The Houthis are looking for a new enemy. The October 2025 Gaza ceasefire took away the cause that had carried them for two years, and the solidarity-with-Iran line they have tried in its place has gained little traction with a significant percentage of the population wary of Tehran. With the “defending Gaza” narrative minimized, the movement is reaching back for an older adversary — Saudi Arabia, which it fought from 2015 until the 2022 truce — and recasting it as the author of Yemen’s economic ruin. That search itself is a measure of the Houthis’ relative weakness: they are more fragile than they have been in years, underfunded, short of fuel and food, and losing their once-firm hold over some key northern tribes.

Their adversaries, namely the recognized Government of Yemen (GoY), are no stronger. GoY has, for once, made some headway — Saudi Arabia rolled back a UAE-backed offensive by the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in January, and a new GoY defense ministry has begun to weld its disparate forces into something closer to a single army. But the gains are shallow and growing shallower, undercut by the rivalry that jump-started the reforms. through local proxies, and the contest among them prevents GoY and what remains of the STC from consolidating. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates —with Israel backing Abu Dhabi, and Turkey and Qatar supporting Riyadh— pursue rival aims in Yemen.

While the Houthis have spent much of the last three years diversifying supply chains and sources of income away from Iran, the US-Israeli war with Iran has further reduced Iranian aid to the Houthis. Both the Houthis and the GoY are under pressure, and the outside powers that have, to varying degrees, propped them up are the main reason neither can finish off the other.

Searching for an Enemy

Behind the Houthis’ effort to look for an enemy lies increasing economic fragility. The World Food Program announced it was shutting down its operations across the Houthi-controlled north in late January, ending food assistance to a population in acute need. Fuel imports through the Red Sea ports of Hodeidah, Salif, and Ras Issa fell by roughly three-quarters in the first quarter of 2026, with no fuel entering at all in March. The United Nations estimates that more than 18 million Yemenis are facing acute food insecurity, while its humanitarian appeal for the year stood at around 14% funded by mid-2026.

Public-sector salaries across the north have gone unpaid for years, with only periodic payments for a small percentage of public-sector employees. Staple prices across Yemen keep increasing, with the increases most pronounced in Houthi-controlled areas, driven in part by reduced port capacity and the heavy taxes the Houthi authorities levy on what still gets in. The Houthis’ wartime slogans and messages of shared sacrifice ring hollow as members of the Houthi elite continue to construct lavish homes in Sana’a and elsewhere.

The Houthis are now trying to place the blame on Riyadh. They hold Saudi Arabia responsible for the unpaid salaries, so they demand that it release funds from Yemen’s oil and gas revenues and lift restrictions on the northern ports and Sanaa airport. Their media increasingly frames the wider economic crisis as a Saudi-American siege. In June, the movement’s General Mobilization Forces announced full combat readiness, and Abdul-Malik al-Houthi spoke of restoring “full sovereignty” and ending the blockade.

This is a return to a tested approach. The Houthis know from experience that their cross-border strikes on Saudi territory, including the 2022 strike on an Aramco oil depot in Jeddah, were what eventually brought Riyadh to the negotiating table. The threat to Saudi infrastructure remains their most reliable source of leverage. That leverage has only increased with the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia now relies on its East-West pipeline and the port of Yanbu for oil exports, both of which are within easy range of the Houthis’ missiles and drones.

Mobilization and the Tribes

The mobilization behind the Houthis’ anti-Saudi rhetoric is real, but narrower than the slogans imply. Recruitment continues under the movement’s wartime narratives, and fighters have been moved up to the front lines facing GoY and the Saudi border. Houthi authority over the northern tribes has always been more of a bargain than pure loyalty: money and government positions for cooperation, and a credible threat of punishment for anyone who withholds it. Both halves of that bargain are weakening at once — the money because the Houthis’ revenues have collapsed and the threat because two years of war have exposed the limits of what the movement can enforce. Sheiks in the outlying districts who once had no reason to question the arrangement are reassessing it, and with a Saudi-backed government reasserting itself in the south, the Houthis are no longer the only conceivable authority.

That reassessment is already producing friction. Tribal figures in several areas have resisted Houthi demands, and the movement has answered with purges, death sentences, and tighter surveillance of its own ranks. The leadership knows where this can lead. Ali Abdullah Saleh ruled Yemen through patronage as well, and lost it once corruption, falling revenue, and the cost of his wars left him unable to keep paying. The Houthis are nearer to that point now than they have been in years.

The strain is no longer hypothetical. In late June, a tribal call to arms filled the Al-Rayyan area of eastern Al-Jawf with armed men for days on end, drawing delegations from Hadhramaut, Marib, and the Mahra, after the Houthis detained a tribal sheik who had taken up the cause of a woman who said a Houthi-linked arms dealer had seized her Sanaa home. What began as a quarrel over a single house hardened into an organized encampment that named a commander to coordinate any escalation, while the Houthis put their forces in the area on alert. Confrontations like this are usually bought off or mediated before they reach gunfire, and this one likely will be. However, many tribal leaders who were once at least nominally allied with the Houthis sense the group’s weakness and are increasingly reasserting their local authority.

The Bab al-Mandeb

The same fragility that constrains the Houthis on land governs their conduct at sea. They hold much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and have the anti-ship missiles, drones, and mines to make the Bab al-Mandeb impassable, yet they have left it open. Since the Gaza ceasefire, they have kept to selective strikes; in early June, they hit Israel-linked vessels in the Gulf of Aden and renewed a ban on Israeli shipping, but general traffic has kept moving, and the strait has not been closed. Traffic through the strait has yet to recover to pre-2025 levels.

The Houthis’ restraint reflects both weakness and pragmatism. The Houthis’ ports — Hodeidah, Salif, and Ras Issa — are critical to their finances and north Yemen’s economy. They tax all imports and depend on those imports to feed the north and fund the movement. A wider maritime campaign, or an outright closure, would bring the one response they cannot absorb as easily as they did in previous campaigns: renewed Israeli and American strikes on Hodeidah, which have already damaged port infrastructure and tightened the flow of food and fuel into Houthi territory.

For now, the threat of closure is far more useful than actual closure, and the threat of closing the strait has been replaced by the more potent and direct threat of attacking Saudi Arabia’s oil handling infrastructure. The Houthis’ dire financial situation and the rising threat of social unrest due to rising food prices and shortages mean that they need the strait open to maintain their grip on power.

Captured by Its Patrons

The Houthis’ core constraint is now financial. Yemen’s recognized government (GoY) faces a core constraint: its persistent inability to reform itself or govern the territory it claims. GoY, now more than ever, is dependent on its chief patron, Saudi Arabia, for financial and military support. Saudi Arabia’s increasingly overt management and backing of GoY are critical, but they also subvert GoY’s already limited authority. GoY’s one real gain of the past year, retaking the south, was Saudi Arabia’s work more than its own.

In December 2025, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), backed by the United Arab Emirates, launched “Operation Promising Future,” seizing the oil-rich governorates of Hadramawt and al-Mahra along the Saudi border. Though fought by Yemenis, the offensive was in substance an Emirati one, carried out with Emirati arms and Emirati backing. It came less than three months before the United States and Israel went to war with Iran, and within weeks of Israel’s December 26 recognition of Somaliland across the Gulf of Aden. Together, the offensive and the recognition are best read as an effort by the UAE and Israel to secure positions along the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden corridor before the confrontation with Iran began.

The effort failed. Riyadh treated a UAE-aligned force on its southern frontier as a direct threat, hit Emirati arms shipments at Mukalla on December 30, and backed a counteroffensive in January that retook the territory, dissolved the STC, and drove its leader, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, into exile in Abu Dhabi. The UAE withdrew its remaining forces. The episode nonetheless put Riyadh on notice. Saudi Arabia now treats the deepening UAE-Israel partnership as a driver of regional instability nearly on a par with Iran, and sees in it the makings of strategic encirclement along its flanks. Its answer has been to move closer to Turkey and Qatar while distancing itself from Emirati policy, and to take the southern file in hand itself, running it through a Supreme Military Committee under coalition command, a degree of direct control over Yemeni affairs the Saudis had avoided throughout the war.

Somaliland belongs to the same design. For Israel, recognition opened the way to a possible military and intelligence foothold in Somaliland, across the water from Yemen, from which to watch and strike the Houthis at a time when missile fire has all but closed the port of Eilat. A divided and contested Yemen serves that end, as does a southern authority open to the Abraham Accords, which the STC’s leadership had signaled it would join. For Riyadh, the UAE-backed offensive in south Yemen, paired with Israeli recognition of Somaliland, was an existential threat that required a maximal response.

