nuclear ambitions; it is only facilitating them. Nor is it the reason behind Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.

Any Western détente with Russia will do little to address the root causes of those problems. Unfortunately, the United States and its allies will find it difficult to choke off disruptive Russian behavior or to curb its growing alignment with countries like Iran. In the meantime, the Kremlin will be eager to identify new tools and sources of leverage against the United States in the period of confrontation and testing that lies ahead. Thwarting such efforts and minimizing the headaches that a belligerent Russia seeks to capitalize upon in various parts of a restive Middle East will remain a preoccupation for Western policymakers for a long time to come.