Author: Maciej Dachowski

Despite continuing to frame itself in great-power terms, Russia is gradually losing the capacity to perform the systemic functions that for decades made it an indispensable actor in the international order. This shift does not mean a physical withdrawal from global theatres, nor does it suggest a collapse of Russian military capabilities. Rather, it reflects the erosion of Russia’s ability to shape rules, stabilize regional environments, and assume responsibility for order beyond its immediate neighborhood — and increasingly even within it [1].

It is important to recall, however, that for much of the past decades Russia did perform regulatory functions in several key arenas. It acted as the principal guarantor of ceasefire arrangements in the South Caucasus, emerged as a central broker in Syria after 2015, co-shaped elements of the global arms control architecture, and functioned as a dominant energy supplier to parts of Europe. In each of these domains, Moscow’s consent—or opposition—carried structural weight for regional stability. The contrast between that position and its current trajectory is therefore analytically significant.

Russia remains present across multiple regions. Yet this presence is progressively non-systemic. It takes the form of ad hoc interventions, the protection of selected regimes, resource-based arrangements, and support for irregular security structures. Such actions may preserve tactical influence. They do not amount to the sustained capacity to structure political or security environments over the long term. In this sense, Russian engagement increasingly resembles the outsourcing of coercion rather than the exercise of stabilizing authority.

Early 2026 offers a particularly revealing vantage point from which to assess this trajectory. A dense accumulation of developments across several regions makes it possible to observe not isolated setbacks but a broader structural pattern. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine, ongoing since 2022, has become a defining constraint on Russia’s external posture [2]. The concentration of military, financial, and political resources on a single war theatre has reduced Moscow’s ability to project power, protect partners, and enforce economic interests elsewhere [3].

Russia is therefore steadily losing the attributes that distinguish a systemic actor from a participant in episodic interventions. It is less frequently indispensable in designing and implementing political, security, and infrastructure solutions — even in regions where it retains a physical footprint. In practice, its role increasingly consists of declaratory reactions to initiatives shaped by others, including in areas directly affecting its own interests or those of its partners.

Erosion of Capacity, Not a One-Off Defeat

The erosion of Russia’s ability to perform systemic roles is neither hypothetical nor speculative. It is observable in a sequence of concrete developments between 2014 and 2026 across regions where Moscow until recently aspired to act as a security guarantor, political mediator, or key economic partner.

In the South Caucasus—long a cornerstone of Russia’s regional influence—the decline has been both visible and structural. In September 2023, Russia proved unable to prevent Azerbaijan’s offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh or to protect Armenia despite formal alliance commitments under the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) [4]. In 2024–2025, Yerevan froze its participation in CSTO structures, declined to take part in Russian-led military exercises, and invited a European Union monitoring mission to its border [5]. These steps amounted to a de facto questioning of Russia’s role as the region’s primary security guarantor.

In Central Asia, the process has unfolded without dramatic rupture, yet its systemic implications are equally profound. Kazakhstan refused to recognize Russia’s territorial annexations in Ukraine and has consistently developed alternative transport corridors to reduce dependence on Russia as a transit state [6]. Turkmenistan has, for more than a decade, steadily expanded gas exports to China, which has become its dominant customer, gradually displacing Russia as a key energy partner [7]. At the same time, Moscow proved unable to effectively de-escalate repeated armed clashes along the Kyrgyz–Tajik border, despite maintaining a military presence and formal alliance obligations in the region [8].

Russia’s relationship with China also reflects a significant shift in structural positioning. What was previously described as a “strategic partnership” is increasingly characterized by asymmetry in Beijing’s favor [9][10]. Russia remains a major supplier of energy and raw materials, yet its ability to shape the terms of cooperation has narrowed considerably. Trade conditions, infrastructure investment priorities, and logistical architecture are increasingly defined by China, while Russia assumes a more adaptive than agenda-setting role. Rather than reinforcing Russia’s systemic agency, the partnership increasingly compensates for losses elsewhere, deepening dependency instead of creating an alternative pole within the international order.

In relations with India, the erosion of Russia’s systemic role has been functional rather than rhetorical. In late 2025 and early 2026, India began significantly reducing imports of Russian oil under U.S. trade pressure and in connection with a new tariff arrangement with Washington, undermining one of the core pillars of bilateral economic cooperation [11]. Sanctions and mounting currency settlement challenges in rubles and rupees further weakened financial ties, and Russia ceased to function as a stable transactional partner. Most structurally significant, however, has been defense diversification. India has steadily reduced its reliance on Russian military equipment in favor of suppliers from France, the United States, and Israel, driven by concerns over spare parts availability and servicing capacity under wartime conditions. The India–Russia relationship has not collapsed, but it has lost its strategic character and increasingly resembles a transactional arrangement in which Russia is no longer an indispensable partner [12][13].