The South

Whatever the maps now show, GoY’s hold on the south is shallow. The STC’s dissolution is disputed by members who reject it and continue to act in the group’s name, and the central demand of the southern movement, self-determination, is a direct threat to GoY and, now by extension, to Saudi Arabia and its regional allies. STC-aligned forces now operate as low-level insurgents against a government they were nominally part of until recently. GoY’s response has been forceful. Its troops fired on pro-STC demonstrators in Aden in February and in Mukalla in early April, killing several, and Human Rights Watch documented the use of excessive force and arbitrary detention in Aden. These actions undercut the already limited authority the government had only just begun to establish.

Yemen’s eastern governorates continue on their own particular trajectories. In Hadhramaut, the governorate that holds most of Yemen’s oil, the Saudi-backed Hadramawt Tribal Alliance (HTA) under Amr bin Habreesh continues to quietly press for autonomy and a larger share of the governorate’s oil revenue. The HTA answers to neither the government nor the southern separatists, and Saudi Arabia courts the alliance as a counterweight to both the GoY and the southern separatists.

Image Source: Yemen Monitor

A Hollow State

The hollowness shows most plainly in GoY’s failure to keep the lights on in Yemen’s wartime capital, Aden. A Saudi fuel grant in January gave Aden close to twenty hours of power a day, an improvement residents had not seen in years. The relief did not last. As summer temperatures rose, outages lasted up to 20 hours a day, with residents protesting in the streets and some sleeping outdoors to escape the heat. A further $150 million Saudi fuel package announced in late May produced no noticeable improvement. Repeated promises followed by repeated shortfalls have become the pattern, and residents have stopped expecting otherwise.

Corruption remains a core driver of the ongoing failures. The electricity sector has long been among the government’s largest budget lines and one of its most plundered, with vast sums spent in recent years for little to show for it. The waste drains the treasury and, worse, leaves the government without the means to deliver the services on which GoY’s legitimacy rests. In most of what touches ordinary life for Yemenis — power, water, salaries, healthcare, the courts — it is a government in form more than in substance, recognized abroad and kept solvent by Saudi transfers.

The exception is the army, the one institution the government has genuinely begun to reform, albeit unevenly. Since February, a new defense minister has consolidated most of the duplicated commands and payrolls he inherited, begun a unified personnel database and biometric payroll to purge ghost soldiers from its rolls, and restored a measure of coordination among forces that had spent a decade pulling apart. Yet the strongest formations still answer to their own patrons and senior commanders rather than to a single chain of command — the Saudi-funded National Shield to the council’s chairman, the southern brigades to the commanders who raised them — and the central authority now drawing them together and funding them is the Saudi-led Supreme Military Committee, not the president of Yemen. Command and control is slowly being unified, but into Riyadh’s hands rather than GoY’s. Even the government’s one act of state-building deepens its dependence on its core patron.

Outlook: What Comes Next?

Neither the Houthis nor the GoY are positioned for or strong enough to launch the kinds of offensives that could reshape Yemen’s political and military landscapes. The front lines have scarcely moved since the 2022 truce and are unlikely to move over near- or medium-term timeframes. All armed parties in Yemen now possess a range of UAVs for surveillance and attack. The diffusion of UAVs further locks in the frontlines, as surveillance is ubiquitous and massing troops carries greater risks.

Due to what it perceives as an existential threat from the UAE and Israel, Saudi Arabia is now more deeply involved in day-to-day affairs in Yemen than it ever has been. Saudi military and civilian advisers are now key decision-makers who, in many cases, are positioned ahead of GoY civilian and military officials. Saudi involvement is unlikely to diminish in the near term, but neither is it likely to force GoY to move toward more durable and effective governance. At the same time, the Saudis, who are acutely vulnerable to a Houthi attack on the East-West pipeline, will continue to placate the Houthis despite their increasing anti-Saudi rhetoric.

The Houthis and GoY show increasing fragility across multiple sectors, which means they remain balanced against one another. This balance means that Yemen faces what it has faced for much of the last decade, a slow, grinding economic decline that punishes the vast majority of Yemen’s 36 million inhabitants while elites on all sides benefit. At the same time, the continued diffusion of increasingly capable military technology and armaments means that a range of armed actors operating across Yemen will be further empowered. This, in turn, further imperils GoY authority and, increasingly, Houthi authority.

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About the Author:

Michael Horton is the co-founder of Red Sea Analytics International (RSAI) and a contributing author at Eurasia Outlook. He has two decades of experience as an analyst and researcher in Yemen and the Red Sea region. Michael has written policy briefs and conducted briefings and seminars for the US National Security Council, the British Foreign Ministry, the British Ministry of Defense, the US State Department, and senior members of the British Parliament and the US Congress. He has written extensively about the region for The Saratoga Foundation, Jane’s Intelligence Review, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Oxford Analytica, and The Economist,.

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The recent two-day visit to Azerbaijan by Turkmenistan President Serdar Berdimuhamedov from June 22-23 has been hailed as a major milestone in bilateral relations. Indeed, ten years ago, not only such a warm welcome, but even a visit by Turkmenistan’s head of state would have seemed highly unlikely. The two countries have come a long way from disputing ownership of a Caspian oil field to agreeing on its joint development and symbolically naming it Dostluk (“Friendship”) - a word that carries a similar meaning in both Azerbaijani and Turkmen.

The Turkmen president’s visit to Azerbaijan has again raised hopes that the long-discussed Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP) project might finally gain new momentum. The recent endorsement of the Trans-Caspian corridor by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a meeting with Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov on May 29 has once again renewed interest in the geopolitical significance of the Trans-Caspian undersea gas pipeline, once championed by U.S. officials in the 1990s. Successive U.S. administrations have supported the idea of a Trans-Caspian energy link as a means of strengthening the sovereignty and economic independence of the South Caucasus and Central Asia, diversifying export routes, and reducing excessive dependence on any single market.

From Azerbaijan’s perspective, strengthening Trans-Caspian connectivity and capitalizing on growing international interest in the Middle Corridor remain key strategic priorities. To Baku’s dismay, Ashgabat has not shared the same level of enthusiasm.

The China Factor in Turkmen Strategy

Several objective reasons explain Turkmenistan’s reluctance to embrace the project and its proclivity to maintain an eastward orientation in its gas exports. First, Turkmenistan is a natural gas exporter, and, unlike Azerbaijan, the overwhelming majority of its proven gas reserves are located in the eastern part of the country. Second, an extensive pipeline network connecting Turkmen gas fields to China is already in place, providing a reliable and established export route. This pipeline system consists of three parallel lines that run for 1,830 kilometers across Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan before entering China’s Xinjiang region. The combined design capacity of these three lines is 55 bcm per year (though some of this capacity is shared with smaller export volumes from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).

This strategic direction was reinforced in April when China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed an agreement to develop the fourth phase of the giant Galkynysh gas field, which supplies much of Turkmenistan’s approximately 30 bcm annual gas exports to China. While both countries have periodically discussed the construction of a fourth branch of the Central Asia–China gas pipeline (Line D), the project has faced repeated delays and remains uncertain.

Given these realities, it is highly unlikely that Turkmenistan would invest in a westward export pipeline to transport gas from fields developed largely with Chinese financing and intended primarily for the Chinese market. As a result, Ashgabat’s economic and infrastructure incentives continue to favor an eastward rather than a westward alignment.

Baku’s Energy Diplomacy with Ashgabat

Despite the challenges ahead, Azerbaijan is pursuing a deliberate, long-term energy strategy to engage Turkmenistan by leveraging ongoing developments in the Turkmen offshore oil sector to build support for a western vector to complement its eastern strategy. One promising area where Azerbaijani-Turkmen cooperation could deepen is the exporting of oil and gas from relatively smaller fields in the Caspian Sea.

On June 20^th, Turkmenistan awarded exploration rights for Blocks 19 and 20 to Petronas. The Malaysian company already operates Block 1, which produces around 10 million cubic meters of gas per day. On its own, such production volumes are not sufficient to justify a dedicated export route. However, when combined with output from additional offshore developments, they could eventually create the scale necessary for commercially viable exports across the Caspian.

Azerbaijan is equally interested in expanding cooperation with Turkmenistan in the oil sector. In this context, one of the most symbolic outcomes of the visit was Azerbaijan’s decision to present Turkmenistan with an oil tanker. The vessel was named Dostlug—the Turkmen spelling of “friendship”—echoing the name of the offshore field that has become a powerful symbol of the rapprochement between the two countries.

Gifted by Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan, the “Dostlug” oil tanker was built at the Baku Shipyard and has an overall length of 141 meters, a width of 16.9 meters, and a draft of 4.54 meters. With a deadweight of 7,875 tons and a carrying capacity of 55,000 to 60,000 barrels, the Dostlug is a Volga-Don Max river-sea tanker specifically designed with a shallow draft to navigate the fluctuating water levels of the Caspian Sea and regional canal systems while maximizing its cargo load. Its construction not only demonstrates the development of Azerbaijan’s shipbuilding industry but also highlights Baku’s growing capacity to implement large-scale and technologically complex shipbuilding projects in its modernized shipyard.

