The Ukraine war causes Russia to lose its friends…and reduces its global influence

Since he began an all-out war on Ukraine more than four years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not only failed to achieve the military victory he longed for, but he has also undermined a host of other relationships he had spent decades building, leaving Russia in a state of isolation not seen since the early days of the Bolshevik Revolution.

The Ukraine war alone was enough to cause a rift between Russia and its ally Kazakhstan. After all, Putin has a history of downplaying Kazakhstan’s reasons for independence and suggesting that its people want closer relations with Russia, claims similar to those the Russian president makes about Ukraine.

So, after the 2022 war, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev rejected the Kremlin’s requests for help, later telling Putin that Kazakhstan would not recognize Russia-backed separatist regions in Ukraine.

He also signed a military cooperation agreement with Turkey, becoming the first member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, led by Russia, to conclude such an agreement with a member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Although Putin’s relationship with Tokayev has improved since then, this likely reflects the fact that both sides still need each other.

Then comes Armenia. When Azerbaijan launched a military operation in September 2023 to control “Nagorno-Karabakh,” the enclave with an Armenian majority within its territory, the Russian peacekeeping forces stationed there did not move a finger, and the entire population of the enclave (about 100,000 people) was forced to flee.

Within a year, Armenia announced plans to withdraw from the CSTO, and began purchasing weapons from France and India. Russia withdrew its peacekeeping forces from the region ahead of schedule.

Fatal errors

The Kremlin changed its relationship with Azerbaijan, which benefited from its position on Armenia. In December 2024, a Russian surface-to-air missile hit an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane, killing 38 people. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev called on the Kremlin for compensation and accountability, but Putin refused to acknowledge the mistake for nearly a year.

Aliyev snubbed Putin by missing Russia’s annual military parade on the occasion of Victory Day in World War II in May 2025. Russian special forces launched a deadly raid targeting ethnic Azerbaijanis in Russia’s Yekaterinburg region, while Azerbaijan raided the office of Russian state media agency Sputnik in Baku and arrested its employees. But Azerbaijan is a vital trade corridor for Iran, which until its war in February was supplying Russia with drones. And ballistic missiles for war in Ukraine.

From the tsars to the Soviets, Kremlin leaders have for centuries skillfully handled tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, since the start of Putin’s war in Ukraine, relations with both have become increasingly tense.

Embarrassing influence

The story of Russian influence in Africa is embarrassing. Before the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Wagner’s mercenaries were working to expand Russian influence across the African continent, where they were exchanging security contracts for political loyalty and mining rights. In Mali, for example, mercenaries presented themselves as a mainstay of military rulers in their war against armed rebels.

But in 2024, Tuareg rebels ambushed a military convoy containing members of the Malian army and members of “Wagner” near Tinzawatn, killing dozens of Russian mercenaries.

Subsequently, gunmen attacked the airport and the police academy in Bamako. It has become difficult to defend the narrative that Wagner was making Mali safer. While some forces, renamed the Africa Corps, remained in Mali after Wagner officially left last June, they have also withdrawn now.

Alternative deals

Things are no better for Putin in Europe. Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is loyal to Russia, lost the election after 16 years in power. For his part, Serbian President, Aleksandar Vucic, was dealing with the Kremlin calmly, although Serbia initially seemed to support the Russian war on Ukraine. However, Vucic has since met with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, several times, and sent ammunition worth at least $908 million to Ukraine via third countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Poland).

Vucic also canceled military contracts with Russian arms suppliers, and instead signed a $3.2 billion deal with France to buy 12 Rafale fighter jets, but Putin has so far chosen not to respond, as the last thing he needs is to consolidate the loss of one of his last apparent allies in Europe.

Meanwhile, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a longtime ally of Putin, has released political prisoners in an attempt to improve relations with the West, and has even made contact with US President Donald Trump. While Lukashenko is not severing his ties with the Kremlin, he is upping the ante further.

“marriage of convenience”

Then there is China. Before the Ukraine war, Russia and China presented themselves as great powers resisting Western hegemony, and promoted their “borderless partnership” just before the war. But the relationship today looks more like an unequal “marriage of convenience” than an alliance between two equal powers.

China supplies Russia with dual-use goods such as microelectronics and machine tools, but not weapons, while Russia sells oil and gas to China at discounted prices.

Although Chinese President Xi Jinping seeks to establish stable and constructive relations with the US President, he fundamentally disagrees with him on key issues in which Beijing’s position closely aligns with Moscow’s position.

During the recent Putin-Xi summit in Beijing, China and Russia denounced Trump’s plans to build the “Golden Dome” missile defense system, and Washington’s nuclear policy.

Destroying credibility

Perhaps Russia’s most loyal friend at the moment is North Korea, which deployed more than 10,000 soldiers to fight alongside Russian forces in the Kursk region, following Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory in August 2024, but even this relationship is essentially a circumstantial trade relationship, based on shared insecurity and hostility towards the West.

Putin believed that the Ukraine war would restore Russia’s great power status, undermine the West’s influence, and accelerate the shift toward a multipolar international order. Instead, the war destroyed the Kremlin’s credibility as a partner and ally.

Russia still possesses nuclear weapons, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and vast energy reserves, but the war in Ukraine has left it extremely weak and left it unable to extend its influence and influence global affairs in any way except the threat of war.

About “The Japan Times”

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Diplomatic cover

In Syria, Russia spent nearly 10 years supporting Bashar al-Assad’s regime, launching air strikes, deploying ground forces, and providing Assad with diplomatic cover at the United Nations Security Council.

In return, Russia maintained its control over the Tartus naval base and the Hmeimim air base.

But in November 2024, Syrian opposition forces launched a surprise attack, to which the Russian army, exhausted by the war in Ukraine, was unable to respond.

Within days, Aleppo and Damascus fell and Assad fled to Moscow. With all this investment, Russia ended up with nothing.

. Putin believed that the Ukraine war would restore Russia’s status as a great power, undermine the West’s influence, and accelerate the shift toward a multipolar international order.