In the Middle East, particularly in relations with Iran, the erosion of Russia’s systemic role is visible in its diminishing capacity to act as mediator and stabilizer. The rhetorical intensification of the Russia–Iran partnership after 2022, including expanded military and energy cooperation, has not translated into an effective ability to moderate or balance mounting U.S. pressure on Tehran [14]. Key decisions regarding sanctions, negotiations, and regional de-escalation have unfolded outside Russian-led formats. The clearest example was the normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, brokered by China without Russian involvement, despite Moscow’s long-standing ambition to position itself as a strategic broker in the Middle East [15]. In practical terms, this signals that Russia is no longer capable of reconciling competing regional interests or shaping Iran’s strategic calculus vis-à-vis the West, even where bilateral channels remain active.

In Syria, the collapse of Russia’s role as regime guarantor marked an even more consequential setback. The removal of Bashar al-Assad and the formation of a new government constituted a strategic defeat for Moscow in one of the core arenas of its extra-Western power projection [16]. Despite years of military and political engagement—and its decisive intervention in sustaining the regime after 2015—Russia proved unable either to prevent the regime’s fall or to dictate the terms of political transition.

The change of power in Damascus exposed the limits of military presence as a tool of political control under crisis conditions. Decisions by the new government to reassess and potentially restrict Russia’s military footprint, including discussions about vacating the Qamishli base, underscored Moscow’s loss of decisive influence. Syria ceased to be a theatre where Russia could stabilize political order or shape outcomes on its own terms.

In Latin America, the erosion of Russian agency became apparent in Moscow’s inability to shield key partners. The culmination was Operation Absolute Resolve and the neutralization of Nicolás Maduro’s regime. Despite years of Russian support—ranging from arms sales and energy cooperation to diplomatic backing in international forums—Moscow was unable either to deter the United States or to mount a meaningful response to actions directly targeting its interests [17]. Its reaction remained confined to diplomatic protests. At the same time, Washington intensified pressure on Cuba without any significant counter-move from the Kremlin [18].

Even more revealing was Russia’s inability to defend its own economic interests. In January 2026, the U.S. Coast Guard, supported by special forces and air assets, seized two vessels from Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” transporting oil from Venezuela and Iran on international waters [19]. These operations took place despite Russia’s formal reflagging of the ships and despite the presence of Russian naval units in the broader area. The Kremlin limited itself to legal and consular protests, avoiding escalation.

In Africa, the process took the form of fragmentation rather than abrupt withdrawal. Following the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2023, the structures of the former Wagner Group dispersed, and contracts in Mali, Niger, and the Central African Republic were weakened or renegotiated [20]. Russian engagement increasingly shifted from political influence to the provision of security services. In Libya, despite maintaining a military footprint, the actual dynamics of the conflict and political process have been shaped by other actors, most notably Turkey and multilateral formats backed by the United Nations and European states [21].

The core question, therefore, is not whether Russia remains a state of considerable power. It clearly retains substantial military, resource-based, and escalatory capabilities. The more consequential issue concerns the character of that power. Increasingly, it does not translate into the capacity to regulate and stabilize regional environments, but into the ability to obstruct, destabilize, and impose costs. Russia is not disappearing from the international system as a significant force. It is, however, steadily ceasing to function as one of its regulators, evolving instead into an actor more capable of disruption than of constructing durable order.

A Window of Opportunity: Middle Powers Between Passivity and Order-Building

The common denominator of the developments outlined above is not their scale or pace, but their systemic consequence. What is emerging is not the replacement of one great power by another, nor a transition to a new stable order. It is the weakening of a previously central actor’s ability to perform regulatory functions across multiple domains simultaneously. That gap defines the current moment. Rather than framing present dynamics in terms of rupture or collapse, they are better understood as opening a window of opportunity—an opportunity to design and implement political, infrastructural, and institutional arrangements in areas where Russia was long considered an indispensable mediator, guarantor, or regulator, and where its stabilizing capacity is now visibly diminished.

A historical precedent can be found in the 1990s. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, space emerged for the construction of energy and infrastructure links that bypassed Russia. Projects developed in the South Caucasus, most notably the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, were not the product of hegemonic imposition by a single power. They resulted from coordinated action by middle states, supported politically by Western actors. The decisive factor was not Russia’s defeat, but the fact that it could be functionally bypassed in the design of new routes and cooperation frameworks.