From Baku’s perspective, increasing Turkmen oil exports through Azerbaijani infrastructure offers tangible economic benefits. Azerbaijan’s full operator-ship of the 833-kilometer (518-mile) long Baku–Supsa oil pipeline (145,000 bpd) further enhances the attractiveness of such cooperation, allowing Baku greater flexibility in marketing and transit arrangements.

Both President Ilham Aliyev and SOCAR President Rovshan Najaf have confirmed that Turkmen crude is already being transported through the 1,768 kilometer (1099-mile) long Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. According to SOCAR, approximately 230 million barrels of Turkmen oil were shipped via BTC between 2005 and 2022, averaging around 14 million barrels per year. While this is a significant volume, it remains modest compared to BTC’s current throughput capacity of approximately 400,000 barrels per day. This suggests that Azerbaijan’s transit infrastructure has ample room to accommodate additional volumes of Turkmen oil should Ashgabat choose to increase exports through the Caspian corridor.

Outlook

With the recent visit to Baku by the Turkmen President, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev continues to nurture aspirations for a potential Trans-Caspian pipeline project that could once again be backed by the United States. Secretary’s of State Marco Rubio’s recent statement and meeting with the Turkmen Foreign Minister symbolize a revived level of US interest in the project, and American interest in promoting the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) could bolster US aspirations for greater Caspian connectivity, even linking TRIPP and TCP with the Middle Corridor.

That said, the principal obstacle to the realization of the TCP gas pipeline remains Turkmenistan’s reluctance to make a strategic commitment to the project. Despite Turkmenistan’s recent rapprochement with Azerbaijan and a series of goodwill gestures from Baku, the Turkmen leadership has shown little inclination to take the decisive steps necessary to advance a Trans-Caspian energy corridor.

Instead, Ashgabat appears to be adhering to its long-standing approach: preserving multiple export options without fully committing to any specific westward project while maintaining its eastern connection with China. Projects such as the Trans-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran (TAPI) gas pipeline, a project designed to export Turkmen natural gas out of the Caspian basin to energy-deficient markets in South Asia, a Trans-Caspian gas connection, or expanded gas exports to Türkiye via Iran serve less as concrete strategic priorities and more as bargaining chips in negotiations with China, Turkmenistan’s dominant gas customer.

From this perspective, the value of these alternative routes lies not necessarily in their implementation but in the leverage they provide. By keeping the possibility of diversification alive, Turkmenistan seeks to strengthen its negotiating position vis-à-vis Beijing while avoiding commitments that could alter the existing balance of its export relationships. As a result, discussions surrounding westward export routes continue to generate political interest, but tangible progress remains elusive.

This would explain Moscow’s muted response to the Turkmen president’s visit to Baku. At this stage, Moscow is likely to closely observe these developments rather than react strongly, particularly given the numerous political, commercial, and logistical obstacles that continue to hinder progress on the Trans-Caspian Pipeline. From Russia’s perspective, there is still a considerable gap between the positive symbolism surrounding Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan relations and any concrete steps toward the realization of a westward export corridor.

Author Bio:

Rauf Mammadov is a senior manager at Fuld & Company, specializing in energy issues. His research focuses on energy security, global energy industry trends, and energy relations between the Middle East, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus, with a particular emphasis on the post-Soviet countries of Eurasia.

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Hi everyone,

Something significant and unexpected is unfolding in the war in Ukraine: Russia’s critical land bridge linking the Russian-occupied land areas in southern Ukraine known as “Novorossiya” that runs to occupied Crimea along the R-280 highway is increasingly becoming a battlefield in its own right. Once considered a secure Russian logistical artery, the network of roads and rail lines running through occupied Ukrainian territory is now under sustained attack by explosive-laden drones.

Kyiv’s new mid-range drone campaign against Russian military transport routes is turning the Donetsk–Mariupol corridor and the R-280 “Novorossiya” highway into a ‘Mad Max’ death zone where Russian fuel trucks, supply vehicles, and logistical convoys are being hit daily - hundreds of kilometers from the front line. Ukrainian officials have described the campaign as a “logistics lockdown.” Russia’s southern military grouping and its forces in Crimea depend heavily on this overland network to receive daily shipments of food, fuel, ammunition, and reinforcements.

In our new report, The Vanishing Rear: How Ukraine’s Middle-Strike Revolution Is Rewriting Russian Disposition Doctrine on the R-280, Ukrainian security expert Hlib Parfonov addresses these developments as the grinding new reality along the R-280 is forcing a major reassessment within the Russian military over how to counter these attacks.

Key takeaway:

👉 By targeting the connective tissue of Russian logistics, Ukraine is exploiting a fundamental vulnerability of modern warfare: a military force may maintain strong defensive positions at the front while remaining exposed along the arteries that sustain it.

Facing this new reality, Moscow is reaching a stark conclusion about the modern battlefield: troops, equipment, and supply nodes once considered safe in rear areas are now vulnerable to precision strikes conducted by increasingly capable Ukrainian unmanned systems. The response has been a push toward radical dispersal, the abandonment of fixed rear-area assumptions, the deployment of mobile counter-drone teams and robotic surveillance systems, and a new counterintelligence posture designed to withstand persistent observation and attack.

Yet this adaptation reveals a deeper contradiction. Russia is attempting to solve a problem rooted in a traditional conception of the battlefield — protecting static formations and rear-area concentrations — while Ukraine’s drone campaign has shifted the contest onto the roads, logistics networks, and movement corridors that connect the battlefield. In effect, Russia is now confronting the very reconnaissance-strike complex that its own military theorists anticipated decades ago. The result is a transformation of warfare in which mobility, concealment, and logistics resilience may prove as decisive as firepower itself.

In his new report, Hlib argues that Russian military thought has reached a candid conclusion about the modern battlefield: troops in assembly areas hundreds of kilometers behind the front are no longer safe, and their losses may now exceed those of forces in direct contact. The corrective taking shape — radical dispersal, the abandonment of fixed area boundaries, robotic sentries, mobile counter-drone groups, and a counterintelligence regime imposed over the rear — amounts to the deepest revision of Soviet-rooted disposition doctrine in three generations. It is a response to a pressure Ukraine is actively generating: a deep-strike campaign reaching 300 kilometers into the Russian rear that has shifted from hunting air defense to strangling fuel and transport that could undermine Russia’s ability to remain in the occupied areas of “Novorossiya.”

According to Hlib, the deeper irony is that Russia is now rewriting its defensive manual for the reconnaissance-strike complex its own military theorists first prophesied — and that the doctrine answers a stationary problem, concealing a force at rest. At the same time, the threat has migrated to the R-280 highway, where dispersal cannot follow.

To read the report, please click 👉 here.

Enjoy!

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By Andrew McGregor

Since French troops and business interests were expelled from France’s former colonies in the Sahel after a series of Russian-inspired anti-colonial military coups, Paris has sought means of restoring its status as an influential player in Africa. One route has passed through Nairobi, where French president Emmanuel Macron joined a summit of African political and business leaders in mid-May amid deepening military ties with Kenya.

A second, more challenging path is represented by mutual efforts in recent months by both France and its former colony of Algeria to create a rapprochement after decades of hostility, efforts opposed by powerful political elements in both nations.

The Colonial Legacy

Algeria’s transition to independence was far from peaceful, with 132 years of French colonization coming to an end only after a bitter eight-year war (1954-1962) that finished with the death of hundreds of thousands of Algerians and the expulsion from the newly independent nation of French settlers (the pied-noirs) and Algerian collaborators with the colonial regime (the harkis). Algeria’s new regime perceived itself as a Marxist-influenced global center for anti-colonial ideology that had no place in its foreign relations for France, which had declared the integration of Algeria with mainland France as early as 1848.

Franco-Algerian relations, never good, were inflamed in July 2024 when France joined the US and Israel in recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, whose Polisario independence movement is supported by Algiers. After Algiers and Paris withdrew their respective ambassadors, Algeria’s National People’s Congress (the lower house of parliament) expressed its displeasure with France’s abandonment of its neutrality on the issue by passing a law in December 2024 decreeing French colonialism a “state crime,” with demands for an official apology and massive reparations.

In France, the education system has been instructed to emphasize the positive aspects of French colonialism, while Algerians frame attitudes to France through a lens of colonial repression, including massacres, summary executions, unwanted nuclear tests and the forced exile of dissidents from the homeland. These perceptions lay behind the Algerian legislation, which also called for the return of historical relics seized by French forces and the criminalization of “glorification” of French colonialism.

