Russia’s Strategic Losses Are the US’ Gain in Eurasia
By Mamuka Tsereteli
A weakened Russia is still a Russia that is more comfortable with taking risks.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has produced a paradox for US strategy: it has significantly reduced Russia’s strategic long-term power while hardening Moscow into a more dangerous, risk-tolerant adversary for the United States and its allies and partners in Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia. The challenge for policymakers is to lock in the strategic setbacks Russia has incurred—geopolitical, economic, demographic, and technological—while managing escalation risks and preparing for a prolonged confrontation in the Russian neighborhood.
Russia’s most serious long-term strategic vulnerabilities are structural: adverse demographics, growing dependence on and asymmetry with China, and persistent risks of Islamic radicalism and separatism in the North Caucasus, the Volga region, and parts of Siberia. NATO enlargement, often presented by the Kremlin as an existential threat, has served more as a domestic mobilization tool than as Russia’s most acute security challenge. Yet the narrative of Western encirclement and historical invasions was a central ideological driver of the decision to attack Ukraine in 2022; it must be taken seriously when assessing both Russia’s losses and its adaptive gains.
Four years later, Russia has failed to achieve its declared objectives in Ukraine and has instead exacerbated nearly all of its long-term strategic weaknesses. At the same time, it has adapted militarily and politically in ways that complicate Western assumptions about coercion, deterrence, and the durability of authoritarian war economies.
Russia's Wartime Resilience and Adaptation
Militarily, Russia today has a more combat-effective force than on the eve of the invasion, despite massive losses. Its armed forces have adapted to large-scale attritional warfare, integrating drones, electronic warfare, artillery, air defenses, and glide bombs into a coherent operational system optimized for prolonged, high-intensity conflict in its neighborhood.
Economically, sanctions have constrained access to advanced technology but failed to collapse Russia’s war-making capacity. Most Russian missiles still contain Western components, indicating that Russia has found ways to circumvent sanctions. Moscow has rapidly expanded munitions and drone production, relying on simpler designs, stockpiles, and third-country supply chains. This experience calls into question assumptions that broad economic pressure alone can quickly neutralize the military capabilities of such a large, mobilized authoritarian state.
Politically, the Kremlin has used the war to tighten internal control, suppress dissent, and bind elites more closely to regime survival. The absence of large-scale unrest despite military mobilization and high casualties indicates a degree of internal resilience that Western observers underestimated and suggests that regime stability cannot be assumed to erode simply because of the costs of an extended war.
Russia has also learned to incorporate Western domestic politics into its strategy, banking on legislative delays, industrial bottlenecks, and public fatigue in the United States and Europe. For policy purposes, this underscores that timelines favor actors with fewer internal constraints and that adversaries are actively planning around perceived Western political fragility.
Large-scale emigration adds another layer. The departure of hundreds of thousands of skilled Russians has created globally dispersed communities embedded in allied economies that present a persistent counter-intelligence and sanctions-evasion challenge. This is less an immediate security crisis than a slow-burning vulnerability that will require long-term attention from intelligence, law enforcement, and financial regulation communities.
Russia is Losing Its Periphery
Geopolitically, the war has produced outcomes directly contrary to Moscow’s core stated aims. Russia sought to halt NATO enlargement and push Western forces away from its borders; instead, Finland and Sweden have joined the alliance, bringing capable militaries and advanced economies into NATO’s fold. Finland’s accession alone adds more than 1,000 miles of NATO-Russia border and transforms Northern Europe into a reinforced, integrated theater for allied defense planning. This represents a net strategic gain for the United States and its allies, achieved without direct combat with Russian forces.
Even more consequential is the transformation of Ukraine. After four years of large-scale war, Ukraine now has one of Europe’s most experienced, innovative, and resilient land forces. In practice, it functions as a de facto frontline NATO partner, anchoring the defense of Europe’s eastern flank and extending allied strategic depth eastward even without formal membership.
From Moscow’s perspective, this is a strategic nightmare. Instead of a neutral or pliable neighbor, Russia now faces a hostile, permanently militarized state that constrains its military options across Eastern Europe. From a Western perspective, Ukraine represents a cost-effective force multiplier, in which relatively modest budgetary support yields substantial increases in Russian military attrition and in European security. This is a major strategic benefit for the United States in any future relationship with Russia, whether adversarial or friendly.
Russia has also lost influence across the post-Soviet space. Its failure to prevent renewed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan severely damaged its credibility as a security guarantor in the South Caucasus. It opened space for deeper EU and, most importantly, US engagement. In Central Asia, governments are increasingly hedging among Russia, China, the EU, Turkey, and the United States, taking advantage of Moscow’s reduced capacity to enforce its preferences.