A similar structural gap is now visible in Russia’s broader neighborhood. It creates room for middle powers—not to replace great powers or engage in global rivalry, but to co-organize order in functionally defined domains such as infrastructure, logistics, energy connectivity, and economic resilience. In this context, influence does not derive primarily from military, political, or even economic scale. It stems from the ability to initiate projects, coordinate coalitions, and act at moments of structural fluidity.

For Poland, the implications are direct. The natural and strategically significant area of engagement lies in the arc of regions to the south and southeast of Russia, encompassing the South Caucasus and broader Central Asia, where Moscow’s capacity to function as guarantor and regulator is steadily eroding. This process unfolds in the absence of durable substitute mechanisms, generating accumulating risks in security, infrastructure stability, migration, and energy flows—risks that are felt within Europe as well.

In the 1990s, Poland lacked both the economic scale and political position to exert meaningful influence in this space. Today the situation is markedly different. As the world’s twentieth-largest economy, a critical logistical and political hub in the context of the war in Ukraine, and a significant actor within both the European Union and NATO, Poland possesses the capacity to move beyond reactive policy. This includes building direct partnerships with states in the region and co-shaping regional cooperation formats, while leveraging European Union instruments as tools of support, financing, and institutional legitimacy. In this framework, the EU does not substitute Polish agency. It amplifies and scales it.

At the same time, formats such as the G20 should not be viewed as prestige platforms, but as mechanisms for identifying and coordinating functionally relevant actors. The pattern of invitations to the 2026 G20 summit—including Poland, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan—suggests that the forum increasingly serves to single out states capable of contributing tangibly to systemic stability, particularly in infrastructure, logistics, raw materials, and supply chain security. In this sense, the G20 may evolve into a platform for building coalitions of middle powers around concrete projects in which Russia ceases to serve as the default regulatory reference point and where its participation is not a prerequisite for effective functional cooperation.

This shift should be carefully noted by policymakers in Europe and the United States, especially in the context of prospective peace talks and negotiation formats aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. Russia remains an indispensable party to negotiations as the state conducting the war and possessing escalatory capacity. Its participation is necessary for terminating hostilities and for any credible arrangements concerning arms control. That does not, however, imply the automatic restoration of Russia’s role as a co-guarantor of a future European security architecture.

The distinction between these two functions is essential. Russia will participate in negotiations as a party to the conflict. It should not be treated as a regulator or architect of regional order whose stability depends on its sustained guarantor role. Security arrangements, infrastructure cooperation, and regional integration mechanisms can be designed in ways that constrain Moscow’s leverage rather than rely on its capacity to stabilize the environment.

From Poland’s perspective, this logic carries particular weight. As a state directly affected by the consequences of war and a key actor on NATO’s eastern flank and within the European Union, Poland has a strategic interest in ensuring that any negotiation process aimed at ending the war does not reproduce the pre-2022 hierarchy in which Russia was automatically elevated to the status of co-architect of regional stability. A durable post-war order may include Russia as a signatory to agreements, but it need not restore the regulatory and guarantor functions whose credibility and capacity have been significantly weakened.

References

[1] Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003.

[2] Mark Galeotti, “Russia’s Wars and the Limits of Power,” Foreign Affairs, 2023.

[3] International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The Military Balance 2024, London, 2024.

[4] Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich (OSW), “Karabakh and the CSTO Failure,” 2023.

[5] Council of the European Union, “EUMA Armenia Mandate,” 2024.

[6] European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Middle Corridor Update, 2025.

[7] International Energy Agency (IEA), Gas Trade Flows: Central Asia, 2024.

[8] International Crisis Group, Kyrgyz–Tajik Border Conflicts, 2022–2024.

[9] International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Strategic Survey 2025, London, 2025.

[10] Reuters, “China–Russia Trade Shifts and Energy Pricing,” 2024–2025.

[11] Reuters, “India Cuts Russian Oil Imports under U.S. Pressure,” 2026.

[12] Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Arms Transfers Trends, 2024.

[13] Reuters / Financial Times, “India Diversifies Away from Russian Arms,” 2025–2026.

[14] Reuters, “U.S.–Iran Negotiations and Sanctions Developments,” 2025–2026.

[15] Reuters / Al Jazeera, “Iran–Saudi Arabia Agreement Brokered by China,” 2023.

[16] Reuters / BBC Monitoring, “Fall of the Assad Government and Formation of a Transitional Authority,” 2025.

[17] Reuters, “U.S. Operation in Venezuela and Russian Response,” 2026.

[18] U.S. Treasury / Reuters, “Cuba Sanctions Update,” 2025–2026.

[19] Reuters / U.S. Coast Guard, “Seizure of Russian ‘Shadow Fleet’ Tankers,” January 2026.

[20] United Nations Panel of Experts / OSW, Wagner After Prigozhin, 2024.

[21] International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Libya Conflict Update, 2025.