The French foreign ministry declared the legislation “manifestly hostile, both to the desire to resume Franco-Algerian dialogue and to calm, constructive work on issues of historical memory.” Conservative French senator Max Brisson rejected what he perceived as a narrowness of historical perception embodied in the Algerian legislation: “The Algerian regime may pronounce as many condemnations as it wishes - it will not erase history. That history has both its dark and its lighter chapters.” Macron made similar remarks in October 2016: “Yes, there was torture in Algeria, but there was also the emergence of a state, or wealth, of a middle class. This is the reality of colonialism. There are elements of civilization and elements of barbarism.”

By February 2017, Macron had changed his tone in remarks made in Algeria, asserting that French colonialism was “genuinely barbaric,” constituting “a part of our past that we have to confront.” With the possibility of a mutually beneficial rapprochement with France looming, Algeria’s upper house, the Council of the Nation, approved a revised version of the legislation in March, dropping the demands for an apology and reparations. According to French foreign minister Jean-Nöel Barrot, what matters most is creating conditions in which France can neutralize drug traffickers, expel Algerians living in France illegally and create new markets for France’s powerful agri-food industry. Barrot, however, did not aid the cause of rapprochement when he reaffirmed his support for Moroccan sovereignty over its “southern provinces” (the Western Sahara) in May of this year.

Mutual Suspicion

Macron’s willingness to engage in a reconciliation process has something less than broad support within France and may be seen by some as a willingness to increase immigration from Algeria. Others suspect Algerian president Abdelmajid Tebboune of trying to create an ultra-nationalist base amongst the five-million-plus French residents of Algerian descent that would enable him to influence French foreign policy. Some Algerian leaders have suggested the French government’s concern over migration issues is a craven attempt to gather domestic political support and appease the French right. Algerian authorities are also troubled by France’s role as a host for Algerian opposition figures as well as fugitives who have absconded with state funds and property obtained through administrative corruption.

A February visit to Algiers by French interior minister Laurent Nuñez led to the reactivation of a dormant framework for security coordination, including cooperation in intelligence matters and the delicate question of repatriating illegal migrants. Counterterrorism coordination was a special feature of the talks, with Algeria sharing a border with Niger and Mali, Sahelian nations that recently expelled French forces fighting Islamist extremists in favor of Russian troops acting under the direction of the Russian Defense Ministry. Two more French ministers have made visits to Algiers in recent months, and French ambassador Stéphane Romatet returned to Algiers in May.

French attitudes towards the rapprochement fall into two camps: the “pragmatists” who favor improved relations with Algeria (as represented by President Macron and his ministers) and the “power struggle” camp (represented by opposition leaders like Bruno Retailleau and Jordan Bardella), who have accused the Macron government of “incredible naiveté” in its dealings with Algeria. The growing rapprochement was described in the Algerian press as the “softening of relations between Algiers and Paris after a long period of freezing fueled by the racist and xenophobic discourse of a part of the French political class.”

Despite this “softening of relations,” Algiers has implemented new policies designed to eventually remove Algeria from the French cultural orbit. Algerian schools have reduced the time spent in class learning French in favor of English language instruction. Last year, for example, English replaced French in Algerian medical schools. The number of students learning French is in steady decline, as government-controlled agencies have switched to the use of Arabic and English in their documents. Le Monde notes that Air Algérie and Algérie Télécom have switched to the use of English and Arabic rather than French for tickets, billing, and receipts. Both are state-owned entities.

This development appears to be part of a gradual transition away from French in education and administration that has not yet been accompanied by any official decrees regarding a full-scale shift to English. The reasons for a gradual rather than abrupt and disruptive switch to English are described by an Algerian researcher as part of a deeper struggle over Algeria’s postcolonial identity, global integration, and the politics of language.

Conclusion

The leaders of both nations have come to the conclusion that a state of permanent estrangement benefits neither. The role of history in defining the quality of Franco-Algerian relations is so vital that Macron created a joint commission of French and Algerian historians to examine historical memory and commissioned a report by historian Benjamin Stora in 2021 to help guide attempts to build a new relationship, a recognition that the course of the present and future cannot be determined without acknowledgement of the burden imposed by history.

It is difficult for both Paris and Algiers to allow their foreign policies to stray very far from public sentiment, which tends to be deeply entrenched in an historical interpretation of the desirability of improved relations. The Algerian regime has benefited in the past from strict adherence to an anti-colonial ideology while blaming Algerian misfortunes on an allegedly hostile France. This may explain the antagonistic approach to improving relations taken by the government-controlled Algerian press, even as diplomatic initiatives for improvement are underway. Elements of French media have also promoted an aggressive suspicion of Algerian motives, suggesting that an Algerian presence in France is tied to toleration of crime and disorder. For both Algeria and France, nothing can be achieved in terms of the sought-after mutually beneficial rapprochement without reference to a contentious past.

About the Author:

Dr. Andrew McGregor is director of Aberfoyle International Security, a Toronto-based consultancy specializing in the security issues of Africa and the Islamic world.

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By Alexander Melikishvili

The US-Israeli war against Iran has had several second-order effects on Ukraine since it commenced on February 28. Most importantly, it has applied upward pressure on oil prices in global energy markets, benefiting Russia’s hydrocarbon-dependent economy. According to the Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, the increase in oil price could result in an additional $2.73 billion in revenues for the state budget. This will, in turn, provide the Putin regime with more financial resources to continue to wage war against Ukraine.

President Zelensky acknowledges this in his open letter to Putin, in which he cites “intelligence reports” indicating that the Russian leader is “considering plans to continue the war into 2027 and 2028.” Russia’s position is further strengthened by the political anxieties in the Trump administration over continued increases in the price of oil. This fear resulted in the US Department of the Treasury’s repeated issuance of 30-day waivers from sanctions on Russian oil starting from March (the latest one dates back to 18 May and is due to expire on 17 June).

The US-led war of choice with Iran also spurred Ukraine to intensify its bombing campaign targeting Russia’s oil and gas sector to deny the Kremlin the windfall profits from soaring oil prices. The Ukrainian military has been relentless in its deep strikes against oil refineries across Russia, forcing Deputy Prime Minister Novak to grudgingly admit the drop in oil production on the sidelines of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 4. In March, Reuters estimated that due to Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia’s strategically important oil export terminals on the Baltic (Ust-Luga and Primorsk) and Black (Novorossiysk) Seas, and the disruption of oil flow via the Druzhba pipeline caused by a Russian drone attack, Russia’s oil export capacity was reduced by 40%.

Ukraine’s “kinetic sanctions” have not been limited to Russian oil refineries, as maritime attacks against the Kremlin’s so-called “shadow fleet” indicate. Vessels carrying Russian oil in contravention of international sanctions have been regularly targeted by Ukraine not only in the Black Sea but as far away as the southern Mediterranean. For example, the tanker Qendil was struck off the coast of Libya in December 2025.

Russia Again Aims for Winter

Owing to the combination of extremely cold weather (coldest in the last 15 years) and persistent Russian strikes against Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure, this past winter was the hardest for Ukraine since the war began in February 2022. Unable to achieve a major breakthrough along the frontline, which, according to General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, stretches over 1,200 km, Russia is increasingly resorting to massive volleys of drones and missiles launched against Ukrainian electrical supply and production facilities. For example, the June 2 attack included 73 missiles and 656 drones, causing power outages in Kyiv and across six regions (Kyiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Sumy, and Cherkasy).

Moscow’s overarching objective is to degrade Ukraine’s national power grid by destroying the high-power transmission lines and substations that connect its electrical-generation facilities, which are mainly concentrated in the south and west of the country, to industrial demand in the east. As early as January, President Zelensky acknowledged that, because of the Russian attacks, Ukraine’s electrical-generation capacity could cover only 60% of the country’s needs.

*Image above: Naftogaz Facility Struck by Russian missiles in Chernihiv

Russian strategy is ruthlessly methodical, and it is multi-pronged, as it also entails the destruction of Ukraine’s oil and gas infrastructure. In January–April alone, the facilities of Ukraine’s national oil and gas champion, Naftogaz, were struck 96 times, according to its CEO, Serhii Koretskyi. This forced Ukraine to import 2.21 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas in January–April, which is 2.1 times as much as during the same period in 2025, according to data from the Ukrainian oil and gas consultancy ExPro. Considering that the Iran war increased gas prices in Europe to USD 500–600 per 1,000 cubic meters (compared to below $400 before the war), the debt-laden Naftogaz would need $1.3–1.5 billion to purchase the planned 2–2.5 bcm before the start of the heating season (31 October–31 March), based on Ekonomichna Pravda’s estimates.

The Ukrainian government’s baseline scenario for 2026–2027 envisions having 14.6 bcm in underground storage facilities by the start of the heating season. As of May 25, Ukraine had 10.7 bcm in storage, including 4–5 bcm that must remain in the system for technical maintenance, according to S&P Global Energy CERA. Although Ukraine boasts a network of twelve underground storage facilities (mainly concentrated in the western regions) with a total storage capacity on the order of 31 bcm, the largest in Europe, they have come under repeated attacks. In January, the Bilche-Volytsko-Uherske underground gas storage facility in Stryi district of Lviv region, the largest in Ukraine, was attacked by what the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Parliamentary Support Team for Ukraine described as “a missile of the ‘Oreshnik’ type with separate warheads.”