Meanwhile, Russia’s position in Syria and parts of the Middle East has eroded as other actors, including Turkey and the United States, test and expose the limits of Russian power projection. Recent developments in Venezuela and the Russian shadow oil fleet further damage Russia’s international reputation and mythology of its “global power” capacity.
These trends collectively undermine Russia’s claim to be the indispensable security arbiter in its neighborhood and reduce its ability to trade regional influence for concessions in Europe or elsewhere. For US policy, they create openings for calibrated engagement in the South Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East, where modest investments in diplomacy, security assistance, and economic connectivity can yield outsized strategic returns.
Russia’s list of strategic losses includes demography and human capital. According to CSIS, Russian forces have suffered approximately 1.2 million casualties, including as many as 325,000 killed, since February 2022. A sizable share of young men are no longer able to join the labor force and form families. The casualty rates are higher in areas populated by ethnic minorities, increasing discontent with the federal government in those areas, and igniting separatist feelings in the North Caucasus, Volga region, and Siberia.
Emigration has compounded these battlefield losses. Estimates vary, but it is clear that hundreds of thousands left after February 2022 to avoid mobilization and for political and economic reasons. These flows have disproportionately involved young, urban, highly educated professionals: engineers, programmers, scientists, finance specialists, and entrepreneurs.
Economic trends reinforce the picture of Russian strategic losses. Following the 2023–2024 growth driven by defense spending, Russia’s GDP growth slowed sharply in 2025. Budget deficits are growing. Oil revenues, initially resilient, are now subject to structural pressures from price caps, discounts on Russian crude, stricter enforcement of sanctions, and unfavorable exchange-rate developments.
The most significant loss is that of natural gas exports. Before the war, Russia supplied 40 percent of EU gas consumption; by early 2023, pipeline deliveries had fallen by roughly 90 percent from historical levels, and exports dropped from about 142 bcm in 2021 to 31 bcm in 2024, further reduced to 18 bcm in 2025.
Russia’s pre-war model of energy leverage over Europe has effectively collapsed. Increased volumes to China and continued exports to Turkey and some post-Soviet markets cannot fully compensate for the loss of volume or political leverage.
The Ukraine War's Implications for US Partners in the Caucasus and Central Asia
The war has imposed profound demographic, economic, technological, and geopolitical costs on Russia, many of them structural and not easily reversible. Yet Russia is not strategically broken: it has adapted militarily, reoriented its economy toward war, and demonstrated political resilience. The United States, therefore, faces a Russia that is weaker in aggregate power but more experienced in high-intensity warfare, more dependent on China, and more willing to accept risk.
US strategy must therefore treat Russia not as a declining power to be waited out, but as a weakened yet embittered adversary that will remain capable of sustained confrontation, particularly if supported by China. A major strategic question for the United States is whether Russia can still be decoupled from China, or whether this has become a lost cause.
The next major risk from post-war Russia will be its desire to restore its position of power in parts of the post-Soviet space. Russia will most likely continue to conduct coercive operations in the Baltics, testing NATO’s cohesion. However, its primary focus will be on neighbors in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, where Russia retains greater influence and expects less resistance.
The key case to watch this year is Armenia. Upcoming parliamentary elections in June create opportunities for manipulation to generate chaos and instability. Armenia is currently perhaps the most significant irritant to Russia in the former Soviet space. Some Russian propagandists have already called for a “Special Military Operation” in Armenia, similar to the invasion of Ukraine. The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) project—connecting mainland Azerbaijan with the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan and onward to Turkey via Armenian territory—represents a major strategic challenge for both Russia and Iran.
On January 13, 2026, US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Armenian foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan announced a TRIPP Implementation Framework (TIF) following their meeting in Washington. US vice president JD Vance then visited Armenia and Azerbaijan, emphasizing the strategic level of engagement.
While Russia has not expressed open opposition to the project, this level of US engagement in the South Caucasus runs counter to Russian strategic interests. Russia still maintains significant leverage over Armenia: it operates a military base in Gyumri and controls major strategic assets, including the country’s railway system and energy infrastructure. Russia also possesses significant soft-power tools to influence Armenian elections.
