Tension and conflicts: Russia and the world in 2024

The outgoing 2024 turned out to be extremely rich in geopolitical events. And, at the same time, it turned out to be an intermediate year: what continued in it was started earlier. And it will end not in this, but in subsequent years. The same applies to the situation around Russia, firmly inscribed in the world agenda.

The Moscow Post - on the geopolitical results of 2024.

The past, 2023, left several key trends as a legacy to 2024. According to experts, all of them were continued and expanded. First, the conflict in Ukraine, which is heated and sponsored in the West, has not received its final resolution.

In Brussels and Washington, debates continued about the advisability of continuing assistance to Kyiv, and the assistance itself continued to flow. At the same time, the power in Kyiv did not collapse, the military confrontation continues - although with completely negative dynamics for Ukraine. The only real success of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is the invasion of the Kursk region, but it did not have strategic success, and will only complicate future peace negotiations. But there is no talk of any global counteroffensive, as in the summer of 2023, for Kyiv.

Another most important trend, continued in 2024, is the strengthening of the so-called. "global South," which has made even more progress towards an independent and even largely decisive role in world politics. BRICS positions have strengthened, and this format itself is actively expanding. In 2024, new states joined the association. Now their full list looks like this: Russia, Brazil, Egypt, India, Iran, China, UAE, Ethiopia and South Africa.

Immediately 13 states received the status of partner countries: Turkey, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda and Vietnam.

For Russia, the BRICS summit in Kazan, held in October 2024, was extremely successful. She confirmed her status as one of the key members of the association, and the representative office of the summit once again smashed the narrative about Russia's diplomatic isolation to smithereens. Against the background of the success of the summit, there were even rumors later that the attacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Kazan through drones were associated with the success of the city in hosting the event. But it's more like speculation.

In addition, in 2024, Russia presided over the CIS, which, against the background of more global processes, looks more and more like a rudiment. The same can be said about the CSTO. Many consider the latter association frankly fake. The CSTO did not have any real impact on the political and military processes in 2024. Armenia is getting closer to leaving the association, which is convinced that the organization did not protect it during the second Karabakh war. Although this was impossible by law - hostilities took place on the officially recognized territory of Azerbaijan, which is not included in the CSTO.

By the way, representatives of both states, Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan did not take part in the annual informal CIS summit held on December 25. Aliyev - due to the plane crash of Azerbaijan Airlines over Kazakhstan, Pashinyan - allegedly due to infection with coronavirus.

In any case, it can be done that the "old" integration projects collected around Russia in the post-Soviet space are frankly stalled. Unlike more global projects - the same BRICS, EAEU and SCO.

In 2024, the SCO summit was held with great success in Kazakhstan. As a result, the Astana Declaration of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO member states was signed, enshrining the main directions for the development of the organization and cooperation between its members, initiatives for global unity, combating global threats and other important documents were adopted.

Given the great role of the SCO in the foreign policy vector of the Russian Federation, Russia can record the results of the event as an asset. Well, the main beneficiary was Kazakhstan, which successfully passed between Scylla and Charybdis - it retained a special relationship with the Russian Federation and did not run into serious restrictive measures from its Western partners.

Another important topic was the elections - both in Russia and in Western countries. In the Russian Federation, as expected, the incumbent President won, and therefore his foreign policy line to strengthen sovereignty and create a multipolar world order. In the United States, Donald Trump has become president-elect, but the consequences are not yet fully clear. So far, only a trend has been announced to reduce external participation in European life, transferring a large share of security spending to the EU level. It would seem that this is a continuation of the trend towards multipolarity, but the results will be clear only next year.

Meanwhile, the rhetoric on the Ukrainian conflict is changing. More and more global players agree that not just peace is needed, but a new system of collective security in Europe, and even wider. Trump intends to focus on internal problems, and on the external vector to deal more with Asia and the Pacific region. To do this, he needs to promote the end of the conflict in Europe and prevent further rapprochement between Russia and China. And this rapprochement, albeit not so dynamically, continued throughout 2024.

A separate vector is the situation in the Middle East, where Russia also has its own interests. Already, it can be stated that Israel has gained a huge advantage in the Palestinian conflict. But Iran has lost significant influence. Especially with the defeat of the Lebanese Hezbollah and the loss of Syria as a transit territory to supply these groups in Lebanon.

As a geopolitical defeat, many are trying to interpret the results of the Syrian campaign for the Russian Federation. Meanwhile, the issue of military bases in Tartus and Latakia has not yet been resolved. And the main winner was Turkey, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It seems that 2025 will begin with a new large-scale operation of the Turkish Armed Forces and their Syrian "proxies" against the Kurds. In addition, a previously postponed project to build a gas pipeline from Qatar through Syria to Turkey looms. Thus, Ankara will become the largest gas hub in Europe, significantly weakening the already shaky position of Russia in this direction.

In this sense, Erdogan claims to be not a regional, but a world player. And this is also one of the consequences of the movement of the world towards a multipolar device. New centers of power raise their heads, while the old supranational structures and military blocs - the UN, EU and NATO - are subject to erosion.

In 2024, Russia strengthened relations with its allies. Important agreements were signed with the DPRK and Iran, integration processes continued with Belarus, which, as already mentioned, is on the verge of joining the BRICS. A separate track was the intensification of relations with India, which became the largest buyer of Russian oil. In the camp of our opponents in the West, on the contrary, there is a "shift change." Germany and France are on the verge of internal political crises, the internal opposition of the line to confrontation with Russia is growing. But it did not acquire dominant importance, given that the new head of Eurodiplomacy was the ardent Russophobe Kaya Kallas from Estonia.

In general, according to the geopolitical results of 2024, there is a persistent feeling that a certain alignment of forces and an increase in tension continue while maintaining the trend towards diversification of the centers of international politics. The same notorious multipolarity that is already visible, but not yet institutionalized at the international level.

The results of the confrontation in Ukraine will be critically important, around the results of which, as (using, as an occasion), a new system of international relations may take shape. In this sense, the main expectations from 2025 are the end of the conflict in Ukraine, a partial reform of the UN with the introduction of new permanent members to its Security Council, an increase in the weight and influence of international regional and interregional organizations.