Outlook

The impending disbursement of the two-year EUR 90 billion EU loan (approximately $104 billion), slated for mid-June, provides welcome relief to the Ukrainian government as it ramps up preparations for winter. President Zelensky stated that at least EUR 30 billion ($34 billion) from this loan will be spent on direct budgetary support, which presumably also implies funds allocated for urgent repairs to critical energy infrastructure. However, Ukraine will be racing against time, as Russian attacks targeting the oil and gas sector, the electricity grid, electricity generation, and heat production will probably escalate to previously unseen levels as the heating season approaches.

With Russian combat operations effectively stalled due to the 10–15 km-wide drone-patrolled “kill zone” on both sides of the frontline, Putin’s options are limited. They could include another mobilization in the autumn, as suggested by the Russian MP Gurulev, but that would be deeply unpopular with the Russian public, which is already seething with anger from noticeably increased Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russia. Instead, chipping away at Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure with massive drone and missile volleys presents a more palatable choice, one that is virtually guaranteed to yield tangible results both in terms of incapacitating Ukraine’s defense industry and exacerbating war fatigue among the population without incurring losses on the battlefield.

In such a context, the provision of interceptor missiles (particularly PAC-3s for Patriot batteries) for Ukraine’s air defenses via the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), a US-NATO procurement mechanism, becomes absolutely critical. But here again, the harmful impact of the Iran war is felt strongly as the US balances its priorities with Israel and Gulf allies in mind, stoking European concerns. In the absence of adequate American commitments, it will fall on Europe to make difficult trade-offs that will have to entail drawing down stocks of munitions in some countries.

Speaking at the European Parliament in January, NATO Secretary General Rutte urged member states that “are sitting on large piles of interceptors” to transfer them to Ukraine. Without robust air defense to protect the ongoing repairs to energy infrastructure, Ukraine is destined to face another grueling winter that could strain the war-ravaged country to the breaking point.

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About the Author:

Alex Melikishvili is a senior country risk analyst with more than a decade of experience working in the private sector (S&P Global, IHS Markit) with a focus on Eurasian security. Alex holds a master’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

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The ongoing US-Iran war and its fallout are driving Middle Eastern countries, particularly the Gulf states, to reconsider the traditional US-backed security architecture and opt for swifter diversification of defense partnerships in order to tackle security challenges caused by the three-month-old Gulf War III. The Gulf states’ decision is a rational choice, as the recent Iranian missile attacks targeting military and energy targets demonstrated the limitations of the US-led support and local air defense systems during Iranian drone and missile attacks on the Arab Gulf states.

While currently the United States is engaged in peace talks with Iran to end hostilities and restore maritime movement in the Hormuz Strait, wealthy Gulf states are searching for new security partners to mitigate potential future risks of war, and Türkiye is moving quickly to fill that vacuum. Moreover, as a result of this shifting strategic environment, a new axis is seemingly taking shape that includes Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan amid the war that will likely further alter the geopolitical landscape, alongside the existing long-term Türkiye-Qatar axis.

Indeed, such a stance reflects Türkiye’s ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) vision of “an alliance of Muslim countries to minimize dependence on countries outside the region.” On the other hand, the new axis is poised to counter the US, Israel, India, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), thereby emphasizing the decades-long estrangement between the two blocs. Ostensibly, there are several significant motivating factors behind the emergence of this axis, such as shared concerns regarding Israel’s expanding power in the Middle East, ongoing instability in the Red Sea, and renewed attempts by Iran and its proxies to regain influence in the immediate neighborhood by escalating violence.

Amid deepening discontent with the war and the US-Israel alliance that has altered the regional balance of power, Gulf countries are increasingly turning toward Turkish-made defense products, namely drones and smart-guided missiles, to thwart Iranian drone and missile attacks. Despite robust air defense systems, which remain effective against ballistic missiles, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are facing ammunition shortages at a time of growing threats. Since the very beginning of the war, Iran has succeeded in striking no less than 12 US and allied radar and SATCOM terminals deployed in the Gulf states. According to satellite imagery, four AN/TPY-2 radars have been hit in al Sader and al Ruwais in the UAE, Muwaffaq Salti Airbase in Jordan, and Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia.

Turkish Defense Industry Fills the Gap

In contrast to the Gulf states, which face acute ammunition shortages despite possessing advanced air defense systems, Türkiye is on the verge of becoming one of the Middle East’s foremost military powers. Ankara is forging a modern-day industrial equivalent to Germany’s legendary Krupp defense industrial giant (or even multiple Krupps) capable of mass domestic defense production and global export.

With this goal in mind, Ankara is increasingly positioning itself as a leading supplier in the global defense sector. Ankara has spent the last decade cultivating an integrated domestic defense ecosystem in an effort to bypass Western embargoes and secure total strategic autonomy. During this time it has moved into the ranks of the Middle East’s top missile exporters. This transformation is anchored by a massive network of nearly 4,000 localized small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) scattered across the country, creating a resilient, insulated supply chain that resembles the vast industrial depth once developed by Krupp’s in the historic Ruhr Valley.

Drawing upon lessons learned from recent conflicts worldwide, most notably the war in Ukraine, Türkiye has leveraged battlefield data to shape its defense innovation strategy, prompting ROKETSAN to develop cost-effective first-person-view (FPV) and AI-enabled kamikaze drones. In addition, the most significant achievement of the Turkish defense industry is the recent unveiling of Yildirimhan (the Turkish word for Lightning), an indigenous Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), on May 7 at the SAHA 2026 Defense and Aerospace Exhibition. With a planned 6,000-kilometer range, a maximum speed of Mach 25, and a 3,000 kg payload capacity, in theory, the missile launched from Türkiye could use its newly created ICBM to strike targets anywhere across Europe, Africa, and Asia.

*Image above: Türkiye’s first ICBM prototype, the Yildirimhan

The unveiling of Türkiye's first ICBM prototype, the Yildirimhan, marks a massive strategic shift for the Middle East. While Ankara’s ICBM is currently a concept mock-up rather than an active, fielded weapon, its development carries profound geopolitical, technical, and military implications for the Middle East. It also directly signals Türkiye’s emergence as a major regional power that its neighbors will take with great seriousness and further motivates the Arab Gulf states to pursue closer security ties with Ankara in the aftermath of the ongoing US-Iran confrontation.

Given such cutting-edge military technology, the Gulf states’ desire for a deeper partnership with Türkiye should come as no surprise. As such, on May 7, Kuwait’s Defense Minister, Sheikh Abdullah Ali Abdullah Al-Sabah, signed an intergovernmental protocol of intent for military-technical cooperation with the Turkish Defense Industry Administration. Alongside Kuwait, both Qatar and Saudi Arabia have expressed particular interest in ASELSAN’s Korkut 100/25 anti-aircraft artillery system, designed to counter small and ultra-small UAVs using 25 mm programmable high-explosive fragmentation rounds. Moreover, Qatar became the first importer of the newly developed Tolga Shorad short-range air defense system.

Undoubtedly, Türkiye’s strong commitment to achieving defense autonomy, significant production power, and proximity to the Gulf make Ankara a vital actor in the new geopolitical axis unfolding in the Gulf. As a rising regional power, Türkiye has successfully found a balance between soft and hard power, leaning mostly into mediation diplomacy and supporting several regional states due to its pragmatic vision.

Hence, while Middle Eastern states are eager to deepen defense partnerships with Türkiye through increased military imports and by reinforcing anti-Iranian narratives, some Western observers contend that Ankara’s expanding military footprint, driven by the rapid development of ballistic, cruise, and potentially hypersonic missiles, raises questions about whether Türkiye is acting as a stabilizing NATO ally or could evolve into a revisionist power.

Despite periodic criticism of Türkiye, the Trump administration has maintained a largely conciliatory stance toward the ruling AKP and forged stronger ties that have only deepened after the US military withdrawal from Syria. Meanwhile, critical delivery backlogs of U.S. Patriot and THAAD missile systems to the Gulf—combined with Europe’s scramble to rearm amid mounting geopolitical uncertainty—have enabled Ankara to position itself as a stable, reliable alternative supplier to the Gulf states. Moreover, Türkiye’s rising status will further cement its role in the new emerging order following the NATO summit in Ankara from July 7-8, which the President of the United States and other world leaders plan to attend.

