The Thaw on Russia’s Periphery Has Already Started

Russia’s self-inflicted diminishment is, in many ways, a continuation of a process that began with the collapse of the Soviet empire. When the Soviet Union ceased to exist more than three decades ago, the ripple effects of evaporated Soviet power included wars in the Caucasus, the consolidation of power by strongmen in Central Asia, and two brutal wars in Chechnya. In essence, these were postcolonial conflicts, just as Russia is attempting to restore imperial control over Ukraine today. In a different way, the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and the conflicts that followed were also related to the collapse of the Soviet Union—if less directly. As the Cold War ended, Yugoslavia’s importance on the strategic chessboard declined. It was, at least in part, this vacuum and resulting lack of Western interest that allowed Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic to exploit domestic divisions for ethnic conflict.

Therefore, even as Western analysts and officials warn against placing too much hope on a quick Ukrainian victory, Russian power and influence is already visibly weakened. Russia is not withdrawing so much as it is deflating. Consequently, there is a kind of giant geopolitical sucking sound all around Russia’s periphery—from Eastern Europe to Central Asia—as a diminished Russia creates a vacuum that could unsettle an already fragile status quo.

We don’t know how exactly this war will end, but we do know that Russia will not win. Even if Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strained mobilization of hundreds of thousands of inexperienced new troops leads to some tactical wins, his invasion of Ukraine is already a strategic loss. Russia is weakened economically, politically, and militarily. Putin has ensured a painful winter in Europe but hastened Europe’s energy diversification and transition. The Russian military’s failures and resort to widespread atrocities have exposed Moscow’s conventional military capabilities as a Potemkin force. We can only imagine what the Chinese are thinking today about their de facto ally—or how the Turkish general staff is now recalculating Ankara’s strategic options in the Black Sea region and beyond. If Putin were to follow through on his threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, it would only compound his strategic defeat.

Since Putin came to power, his progressively authoritarian regime has attempted to project Russian power all throughout the former Soviet space. His policies have been fueled by a combination of a desire to reassert control over the Soviet Union’s former territories, which he doesn’t see as legitimate or fully sovereign states, and his deeply held fear that democratic awakenings in any of them might be contagious. In Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, Russia has created—or maintained—so-called frozen conflicts to use as leverage points and bargaining chips. Putin’s war against Ukraine, from its start in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea through its massive escalation in February, shares many elements of this approach, hypercharged by a genocidal denial that a Ukrainian nation, language, and culture even exists.

Putin’s strategic loss in Ukraine may now loosen Russia’s grip. The lost war in Ukraine has put Russia’s future political development and security arrangements into focus. With the diminishment of Russian prestige and power, the geopolitical landscape across Eurasia could prove dynamic.

Take Azerbaijan and Armenia. Putin’s use of natural gas supplies as a political weapon against Europe has been a boon for Azerbaijan and its own authoritarian leader, Ilham Aliyev. Putin’s war has raised the price of Azerbaijan’s key export even as European leaders have courted the country in their rush to diversify supplies. Thus emboldened—and sensing Russia’s distraction with the war in Ukraine—Azerbaijan attacked Armenia last month in the most significant outbreak of violence since the two countries’ 2020 war. As of late September, Armenian officials reported more than 200 of its soldiers as killed and nearly 300 soldiers injured.

The 2020 war ended with a Moscow-brokered agreement and Russian peacekeepers deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh, the long-contested majority-Armenian territory in Azerbaijan. The latest fighting, however, didn’t end at a Russian negotiating table, even though Armenia had appealed to Russia, its traditional patron, to intercede. As Armenian Security Council chair Armen Grigoryan confirmed during his visit to Washington on Sept. 26, it was U.S. diplomacy that took the place of Moscow’s this time. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Grigoryan said, was “personally involved and on the phone with both sides.” U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Yerevan, the Armenian capital, to demonstrate support.

Even though much of the West’s attention has focused on Aliyev apparently seizing the moment, even to the point of potentially overplaying his hand, that is not what’s remarkable about Russia’s loss of influence. More significant in the long term is that Armenia seems to have given up, at least for now, on Russia as a security guarantor and is looking to the West for political support—and receiving it. That could have profound influences on the region’s post-Russian future. If it comes to a stable Armenian-Azerbaijani border deal—as some reports indicate—it will be brokered at the Western table. Russia, at this point, is in no position to be either a broker or guarantor.

Or look at Georgia to calibrate the potential effects of waning Russian influence. After the 2003 Rose Revolution, and especially at the time of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, Georgia had the hopes and sympathy of many in the West who saw the small country on the Black Sea as emblematic of the potential for democratic progress in the Caucasus—and Russia’s determination to squelch it. In many ways, the Kremlin’s puppet republics in Ukraine’s Donbas region derived from its Georgia playbook. Russia has occupied Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions since the 2008 war and is adept at using the occupation as a way to exert political leverage over—and deny progress to—the Georgian government.

