The American newspaper The Washington Post published a report saying that Russia is increasingly confident that deepening economic and diplomatic relations with China and the Global South will allow it to challenge the international financial system dominated by America, and undermine the West.

The report - written by Katherine Belton, the newspaper’s international reports correspondent - explained that, according to Kremlin documents and interviews with Russian officials and businessmen, Russia’s success in repelling a Western-backed Ukrainian counterattack was followed by a political stalemate in Washington and Brussels regarding continued financing of Kiev. Moscow’s confidence in Kiev was strengthened. Its policies are more.

From Moscow's perspective, American support for the Israeli aggression on Gaza has damaged Washington's standing in many parts of the world, and the combination of these events has led to a wave of optimism about Russia's global position.

Factors of Russian optimism

The writer said that officials in Moscow point to the growth of trade with China, military cooperation with Iran, diplomatic communication with the Arab world, and the expansion of the BRICS group of major emerging economies and its expansion to include Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on January 1, after his country assumed the presidency of the group, that the expansion of BRICS demonstrated the growing authority of the group and its role in global affairs, and its work would focus on “sovereign equality,” as the Kremlin began to indicate. Himself as part of the "global majority".

Belton pointed out that internal Russian Security Council documents obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by the Washington Post revealed that the Kremlin held meetings in 2022 and 2023 about ways to undermine the role of the dollar as a reserve currency in the world. The ultimate goal, one document stated, was to dismantle the post-World War II global financial system and the power it gave Washington.

Create a new world order

One document dated April 3, 2023 states: “One of the most important tasks is to create a new world order.”

Another document called for greater cooperation between China and Russia on artificial intelligence, cyber systems and the “Internet of Things.” As part of this, the document envisioned stronger cooperation between Beijing and Moscow to create a new financial system and a Eurasian digital currency based on alternative payment systems such as blockchain. ), to overcome Western dominance of global financial transactions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that Russia was working to undermine US dominance of the global financial system, but acknowledged that they were aiming to find alternatives, saying that actions taken by the "collective West" were undermining confidence. He said in statements to the Washington Post that the Kremlin is carefully monitoring the situation and building a new system of economic nerve cells, because the previous system turned out to be “unreliable, false and dangerous.”

Strengthening Putin's internal position

The writer said that the belief that Russia has proven to be more flexible militarily and economically than the West expected has strengthened Putin's domestic standing ahead of the presidential elections next March, especially with some members of the Russian elite who have expressed long-term doubts about the war in Ukraine and initial concern about the impact of sanctions. Western.

A Russian academic with close ties to the country's senior diplomats said, "There are now strong expectations among the Russian elite that the situation will change further in favor of Russia."

Russian billionaires such as Oleg Deripaska, who initially spoke out in opposition to the war in Ukraine, saying it would lead to an economic crisis in Russia, now describe Russia's separation from the West as a catalyst for reshaping global economic patterns.

Alternative payment systems and debt markets will be established in China based on the yuan, and in India and the Middle East based on cryptocurrencies, and within a few years sanctions will no longer be an obstacle to global trade and investment, Deripaska wrote this month.

Does Beijing have an interest in reconciling with Moscow?

European security officials said that Moscow is Beijing's junior partner, and that it is not clear that China has any real interest in aligning with the Kremlin's grand visions, but they also said that Russia's focus on using its global position to disrupt the West is escalating, including in the Middle East.

One of these officials, on condition of anonymity, said that Russia is not omnipotent, but it is trying to use all possibilities, in a very consistent and systematic manner.

He added that while most of the West still hopes for a return to the previous regime, Russian billionaires have realized that the old life is over and now it is time to create a new future.

Decline in Moscow's relationship with Israel

The report continued by saying that since the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) attacked Israel last October, the Kremlin appears to be carefully abandoning its relationship with Israel in favor of deepening relations with the Arab world.

In the same October, Russia hosted a joint delegation that included high-ranking members of Hamas and Ali Bagheri Kani, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister. Putin made a rare visit to the UAE and Saudi Arabia last December, his first visit outside China, Iran and the former Soviet Union countries since the invasion of Ukraine.

A Russian official said that, through Iran, Moscow could make this situation in the Middle East so acute that attention could be further diverted from Ukraine.

He added that Russia "still has great negative potential. There are a lot of hotspots in which Russia can intervene."

With a host of elections being held in Europe this year, the US State Department has warned that Russia will conduct information operations aimed at further undermining Western support for Ukraine.

Moscow hopes for change in Europe

James B. explained: Rubin, the US special envoy and coordinator of the department's Center for Global Engagement, said Russia hopes elections in Europe this year will change what has been a remarkable alliance and disciplined opposition to Russia's war in Ukraine.

Deep divisions in Washington, including continued funding for Ukraine, have reinforced the belief in Moscow and elsewhere that the United States is paralyzed, said Matthew Redhead, a former head of global strategic intelligence at HSBC and now a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. British research centre.

Redhead added that this means "that anti-Western countries like Russia, Iran, and perhaps China will start pushing the front lines even further to see what reaction they get. It's an invitation to escalate."

America loses World War III

As for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled business executive who spent 10 years in a Russian prison after his troubles with Putin, the West appears to be at an inflection point, and how it responds to growing global unrest and Russian aggression could determine how many conflicts it faces in the coming decades.

"Putin is of course trying to undermine the world order, because for him this is the only strategy for survival," said Khodorkovsky, who now resides in London. After allowing Russia to cross the red lines in Syria, then withdrawing from Afghanistan, and then partially supporting Ukraine, Khodorkovsky said, “It appears from the outside that the United States is losing World War III.”

General Richard Barrons, former commander of the British army's Combined Forces Command, said the risks of strategic failure for the West were growing due to a lack of political will to supply Ukraine with sufficient quantities of weapons.

He added that in terms of potential military strength and economic power, “it is absolutely ridiculous for the West to be hostage to something as relatively insignificant as Russia. Putin believes that if he is stubborn enough for long enough, we, the weak West, will turn away from Ukraine, and that will not only be shameful, "It would be an act of strategic self-harm."

Source: Washington Post +Aljazeera