Outlook

Türkiye’s recent advances in defense production and its growing alliances with Gulf states amid severe security challenges come at a pivotal moment for the global arms trade. The repercussions from the prolonged and violent drone and missile wars in Ukraine and Iran have drastically depleted global stockpiles of advanced weapon systems. During the recent conflict with Iran, the United States and its Gulf allies relied heavily on sophisticated Patriot and THAAD interceptors to counter inexpensive Iranian drones, yet concerns over limited inventories compelled the monarchies to seek alternative suppliers and partners. In this context, Türkiye appears to be well-positioned to outmaneuver established global arms producers, viewing the current crisis as a strategic opening for its arms industry and future exports to the Gulf.

Türkiye’s deepening ties with the Gulf monarchies mark a pivotal juncture in the Middle East’s security architecture. With Washington’s long-standing influence increasingly exposed, Ankara has gained fresh momentum as a strategic power broker in the region. The emerging geopolitical axis—anchored by Türkiye and reinforced by Gulf demand—signals a recalibration of regional alliances that will carry ripple effects that extend well beyond the Middle East into the wider global order that emerges in the aftermath of the ongoing US-Iran confrontation.

About the Author:

Fuad Shahbazov is a political scientist and analyst focused on regional security in Eurasia and the Middle East. He holds a master’s degree in Political Science from Vytautas Magnus University, a professional master’s degree in Terrorism and Countering Religious Radicalization from the University of Bergamo, and a master’s degree in Defense and Diplomacy from Durham University.

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By Paul Goble

Moscow continues to try to make the Circassian issue disappear, not only by seeking to limit participation in Circassian events but also by seeking to reduce the amount of academic attention the Circassians receive. But any short-term successes it has had in either are increasingly being overwhelmed by failures of its own making and by the growing activism of Circassians alike, both in the North Caucasus homeland and in the diaspora. Indeed, it is now the case that just like at the end of Soviet times, Moscow is fighting the Circassians in ways like the case of the foolish man who tries to extinguish a grease fire with water alone, a tactic that invariably fails when the center is unwilling or unable to douse the flames with a sufficiently large amount of water to put them out – and which as a result ends by spreading that which it hopes to extinguish.

Two developments this month alone highlight this new reality. On the one hand, officials in the North Caucasus sought to have it both ways as far as demonstrations on the anniversary of the 1864 genocide, giving official permission to some of them but then sending out the siloviki (Russian security services) in advance to warn people against taking part, an approach that ensured more participation and caused even more attention to the event than Moscow could ever have wanted. And on the other hand, a North Caucasian historian, to be sure speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that Moscow had driven the discussion of Russia’s 101-year-long war against the North Caucasus and the genocide of the Circassians that came at its end out of academic discourse in the Russian Federation, a trend that has also had an impact on Western attention to this issue. But even as it did that, a Moscow internet portal celebrated that the Russian-based Yandex search engine has now created an online translator of Circassian into Russian, something that will make the study of Circassian issues, including the war and genocide, much easier and likely more frequently discussed - at least outside of the Russian Federation.

The Continuing Importance of the May 21 Anniversary

May 21 marks the anniversary of the day in 1864 when Russian imperial forces expelled the Circassians from their North Caucasian homeland at the end of 101 years of resistance to Russian rule in an act of genocide. Commemorating this event plays a pivotal role in keeping the national movement alive, both among the 700,000 Circassians remaining in the North Caucasus and the seven million-strong diaspora. During the period of relative freedom in the first decades after the collapse of the USSR, Circassian activists in the North Caucasus, often with the open support of officials in the republics where they lived, organized various public measures to commemorate the anniversary. These efforts brought them into closer alignment with Circassian communities abroad, who had never ceased to commemorate this memorial day.

Those links became especially disturbing to the Putin regime at the time of the Sochi Olympiad in 2014, an event that the Kremlin clumsily organized precisely on the territory from which its genocide of the Circassians took place. (On that process, see the 50 weekly articles preceding the Sochi Olympics in Window on Eurasia (Window on Eurasia, Feb. 7, 2014.) And since that time, Moscow has taken ever more steps to limit Circassian activism both inside Russia and outside (Saratoga Foundation, Dec. 12, 2025, and Saratoga Foundation, Dec. 12, 2024).

Over the last decade, since then, Moscow has generally sought to restrict or even ban any commemorations of May 21 in the North Caucasus and has arrested some who took part in the hopes that would intimidate them and others. But instead, these bans and arrests have had just the opposite effect, attracting international attention to Russian repression and convincing many Circassians that they needed to adopt even tougher policies in response lest their national movement be crushed. This year, Moscow tried a new approach, giving permission for small meetings to make it appear more tolerant and then not arresting those who took part so as not to give the Circassians martyrs and further energize their activities. That led to a decline in attention to the measure in international media as compared to earlier years when bans and arrests made better journalistic copy, but Moscow combined these moves with another that is simultaneously more disturbing and counterproductive as far as Russian leaders are concerned.

Russian Intimidation Efforts Backfire

In the days and weeks before May 21 this year, Russian officials and their agents in place in the North Caucasus dispatched police and security officials to warn Circassians and members of their families against participating, implicitly suggesting that those who did so or supported those who did would suffer serious consequences. That Russian effort did not have the effect Moscow hoped for. While a few Circassians may have been intimidated, many more nonetheless did take part – and what is more important, they told sympathetic outlets about what Moscow was now doing, further angering and energizing Circassians and ensuring that their national movement will continue to grow rather than disappear as Moscow had wanted.

A second and related development in Moscow’s campaign, one so far overshadowed by Russia’s pressuring the Georgian government to reduce the status of the Circassian Cultural Center in Tbilisi, is yet another example of how Moscow’s campaign against the Circassians continues to backfire. That concerns the Russian government’s efforts to reduce scholarly discussion of Russia’s war against the Circassians, an effort historians in the region say has had success in Russian institutions and has echoed in Western scholarship as well over the last decade.

One of these historians, speaking on condition of anonymity, is blunt about this process. “In recent years,” he says, “the 19th-century Caucasian War has faded from the active agenda; all the discussions that resonated so loudly in the 1990s and 2000s have died down. Abroad, meanwhile, the study of the Caucasian War has, as a rule, never received much attention. Speaking of recent years, the only foreign work I can recall is Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky’s book: Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State, published by Stanford University Press in 2024.“

The decline in Western attention, he and other scholars in the North Caucasus suggest, is that the decline in Russian attention to this issue has meant fewer people in the West can do research on this topic because they know Russian but not Circassian or other North Caucasian languages.

That trend, of course, is exactly the one Moscow hopes for because declining attention to the Circassians and their national movement would seem to promise the Kremlin a real victory. After all, if Western scholars are not focusing on this, Western governments will not be as likely to either. There are some exceptions, most notably Lithuania and Ukraine, but Moscow’s hopes and intentions are clear.

Outlook

Unfortunately for the Kremlin but fortunately for the Circassians and all who care about the rights of minorities in the Russian Federation, Moscow is undermining its own goals in this regard by taking a step that quite likely will lead to more scholarship in the West about the Circassians, something that will help them maintain and grow their national movement in the face of Russian pressure. Even at the very time as the Russian authorities were unsuccessfully seeking to block Circassian commemorations of May 21, Moscow announced that Yandex, the Russian news portal, had added an online feature that would enable its visitors to translate Circassian into Russian.

This notable development should make it easier for Western scholars who know Russian but not Circassian to research the Russian advance into the North Caucasus in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Circassian resistance then, and the revival of the Circassian national movement now. At the very least, this shows a lack of coordination within the Russian government, a strategic vulnerability that Circassians and their friends are likely to exploit. Consequently, this combination of Russian actions, instead of making the Circassian issue disappear, seems set to make it even more important in the future.

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By Alexander Melikishvili

President Putin chose the press briefing on 9 May, the day Russia celebrates the end of World War II, to deliver a veiled threat to Armenia over its stepped-up efforts to pursue closer ties with the EU. He reminded the press pool that the war in Ukraine started with the latter’s attempt to do the same. He then added, “Therefore, they [Armenia] should not take it to the extreme.” Putin’s comments also included a suggestion to hold a referendum in Armenia, the outcome of which could potentially lay the groundwork for “a gentle, intelligent and mutually beneficial divorce.” Putin proposed discussing this topic at the upcoming Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) summit, which will be held in Astana, Kazakhstan, from May 28 to 29.

Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan was quick to respond. At an impromptu huddle with the media on May 11, in the Erebuni district of Yerevan, he defiantly disagreed with the divorce metaphor and stated that he saw no need to hold a referendum on relations with the EU, while issuing assurances that his government had no intention of harming Russian interests. Pashinyan expressed “great respect” for the EEU but announced that he would be skipping the summit due to being preoccupied with campaigning ahead of Armenia’s crucial parliamentary election on June 7. Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan will be representing Armenia in Astana.