US interests in resource-rich Central Asia dictate American leadership in Black Sea-Caspian connectivity. A strategy focused on targeted diplomacy, infrastructure initiatives, and security cooperation can balance Russia’s residual influence without requiring large-scale US engagement. The United States has already taken several proactive steps. The TRIPP project is a powerful signal, and inviting Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to the G20 Summit in Miami in 2026 is another move to elevate the region’s global significance. The next step should be to build on the TRIPP and C5+1 initiatives and expand the political scope of TRIPP to encompass the entire Black Sea-Trans-Caspian connectivity space, covering energy, minerals, fertilizers, data, and related sectors.
Finally, time in the Ukraine War is not neutral. Prolonged conflict tends to benefit actors capable of suppressing dissent, mobilizing societies, and absorbing losses more resiliently. This is placing democratic coalitions at a structural disadvantage unless they adapt politically, militarily, and economically. The central task for US policy is to convert Russia’s current losses into durable strategic realities while preparing institutions, alliances, and industrial and infrastructure bases for a prolonged period of strategic competition in Europe and Eurasia.
About the Author:
Mamuka Tsereteli is a senior fellow for Eurasia at the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) and a senior fellow at AFPC’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. He has more than thirty years of experience in academia, diplomacy, and business development, with a focus on economic security, business, and energy development in the Black Sea-Caspian region. Previously, he served as a research director at CACI and as a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He also directed the Center for Black Sea-Caspian Studies at the School of International Service (SIS) at American University (2009-2013) and served as an assistant professor at SIS (2007-2011). Dr. Tsereteli is also a co-founder of the American University Kyiv, a newly established university in Ukraine, in partnership with Arizona State University.
Read the article here: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/silk-road-rivalries/russias-military-losses-are-the-us-gain-in-central-asia
A Political Inflection Point in Georgia
The Republic of Georgia faces a critical juncture ahead of parliamentary elections in October 2024 as escalating political tensions, driven by the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party's increasingly authoritarian tendencies, threaten the country’s democratic future and its pro-Western trajectory. This situation demands a nuanced understanding of Georgia's complex political landscape and a strategic response from Western partners. Here, a number of trends are noteworthy.
The first is democratic backsliding and a consolidation of authoritarian power. Georgian Dream, once a self-identified social democratic reformist coalition, has embraced right-wing populism and consolidated power in recent years. Its controversial "foreign agent" law, which went into force on August 1st, is clearly aimed at silencing critical NGOs and media ahead of national elections, and represents a blatant attempt to curtail media freedom, target civil society, and suppress dissent.
These policies, which are closely aligned with Russian information operations in the region, are reminiscent of cyclical patterns in Georgia's contemporary history – entailing "democratic breakthrough, democratic advance, democratic rollback, authoritarian consolidation, regime weakening, and regime collapse." Today, the country appears headed for another round of the same. This pattern reflects entrenched challenges in Georgia's political culture, including a tendency towards centralization of power, a disconnect between elites and the broader population, and a zero-sum approach to politics where losing power is seen as an existential threat.
The second are the shifting power dynamics in Georgian society. A new generation, disillusioned by GD's policies and yearning for a European future, is at the forefront of today’s opposition, shifting the locus of resistance from traditional political parties to street protests. Youth see the West as Georgia's only viable path, but their impact is limited by their concentration in the national capital, easy disillusionment and high standards, as well as potential election apathy or disorganization. Despite these potential pitfalls, this generational divide creates a possible opportunity for a new political class to emerge, uniting youth activism with experienced civil society actors. This could happen, post-election, if the remnants of the old elite political class emigrate amid government crackdown.
Third, we are witnessing an erosion of public trust. In recent months, governmental actions have played on existing societal issues like corruption, inequality, and a sense of injustice, fueling widespread discontent and emigration. Nevertheless, the opposition is currently weak and disorganized, and has not shown any focus on these issues. Opposition dynamics continue to be largely centered on mostly unpopular personalities in the political elite, rather than any particular socio-political movement. However, popular discontent with GD has crested because of its anti-Western and anti-democratic positions, which gives even a fractured opposition a potential opportunity heading into the elections. The escalating use of force against largely peaceful protesters has only deepened the chasm between the government and the people. Emigration from Georgia doubled in 2023, primarily driven by those seeking work abroad. And Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index indicates a notable three point decline for Georgia over the past year.
Finally, there is a misunderstanding of how Georgians see "The West." U.S. foreign policy professionals often underestimate the deep-seated resentment towards the former ruling party, the United National Movement (UNM), and overestimate the depth of pro-Western sentiment in Georgia. The prevalent narrative of overwhelming pro-Western sentiment in Georgia, often quantified as 80-85% support, is simplistic and in some respects misleading, ignoring complex realities on the ground. While the pro-west moorings of the population are resilient, they are tempered by popular frustration with Western inattention and popular prioritization of local socioeconomic issues.
