Zhao Long Interviewed by South China Morning Post

Zhao Long    source：South China Morning Post

The scramble in Asia to secure Russian energy supplies – coupled with the temporary lifting of US sanctions – in the wake of the war in Iran has created a growing sense that Moscow might prove the main winner from the conflict.

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a meeting of oil and gas suppliers that they should use the “additional revenues” generated by the spike in energy prices as a result of the war and the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Putin has also benefited from US leader Donald Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on some Russian oil and gas supplies for about a month following a phone conversation between the two presidents, with the European Commission also delaying plans to permanently ban Russian oil imports, citing “current geopolitical developments”.

These developments, along with the Trump administration’s increasing focus on the Americas rather than Europe, have led to a growing belief that Moscow would prove to be the biggest – or even, according to European Council President Antonio Costa, the only winner.

But analysts warned against overestimating the boost Moscow would receive, saying factors such as the war in Ukraine and its domestic economic woes would limit its ability to benefit from the US shift in focus.

“The current situation in Iran and the Middle East is relatively favourable for Russia’s geopolitical and geoeconomic standing, especially in the short term,” said Zhang Xin, deputy director of the Centre for Russian Studies at East China Normal University in Shanghai.

He said the surge in crude oil prices would benefit its finances while the US might divert military equipment that would otherwise be sent to Ukraine to the Middle East.

Zhang also said the US’ “unilateral and highly uncertain” behaviour towards Iran could further erode its image and credibility as a global leader, potentially to Russia’s advantage.

However, he said much of this impact would be short-term, echoing other analysts, who said the war was unlikely to have “meaningful” impact on its relationship with China.

Zhao Long, the director of the Institute for International Strategic and Security Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies,said it would be “one-sided” to view Russia as the main winner and there was a “question mark” about how long Moscow could benefit from the spike in oil prices and suspension of US sanctions.

Zhao said he expected Trump to “try by every means” to bring down fuel prices ahead of the US midterm elections in November, adding that even if Washington was focusing on the Middle East rather than Ukraine, that could prove a “double-edged sword” for Russia.

“As Trump’s attention is consumed by Iran and the Middle East, the … Russia-Ukraine peace talks he has been pushing have effectively stalled, which is not entirely good news for Russia,” Zhao said.

Taiyi Sun, an associate professor of political science at Christopher Newport University in the US, made a similar argument, saying the additional revenues Moscow was receiving would not resolve its fundamental financial worries.

“The durability of Russia’s advantage depends on the duration and scope of the [Iran] conflict,” Sun said.

He said the White House did not appear to expect a long conflict and that by avoiding large-scale ground deployments, it could declare victory and disengage relatively quickly unless Israel escalated further.

“Under such conditions, Russia’s short-term gains may not translate into long-term strategic advantage,” he said, adding that Ukraine’s role in sharing counter-drone expertise with the US and Israel could further strengthen Kyiv’s hand.

“That said, from Moscow’s perspective, a prolonged conflict – short of regime change in Iran – is clearly preferable,” he said.

Trump said on Tuesday that talks on ending the war were taking place and his peace proposals had reportedly been passed to Iran via intermediaries from Pakistan. However, Tehran has insisted that no direct talks have taken place with Washington, and has continued to strike targets in the Gulf and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Russia has condemned the US-Israeli strikes on Iran as a “deliberate, premeditated, and unprovoked act of armed aggression”, while Putin called the killing of Iran’s former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a “cynical” murder.

The Russian leader has also insisted Moscow will remain “a loyal friend and reliable partner of Tehran”.

But Iran may feel that Russia has not offered it enough support and could be worried that it would be willing to sacrifice its interests to improve relations with the US, according to Andrey Kortunov, founding director of the Russian International Affairs Council, a Moscow-based think tank.

In a recent article published on Chinese social media, he argued that the long-term impact of the war may be bleaker for Russia than many assumed, but it could still increase the country’s importance as an energy supplier and international partner in the eyes of countries such as China and India.

In an article for Foreign Affairs earlier this month, Alexander Gabuev, Nicole Grajewski and Sergey Vakulenko, analysts with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also argued that China “may discover an even greater need for Russian oil and gas”.

Since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago, Moscow has been widely seen as the junior partner in its relationship with China, given its increasing economic reliance on Beijing.

Both Zhang and Sun said they did not expect the war to have a major impact on this relationship.

Zhang argued both countries would continue to oppose “irresponsible, hegemonic” actions from the US, while Beijing was likely to strengthen its resolve to diversify its sources of energy and increase self-reliance in the long run. 

Sun said the war was “unlikely, at least in the short term, to fundamentally reshape China’s energy demand structure”, partially as a result of increasing its strategic petroleum reserves in recent years.

He added that Russia was likely to continue to rely on its economic relationship with China and a pragmatic approach to diplomacy to maintain its standing, adding: “In that sense, Moscow’s relative dependence on Beijing is unlikely to change in any meaningful way.”

He also said there was talk in Washington of trying to develop a closer relationship with Moscow to give it an advantage over Beijing – effectively reversing Richard Nixon’s 1970s strategy of detente with China – and this could prove “more consequential” in the long run.

“Should the United States succeed in incentivising Russia to wind down the war in Ukraine, reintegrate economically with the West and attract substantial Western investment, this could, over time, shift the broader balance within the China-Russia relationship,” Sun said.

Following the start of the Iran war, Trump postponed his planned trip to China until mid-May.

Zhao said China had never considered its relations with Russia and the US to be the other sides of a Cold War-style strategic triangle because “these are three sets of bilateral relationships, each operating with its own logic”.

He added that the main issues in the US-China relationship – especially in areas such as technology, industrial supply chains and trade – had little to do with Beijing’s ties to Moscow.

Sun also said Russia was unlikely to be concerned about a marginal improvement in US-China relations.

“On the contrary, Moscow may seek to leverage perceived shifts in US strategic thinking – particularly the notion of a potential “reverse Nixon” approach – to encourage Washington to adopt a more accommodating stance towards Russia,” he said.

“This does not necessarily imply that Russia would realign away from China, but rather that it can extract strategic flexibility from US expectations.”

Beyond Iran, the Trump administration has also ramped up pressure on Cuba as part of an increased focus on the Americas that also led to the capture of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro at the start of the year. 

Zhao said this could increase global instability, especially if the “law of the jungle” applied, but that approach could boost Russian and Chinese influence globally.

“In times of turbulence, the US may also need Russia to coordinate on certain issues, especially regarding the Middle East and Iran,”he added.

He said that if the US became bogged down in Iran and needed Russia to mediate, it could strengthen Moscow’s position, but so far there were “no signs of this happening”.

Sun said that the shift in US foreign policy priorities could create greater strategic space for Russia.

“With Washington’s attention and resources increasingly directed towards the western hemisphere, Moscow may find more room to consolidate its position in Ukraine and improve its relative standing on the battlefield over time,” he 

said.

But Zhang said it may still prove a challenge for Russia to benefit from changing US foreign policy priorities – even if these included a reduced focus on the war in Ukraine.

He said Moscow’s attention and resources remained tied up with the war alongside its impact on the Russian economy.

He said that even though the US was behaving “unreasonably” on issues such as Venezuela, Greenland and the Middle East, Moscow had done little beyond criticising Washington.

“At present, Russia likely lacks both the capacity and the will” to offer a substantive response, he added.