If Putin’s remarks were relatively measured, other representatives of the Russian government were more explicit. Their ire was caused by the presence of Ukrainian President Zelensky at the 8th summit of the European Political Community (EPC), which, for the first time, was held in Yerevan on May 4. Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry known for her vitriolic tirades, declared at a press briefing on May 7 that the Ukrainian leader’s visit “showed the citizens of Armenia what kind of future the EU has prepared for them.” Mikhail Kalugin, the senior Russian diplomat overseeing relations with the CIS states, pointed out that “integration requires systemic work that is hardly compatible with an approach according to which membership in the EEU is viewed as a temporary measure for the period of search or the process of accession to an alternative association. To put it simply, sitting on two chairs won’t work.”

*Image above is a Russian AI-generated image mocking Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan, flanked by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in a Mount Rushmore-like sculpture taken from the YouTube channel (@notowa1) of the Armenian popular movement “No to Western Azerbaijan” that opposes Armenia-Azerbaijan-Türkiye rapprochement.

Russia Launches Disinformation Campaign in Earnest

Ahead of the general elections, Pashinyan is significantly hobbled by his principled position regarding the normalization of relations with both Azerbaijan and Turkey, which is very unpopular among a sizable segment of the Armenian electorate, especially Karabakh refugees. In addition, Pashinyan’s campaign against alleged corruption in the Armenian Apostolic Church, including calls for the resignation of Catholicos Karekin II, has made him the target of criticism from religious conservatives and the pro-Russian opposition. According to the public opinion poll results released in April, although Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party garnered the biggest share of supporters (33.6%), leaving far behind Narek Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia (11.4%) and ex-President Robert Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance (4.2%), respondents who refused to answer or did not know whom they would vote for accounted for 23.3% and 13.7%, respectively, indicating that many voters are still undecided.

Against this backdrop, Russia unleashed an online disinformation campaign targeting Pashinyan due to his pro-Western policies, which is replete with AI-generated videos and images. According to the Russian investigative outlet The Insider, the Matryoshka bot network commenced its operations in October 2025, or eight months before the elections, which underscores the importance the Kremlin attaches to Armenia. In comparison, Matryoshka’s disinformation campaigns in the United States (presidential elections) and Moldova (parliamentary) began three and a half and five and a half months before the election dates in 2024 and 2025, respectively. In terms of content, it is a toxic mix of familiar Kremlin tropes and outright lies, including accusations that Pashinyan is planning to drag Armenia into conflict with Russia, that he is selling out Armenia’s national interests for the sake of normalizing relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey, and that his pursuit of closer relations with the EU threatens “traditional values” in Armenia.

Russian election interference is further confirmed by the Swedish investigative organization Blankspot, which alleges that it has obtained a confidential document entitled Programme for Work in the ‘Anti-Pashinyan’ Direction for 2026. Blankspot claims that the document was obtained from “a person operating within the Russian intelligence services” after he or she “was hacked by a third party before March 2026.” It identifies the main objective as the “minimization of electoral results of the ‘Civil Contract’ and political forces allied with it.” This is to be accomplished through a number of means, including framing the elections as a referendum on confidence in Pashinyan personally.

Outlook

Russia does not lack levers of influence over Armenia, economic or otherwise. Suffice it to mention that Russia owns Armenia’s critical infrastructure, including its railway grid and gas distribution network. Armenia is vitally dependent on the gas it receives from Russia via Georgia at a steep discount, which Putin reminded Pashinyan of at their rather uneasy meeting in Moscow on April 1st. However, so far, it appears that the Kremlin’s strategy is limited to “soft” measures, including arbitrary trade restrictions such as the prohibition on selling imported Armenian mineral water in April. Given Pashinyan’s precarious domestic position, it is likely that Putin’s regime calculates that the disinformation campaign will be enough to unseat him.

Furthermore, the presence of the Russian military in Armenia provides Putin with other options as well. The passage by the State Duma of the draft law allowing the use of force to protect Russian citizens abroad on May 13, after it goes through the legislative process (approval by the Federation Council followed by Putin’s signature), will give Moscow a legal pretext for potential military intervention in Armenia, where, as of December 2025, 43,536 Russian citizens held residence permits, according to the Armenian interior ministry. On May 14, Pashinyan responded to the passage of this law by stating that he was not concerned and expressing his confident expectation that the Russian 102nd military base in Gyumri, “irrespective of what laws are in place in the Russian Federation, must function within the framework of Armenian laws and powers.” Nonetheless, under an extreme scenario, the Russian troops deployed in Armenia could be employed to carry out a coup to install a more Russia-friendly regime.

Armenia’s fate hangs in the balance as it is unclear how effective the deployment of the EU’s Hybrid Rapid Response Team to counter foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), in response to the Armenian government’s request, has been in limiting the impact of the Russian disinformation campaign ahead of the elections. Similarly, it is very unlikely that further institutionalization of EU-Armenia relations (through the establishment of the EU Partnership Mission in Armenia with a two-year mandate in April) will stave off potential Russian military intervention should Putin decide to use force to bring Armenia to heel.

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Alex Melikishvili is a senior country risk analyst with more than a decade of experience working in the private sector (S&P Global, IHS Markit) with a focus on Eurasian security. Alex holds a master’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

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By Vusal Guliyev

Disruptions to energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz once again reveal the structural vulnerabilities of global oil markets. As the world’s largest crude importer, China is particularly exposed to such shocks. Historically, a significant share of China’s crude oil imports has been sourced from the Middle East, with a substantial portion transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

An estimated 52% of China’s oil imports currently pass through the strategic chokepoint. However, Beijing’s dependence remains lower than that of other major East Asian economies. By comparison, around 95% of Japan’s oil imports and roughly 70% of South Korea’s transit the same route. This demonstrates China’s relatively more diversified supply structure than its Asian neighbors. China’s exposure also extends beyond oil. As the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), about 30% of its LNG imports are linked to flows via the Strait of Hormuz. A considerable share of these supplies originates from Qatar, followed by the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Against this backdrop, the Hormuz blockade is not merely a disruption but a catalyst, accelerating China’s shift toward continental energy suppliers and overland transport corridors. Over the past two decades, Beijing has pursued a systematic diversification strategy aimed at reducing its reliance on vulnerable maritime routes. As a result, non-Gulf suppliers—particularly Russia and Central Asia—have gained increasing prominence. The current crisis has accelerated this shift. It has reinforced China’s turn toward geographically resilient, land-based energy networks and a broader portfolio of alternative suppliers.

Russia Becomes Beijing’s Fall-Back Supplier

Amid disruptions to Iranian oil exports, Russia has diplomatically positioned itself as a critical fallback supplier for China’s energy needs. During a meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing on April 15, 2026, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Moscow is capable of fully compensating for any energy shortfall China may face due to the restricted supply of Iranian energy. Unlike Middle Eastern oil flows, Russian exports—particularly via pipelines—remain largely insulated from geopolitical chokepoints and naval disruptions.

Russian crude is delivered to China via oil pipelines such as the Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean (ESPO) route, which has become a particularly important component of China’s import portfolio. By early 2026, Russia has emerged as China’s top crude oil supplier, accounting for approximately 19.6% to over 20% of China’s total crude imports in 2024 and 2025. Imports frequently exceed 2 million barrels per day (bpd), driven by discounted prices on grades such as ESPO and Urals. These discounts are largely a consequence of Western sanctions imposed since 2022 in response to the Ukraine crisis, which have constrained Russia’s access to European markets as well as to Western shipping, insurance, and financial services.

This deepening energy interdependence is even more evident in the gas sector. The operational Power of Siberia pipeline—linking eastern Siberian gas fields to northeastern China—has rapidly scaled up deliveries to around 39 billion cubic meters (bcm) annually. Discussions are also underway to increase gas flows up to 44 bcm per year through upgrades and operational optimization.

The bilateral energy relationship is set to deepen further with the proposed Power of Siberia-2, designed to deliver up to 50 bcm of gas annually from western Siberia to China via Mongolia. However, this roughly 2,600-km pipeline remains closely tied to the broader pricing dynamics shaping Russia–China energy relations. Despite years of negotiations, progress has stalled primarily due to disagreements over gas pricing. China seeks to preserve discounted terms, while Moscow aims to secure higher returns to justify the investment. This impasse reflects a wider asymmetry in bargaining power. As Russia continues to offer gas at reduced prices amid limited alternative markets, Beijing faces little urgency to finalize a long-term agreement. Consequently, the future of the pipeline remains uncertain. This underscores the fact that infrastructure expansion is not merely a technical matter but also a function of shifting economic leverage between the two sides.

China’s Energy Bridge to Central Asia

Beyond the Russia–China axis, Central Asia plays a vital role in shaping Beijing’s overland energy architecture. However, similar patterns of constrained capacity and strategic recalibration can be observed across the region’s energy corridors. Region wide pipeline networks linking Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states to western China provide critical overland alternatives that bypass maritime chokepoints altogether. The Kazakhstan–China Oil Pipeline, operational since 2006, has a capacity of around 20 million tons per year (approximately 400,000 bpd) and typically delivers 250,000–400,000 bpd, accounting for roughly 3–5% of China’s total crude oil imports.