Western actors bear some responsibility for this state of affairs, often equating Westernization with superficial markers like proficiency in English. The West has also largely taken pro-west sentiments for granted, and shown little initiative to integrate Georgia into Euro-Atlantic structures – giving anti-Western actors an opportunity to gain ground. Moreover, for a certain segment of the Georgian population that is quite poor and lists economic issues at the top of its concern, support for the West is shallow. For these voters, the populist, right-wing narrative (stressing order, stability, unity, and control over culture,) may be more comfortable and understandable.
HIGH STAKES FOR THE FUTURE OF GEORGIAN DEMOCRACY
Against this backdrop, the upcoming parliamentary elections are crucial, with a high likelihood of GD resorting to fraud to maintain its grip on power. As such, the potential for post-election unrest and violence is significant, with a legitimate risk of external actors, particularly Russia, exploiting the instability for their own benefit. As a result, the U.S., historically (though unintentionally) indifferent to the nuances of Georgian politics, now faces a critical inflection point in its relationship with Georgia.
Here, a nuanced American policy – one that strengthens democratic institutions, imposes consequences for anti-democratic behavior, and doubles down on support for Georgia’s pluralistic development – would go a long way toward setting Tbilisi on the right path once more. By leveraging diplomatic, economic, and security tools, the U.S. and its allies can play a crucial role in supporting Georgia's democratic future. But this support must be coupled with a clear-eyed assessment of the challenges involved, and with a willingness to impose concrete consequences for democratic backsliding.
Ultimately, it remains up to Georgians to seize this moment and chart a course towards a more stable, prosperous, and democratic future. Washington’s job is to give them the tools to do so.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Laura Linderman is Senior Fellow and Program Manager at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute of the American Foreign Policy Council.
Joe Biden’s Approach To Eurasia Is Stuck In The Past
By Svante Cornell
December 22, 2022
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/12/joe-bidens-approach-to-eurasia-is-stuck-in-the-past/
With considerable pomp and circumstance, the Biden administration recently unveiled its signature National Security Strategy. The document, intended as an authoritative expression of the Administration’s priorities in the field of foreign affairs, pays extensive attention to the great power challenges posed by China and Russia, framing them as the greatest threats to contemporary American security.
Yet, in spite of this, the new Biden strategy pays scant attention to the region located between those two Eurasian behemoths – Central Asia – or to the countries that reside in it.
This makes no sense. If the U.S. aspires to answer the challenges posed by Russia and China, how can it ignore the part of the world where those two powers meet? Chinese and/or Russian domination of Central Asia would effectively enable powers hostile to the United States to connect southward and westward to South Asia and the Middle East, and thus shift the balance of power on the entire Eurasian continent. This would empower their partner, Iran, and lead hesitant or wayward American partners (such as Turkey and India) to reconsider their loyalties. Moreover, if it is locked out of Central Asia, America’s ability to respond to crises on the Eurasian continent would be diminished. This would stand in stark contrast to September 2001, when the U.S. was able to rapidly mount a campaign against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan from bases in Central Asia.
Biden, though, is hardly unique. He joins a long list of presidents who have proven unable to approach Central Asia strategically. There are probably many reasons for this dysfunction, but at its root lies a conceptual problem: U.S. policymakers have historically been unable to decide where the region fits in their mental map of the world.
The different iterations of the National Security Strategy, or NSS, provide ample evidence of this. The first NSS to mention Central Asia is the 2006 version, issued by the George W. Bush Administration. Under the novel heading of “South and Central Asia,” an explicit effort to center U.S. policy on Afghanistan, it termed the region “an enduring priority for our foreign policy.” By contrast, the Obama administration’s first NSS, published four years later, did not so much as mention Central Asia. Obama’s second, in 2015, made an oblique reference to the region in a passage on India and Pakistan. Central Asia reappeared in the Trump administration’s 2018 NSS, again under a “South and Central Asia” heading, with the emphasis being on counterterrorism and building a region “resilient against domination by rival powers.” But the Biden administration’s NSS inexplicably puts Central Asia at the very end of the “Europe” heading.
These shifts mirror fluctuations in the U.S. national security bureaucracy. The Bush administration’s National Security Council put Central Asia together with South Asia, paralleling the new Bureau of South and Central Asian affairs at the State Department. But the Obama NSC put Central Asia under the Senior Director for Russian Affairs. Trump then moved it back to South Asia. Biden, like Obama, has again placed Central Asia under Russia. But these changes were not echoed at the State Department. Thus, for most of the past two decades, the NSC and the State Department have treated Central Asia as part of different continents. It’s a small wonder, therefore, that America has failed to develop a coherent approach to the region.
