#36 Hanna Notte: Isolating Russia? Impossible.

So, big picture, what does the world look like from Moscow? What do they care about? What are they looking at?

I think Russia overall is pretty satisfied when they look at the world today, because Russia in the last four and a half years of waging this war against Ukraine has been able to secure lifelines for its economy, especially in the non-Western world.

There's a lot of countries that still trade with Russia, that buy Russian oil and gas, countries that have refused to join Western sanctions.

And so collectively, I would say that especially the non-Western world has created a kind of permissive international environment for Russia to still be able to prosecute the war.

even though, let's not forget, the Russian Federation has turned into the most sanctioned country in the world.

So there is this wellspring of admirers and supporters, you know, people who have an empathetic view of the Russian war.

And we can talk separately about that.

And then there's a lot of pragmatic interest out there that leads countries to still deal with Russia.

Now, having said that, turning to the glass is half empty view, I think the Russians understand that overall their power projection has suffered as a result of this war.

So even though they continue to enjoy support, they can't play in other regions beyond Ukraine, especially militarily in the way that they used to.

So if you look at the Middle East today, if you look at the South Caucasus today, Russian leverage and Russian power has declined relative to what it was prior to February 2022.

So overall, you have basically a paradoxical picture where where Russia still gets by in this war partially because of the support that it enjoys.

Yet at the same time, overall, its position in the world is on a declining trajectory.

And the asymmetry in the relationship with China is a big factor here as well.

And perhaps we can talk about that.