To listen to a lot of the Western rhetoric around the war in Ukraine, one could be forgiven for thinking that the world had united in revulsion at Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked aggression.

Having for most of the past 20 years pursued a relatively effective strategy of building alliances and supporting proxies in Moscow’s near-abroad, the Russian dictator had thrown it all away with a ruinous war from the playbook of the previous century.

Yet this reassuring narrative is misleading. Yes, the invasion of Ukraine has been ruinously costly to Russia, both in terms of men and materiel and its international standing. Despite huge Western pressure, however, many of those alliances Putin has brokered over the past few years are holding. Indeed, some of them are the very thing keeping the Russian war machine going.

This is most obvious when we consider the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus (OPEC+). The end of the Cold War has brought former rivals Russia and Saudi Arabia together — and the former’s inclusion has seen the group adopt a much more hawkish attitude towards oil prices. At the same time, relations between Riyadh and Washington, previously organised under the rubric “oil for security”, have frayed.

With the support of the United Arab Emirates, another nominal ally of the West with increasingly close ties to Moscow, OPEC+ has repeatedly ignored American entreaties to increase production and isolate Russia.

Saudi Arabia is an increasingly unreliable bulwark against Iran

Instead, it has actively supported Putin’s interests, most obviously in its October 2022 decision to slash production.

Forcing up prices in this way not only directly supports the Russian war machine — Russian oil is very expensive to produce, and experts estimate that a fall in prices of only $15 per barrel would wipe out its profit margins altogether — but it also extends the cost-of-living crisis in western nations, potentially undermining long-term support for our own efforts to contain Putin.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia is also an increasingly unreliable bulwark against the theocratic Iranian regime, following sustained efforts by China to broker a détente.

The UAE gets less attention than its larger neighbour. In terms of support for Russia, it has gone further, however. Following the OPEC+ decision to slash production by two million barrels a day the Emirati president, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan flew to Moscow, where he and Putin hailed the increasing trade and bilateral cooperation between their countries.

Even before the current war, the UAE was a sanction-buster in chief, helping Russia to circumvent and undermine the West’s sanctions regime against it. Dubai is a haven for Russian money laundering, and Emirati sovereign wealth funds have invested billions into Moscow’s strategic assets in the logistics and defence sectors.

Considering this, France’s decision in July 2022 to sign an agreement with the Gulf nation to secure oil and natural gas supplies looks like a risky move, increasing the exposure of a major Western military power to a country with a track record of supporting Russian interests.

Worse still, the UAE is alleged to be actively supporting Putin’s efforts to outflank NATO to the south. According to the Pentagon, Abu Dhabi is helping to bankroll the infamous Wagner Group, a brutal mercenary outfit known to be a proxy for Moscow. Wagner is on the ground in Libya, supporting a bid by rebel forces led by General Khalifa Haftar to overthrow the UN-backed government in Tripoli. 

Again, the strategic risk is obvious. The Libyan government has signed an $8 billion energy deal with Italian energy company, Eni. Libya exports gas to Europe via the Greenstream Pipeline, which connects the country to Sicily. Should it fall, a pro-Russian regime could disrupt or shut off those vital supplies.

Putin’s strategy is a pitiable echo of the Russian Empire he idolises

Nor is this strategy confined to Libya. A similar play is being made in Algeria, where Italy has taken a leading role in Europe by sourcing new supplies of gas from the North African nation. 

Already, it accounts for 11.6 per cent of the EU’s LNG imports, exporting 22 billion cubic metres of gas annually via the TransMed pipeline to Italy. This number is set to grow as the EU continues to diversify away from Russian gas. In the past, it has been Europe’s second largest gas supplier behind Russia.

Yet today Algiers has amongst the most expansive relationships with Moscow in the region, and Algeria is the third-largest buyer of Russian arms exports. In November 2022, Algeria and Russia began their first joint military exercises on Russian soil, prompting major concern in Western capitals.

Nor is energy the only vector through which Russian proxies on the southern shore of the Mediterranean could undermine Europe. Either Libya or Algeria are both crucial to controlling the flow of refugees across the sea; France in particular has long been concerned about what instability in Algeria could mean for crossings. 

We have already seen another Russian satellite, Belarus, try to weaponise refugees on its border with Poland. It is very plausible that North African nations could do the same.

Putin’s strategy is in some ways a pitiable echo of the Russian Empire he idolises. In the 19th century, the Emperor’s armies and agents were a bulwark of counter-revolutionary and conservative regimes across Europe. Today, Moscow continues to support President Bashar al-Assad’s efforts to grind the Syrian people into submission.

That doesn’t mean it won’t be effective. Many key NATO members, especially the United Kingdom and Germany, remain hugely exposed to energy imports — due to strong political reluctance to develop domestic oil and gas, or invest in nuclear power. Others, such as France and Italy, are vulnerable to further expansion of the Mediterranean migration crisis.

Western nations need to be much more clear-sighted about who our allies in the region really are, lest we find ourselves at the mercy of governments who prefer Putin’s vision of the world to our own.