This disconnect has real-world consequences. Most glaringly, Central Asia has been missing from America’s policies to counter nefarious Chinese activities in Asia – perhaps because the Obama and Biden administrations did not even see it as part of Asia. Never mind that Chinese President Xi Jinping announced his flagship Belt & Road Initiative in the capital of Kazakhstan in 2013, and made the region the destination of his first foreign trip after his two-year, COVID-induced isolation.
The Biden NSS emphasizes its support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Central Asian states. But it fails to mention security matters in its policy prescriptions for the region. By contrast, the document’s approach to the Middle East reassures that “the United States will support and strengthen partnerships with countries that subscribe to the rules-based international order, and we will make sure those countries can defend themselves against foreign threats.” Such language would have been quite appropriate for Central Asia as well, signaling a real commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity.
This tepid state of affairs is no longer tenable if indeed it ever was. It is high time for the U.S. government to finally make a lasting determination on how it views Central Asia’s role in connection to America’s interests concerning China, Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. It is time for the United States to finally view Central Asia in its own right, rather than as an appendix to something else. Doing so means engaging actively on security matters in the region, deepening political and economic dialogues with regional states, and more adroitly countering Moscow and Beijing’s overtures there.
Heads of State from Japan, India, Turkey, and South Korea have all visited Central Asia in recent years, showing their understanding of the region’s growing importance. In October, the European Union raised its own level of interaction with Central Asia to the same level. Meanwhile, Central Asia has never been visited by a U.S. President. The sooner this changes, the sooner America will be able to truly confront Russian and Chinese influence in one of the world’s most critical regions.
Svante E. Cornell joined the American Foreign Policy Council as Senior Fellow for Eurasia in January 2017. He also serves as the Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, and a co-founder of the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. His main areas of expertise are security issues, state-building, and transnational crime in Southwest and Central Asia, with a specific focus on the Caucasus and Turkey. He is the Editor of the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, the Joint Center’s bi-weekly publication, and of the Joint Center’s Silk Road Papers series of occasional papers.
Security Services: Moscow's Fifth Column Across Eurasia
One of the main tools of Russian influence across Central Asia remains poorly understood.
S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell
The Diplomat, January 17, 2020
Since Vladimir Putin came to power twenty years ago, much ink has been spent detailing the role of the security services in Russian politics, and it is generally accepted that the Putin regime essentially is a result of the Soviet-era KGB's takeover of the Russian state. But few have connected this to Russian foreign policy in its neighborhood. Meanwhile, many observers have puzzled over the reluctance of former Soviet states to embrace political reform or liberalization. Many have connected this to Russia's active opposition to greater openness and political participation in neighboring states. But few have ventured into specifics – how does Russia make its influence felt? Who is the "enforcer" with the power and resolve to translate Moscow's words into action?
Greater Eurasia: Russia's Asian Fantasy
S. Frederick Starr
Kennan Cable No. 46, January 15, 2020
Is there a grand strategy that informs Russia’s activities abroad and, if so, what is it? For years it seemed that President Putin based his foreign policy mainly on his 2005 statement to the Russian nation that the collapse of the Soviet empire “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” The task of Russian policy was therefore to reclaim by whatever means necessary as much control over former Soviet territories as possible. This led to his seizure of Georgian territory in 2008, his Crimean grab of 2014, and his armed incursions into eastern Ukraine in 2014-2019. More recently, it has led to his forcing Kyrgyzstan to join his politics-driven Eurasian Economic Union and his current bullying of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to follow suit.
In practice, Russia’s foreign moves in places as diverse as Eastern Europe, Syria, and Africa seem to be guided more by opportunism than strategy. This has not sat well with some members of Moscow’s policy-oriented intelligentsia. Modern Russia, after all, is heir to a half millennium of messianic ideologies that justified and encouraged the expansion of territories under Moscow’s rule. Whether building the Third Rome, destroying the Tatars, placing the Cross of St. Vladimir atop the Hagia Sofia in Constantinople, building a Holy Alliance against future Napoleons, protecting Europe against revolution in 1848, conquering Muslim Central Asia in the 1860s, or aspiring to Sovietize Eastern Europe under Stalin, ideas, not mere opportunism, have driven Russia’s actions abroad. Even as Putin repeated his assertion about the collapse of the USSR, a deficit of theory was forming in Moscow’s foreign policy circles.
Image via Kennan Cable No. 46: Greater Eurasia: Russia's Asian Fantasy