Now that Moscow has wrapped itself around the axle of its disastrous war in Ukraine, Georgia might have the opportunity to press forward with democratic reforms and further orient itself toward the West. Unfortunately, the country’s democracy has receded significantly in recent years. The government is largely controlled by a billionaire with significant ties to Russia and a moderate view toward Moscow: former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose Georgian Dream party has dominated the political scene since 2012. Virulent polarization has gripped the country, corruption is on the rise, and the space for civil society and independent media is shrinking. The Georgian government has lashed out at the U.S. ambassador despite the United States’ role as Georgia’s most important security partner. Against this background, Georgia was not on the list when Ukraine and Moldova were made European Union candidate countries in June.

Although the recession of Russian power, precipitated by strategic defeat in Ukraine, creates space for Georgia to deepen its ties with the West, Georgia’s toxic political culture makes it more of a political island than it needs to be.

For Moldova, Putin’s unraveling couldn’t come at a better time. After unexpectedly electing Maia Sandu, a charismatic, young reformer, as president in late 2020, Moldova now appears poised for progress. Its new status as an EU candidate means it has jumped the queue for Western integration despite having one of Russia’s frozen conflicts on its territory.

For three decades, Russia has stationed troops and stored weapons in Transnistria, the slice of Moldova that lies between the Dniester river and the Ukrainian border. There, Moscow has bankrolled and loosely controlled a puppet government with colorful, clownish leaders. In recent years, the Moldovan government has sought to remove barriers for Transnistrians to access the economy on the other side of the river on the theory that reintegration was more likely to come from engaging them than from trying to evict the Russians.

If Moldova—with EU and U.S. support—can really make progress on rule of law and economic development, its attractiveness to residents of Transnistria will be even better. Time will tell whether those elements of Moldova’s own political scene that have historically been underwritten by Russian corruption will find Moscow’s checkbook as generous as before the war. In any case, Putin’s focus on salvaging his lost war in Ukraine could create the space Moldova needs to move forward with less of Russia’s incessant sabotage. One should always temper optimism—after all, there are still Russian weapons and soldiers in Transnistria who would need to leave somehow—but of Russia’s frozen conflicts, Moldova is the most likely to find a resolution in the coming years. Motivated democratic actors are stepping up, whereas Putin is on the back foot.

The Balkans, where Moscow has a long history of stoking conflict, have much to gain from a pullback of Russian influence. Putin has cultivated a relationship with Serbian leader Aleksander Vucic, and Russian public diplomacy has successfully engaged a significant part of the Serbian public. Vucic has played a successful game of balancing Russian, European, U.S., and Chinese interests in the country, playing them against one another to advance his own agenda. Russia’s decline as a result of the war may increase Vucic’s interest in economic ties with Beijing while also making his government more likely to work constructively with Brussels and Washington. Still, it’s far from clear that Vucic has the personal inclination or the political space to resolve Serbia’s outstanding issues related to Kosovo—a prerequisite for Serbia’s full European integration.

Putin’s long-standing habit of stoking conflict means the West must pay attention to the Balkans even as Russia is wrapped up in Ukraine. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia’s longtime support for Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik could be the fuse that Putin tries to light as a way of making problems for Europe. Dodik recently met with Putin and offered support for the sham referendums that Russia used to purportedly annex four Ukrainian oblasts last month. Bosnia and Herzegovina is notoriously politically fragile, in part because the country failed to adopt—and external partners failed to adequately support—a workable long-term constitutional framework. In another twist on his frozen conflict playbook, Putin could, for example, encourage Dodik to declare his intention to formally merge Republika Srpska, the majority-Serbian region within the country, with Serbia. There is plenty of competition for White House attention these days, but a presidential or vice presidential visit to Sarajevo, the capital, could send a valuable signal.

Which of these or other dominoes will fall—and when and how? It is too soon to predict the ultimate fallout of Russia’s certain strategic defeat, partly because it is not clear how severe the defeat will be. And although dominoes certainly fall in geopolitics, they don’t always fall how one expects. International politics isn’t physics: The forces bringing about geopolitical outcomes are more varied and the rules less reliable.

What seems certain, though, is that a phase of geopolitical plasticity elevates the importance of diplomacy, which now has a greater opportunity to have an impact in how the dominoes will fall. Therefore, although the West is primarily focused on its response to Russia’s war against Ukraine and the war’s impacts on energy supplies and inflation, the United States and Europe should not miss the chance to quietly but energetically exploit Russia’s colossal strategic mistake to work toward a better status quo—and avoid a worse one—in the places where Russia’s now-receding power projection has proven so nefarious and calcifying in the past.