At the same time, the Russia–Ukraine war—particularly drone attacks on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) facilities at Russia’s Black Sea port terminal at Novorossysk— has significantly disrupted Kazakhstan’s oil export infrastructure, prompting renewed efforts to diversify routes. During the second Caspian and Central Asia Oil Trading and Logistics Forum held in Baku on April 23, 2026, the Chairman of the Board of PetroCouncil.kz Assylbek Jakiyev highlighted the vulnerability of Kazakhstan’s existing export system, citing disruptions affecting routes linked to the CPC. He noted that Kazakhstan is actively evaluating two principal alternatives, the Trans-Caspian route via Azerbaijan (the Middle Corridor) and the China-bound export route supported by existing infrastructure. Although the China route offers immediate capacity of up to 20 million tons annually, its current utilization remains significantly below potential, at approximately 3 to 5 million tons, primarily due to operational constraints.

In parallel, the Central Asia–China Gas Pipeline—linking Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan to China—supplies around 55 bcm of natural gas annually through its three existing lines (A, B, and C), with long-term agreements (particularly with Turkmenistan) targeting up to 65 bcm per year. This framework is expected to deepen further with the proposed Line D expansion, a fourth branch of the pipeline system designed to add 25–30 bcm per year via a new route through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Although the project has faced delays since 2014 due to financing constraints and complex transit negotiations, it remains a strategically important priority for Beijing. Once the long-awaited Line D becomes operational, the Central Asia–China Gas Pipeline system will reach an annual capacity of approximately 85 billion cubic meters, making it the largest gas transmission system in Central Asia.

Importantly, this infrastructure expansion is reinforced by recent high-level political engagement between the two countries. During a meeting in Beijing on March 18, 2026, Xi Jinping and Turkmenistan’s National Leader and former president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow held comprehensive talks aimed at deepening bilateral cooperation across multiple sectors, with energy remaining a central pillar. Both sides emphasized the importance of expanding cooperation in natural gas, with particular attention being paid to the continued development of the Galkynysh field and the strengthening of long-term supply arrangements. The meeting also highlighted efforts to align Turkmenistan’s development strategy with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, further embedding energy cooperation within a broader framework of connectivity and regional integration.

This momentum was further reinforced in subsequent engagements. During high-level talks held in Turkmenistan in mid-April 2026, Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow reaffirmed their commitment to deepening bilateral energy cooperation, with natural gas remaining central to the partnership. The discussions— held alongside the launch of new development phases at the Galkynysh gas field—emphasized expanding the scale of gas cooperation and accelerating key joint projects. A central outcome was an agreement to further develop Turkmenistan’s vast gas reserves and strengthen long-term supply arrangements to China through existing and planned pipeline infrastructure.

Shortly thereafter, Türkmengaz signed a $4.6 billion gas field contract with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to design and construct production facilities capable of processing up to 10 bcm of gas annually as part of the development of Phase 4 of the Galkynyshgas field. As one of the world’s largest natural gas fields, Galkynysh forms the backbone of Turkmenistan’s export capacity to China via the Central Asia–China pipeline network.

Still, Central Asia provides a relatively modest share of China’s crude oil imports but remains a major source of pipeline gas, at times accounting for around one-third of the country’s natural gas imports. Beyond their quantitative contribution, these overland supply channels are strategically indispensable, enabling stable, long-term deliveries into China’s Xinjiang region under frameworks such as the Belt and Road Initiative. To some extent, they mitigate China’s exposure to vulnerable maritime chokepoints while reinforcing its broader energy diversification strategy.

Beyond its deepening engagement with Central Asia—especially the energy-rich Caspian littoral states of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan—China is well positioned to expand its energy and connectivity footprint across the wider Caspian basin, where Azerbaijan is emerging as a pivotal energy and transit hub. Offshore production from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) complex and the Shah Deniz gas field underpins Azerbaijan’s export capacity, while logistics centered on Baku—supported by the Port of Baku and its integration with the Port of Aktau in Kazakhstan and Turkmenbashi International Seaport in Turkmenistan—could facilitate the trans-Caspian movement of hydrocarbons, including potential eastward flows over the longer term.

China’s involvement in Azerbaijan’s hydrocarbon sector remains limited, particularly in core offshore oil and gas projects dominated by Western and regional consortia. Its presence is more visible in renewables, technical services, and infrastructure cooperation across various regions of Azerbaijan. By contrast, China is far more active along the eastern Caspian littoral, particularly on Kazakhstan’s shores. Through China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Beijing controls about 86% of the Aktobe oil fields and holds roughly 8.4% in the Kashagan oil field. It is also more broadly engaged in pipeline and energy infrastructure, though it does not exercise dominant control over the sector as a whole.

Concurrently, Azerbaijan’s growing alignment with Central Asian producers—reinforced through multilateral frameworks such as the C6 platform and the Organization of Turkic States—is consolidating a more cohesive trans-Caspian corridor. This integration enhances multimodal flexibility and enables the rerouting of flows in response to geopolitical or market disruptions. Rising Asian demand—evidenced by Japan’s recent efforts to secure crude from Azerbaijan’s and Kazakhstan’s offshore oil fields—further underscores the system’s growing multidirectional character. For Beijing, deeper engagement with this Azerbaijan-centered network is unlikely to generate immediate large-scale import volumes, given existing infrastructural and capacity constraints. However, this would reinforce a parallel, non-Russian Eurasian corridor, diversifying supply pathways and reducing concentration risk, while enhancing China’s long-term strategic optionality within an increasingly complex and interdependent energy landscape.

Outlook

Despite significant progress in diversifying supply routes and expanding overland energy corridors, China’s energy security strategy remains fundamentally constrained by structural realities. The country continues to rely heavily on Gulf hydrocarbons—particularly oil—much of which still transits through the Strait of Hormuz. In practice, no combination of pipelines from Russia or Central Asia can fully replicate the scale, flexibility, and liquidity of global seaborne energy markets. Crucially, pipeline-based supply remains limited in scale relative to the vast volumes transported via maritime routes, underscoring the structural limits of overland diversification.

At the same time, China’s pivot toward continental suppliers introduces a new set of risks rather than eliminating existing ones. Deepening dependence on Russia raises the prospect of strategic overexposure to a single supplier operating under sanctions, potentially enhancing Moscow’s leverage over pricing and long-term contractual arrangements. Meanwhile, Central Asian energy corridors remain constrained by limited capacity, complex transit frameworks, and infrastructure vulnerabilities. Key interregional energy initiatives, such as the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline and Central Asia–China Gas Pipeline Line D, continue to face delays, uncertainty, and political friction, underscoring the fragility of China’s long-term diversification strategy.

To this end, the Hormuz disruption reveals a central contradiction in China’s energy strategy. While Beijing has managed to reduce some of its most acute vulnerabilities, it remains deeply reliant on global transport networks, underscoring the persistent limits of its diversification efforts. Over the longer term, China’s push toward renewable energy and electrification may further mitigate its exposure to external shocks. What emerges is not a fully secure system, but a more complex and layered one—where resilience has improved, yet systemic risk remains deeply embedded.

About the Author:

Vusal Guliyev is a frequent contributor to The Saratoga Foundation. He is a Sinologist, TCSOL Specialist, and Policy Analyst specializing in the geopolitical affairs of Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific region. Mr. Guliyev currently works as a Leading Advisor at the Baku-based Center of Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center) and serves as the Head of the Shanghai Office at AZEGLOB Consulting Group.

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On February 3, 2026, senior officials of the Azerbaijan Naval Forces (ANF), led by Commander Rear Admiral Shahin Mammadov, paid a visit to Islamabad to meet their counterpart, Admiral Naveed Ashraf. The visit came amid strengthening ties between the two countries in the most strategically important fields, particularly defense. The defense partnership between the two countries recently entered a new phase when Azerbaijan, along with Türkiye and China, openly supported Pakistan against India during the clashes in May 2025.

Although local media framed Shahin Mammadov’s meeting with Naveed Ashraf as a routine engagement between partners, the visit must be understood against the backdrop of mounting geopolitical volatility in the Caspian basin and the wider Middle East. The joint United States and Israelis military campaign against Iran since February 28, and Israel’s missile attacks targeting Iranian ships in the Caspian Sea on March 18, coupled with the persistent Russian threat in the basin, have accelerated competition over international trade routes and energy resources in the landlocked sea. Within this context, maritime security is steadily emerging as a strategic priority for Azerbaijan. In recent years, Baku has significantly strengthened its naval capabilities by purchasing and modernizing vessels through close partnerships with both Israel and Türkiye.

*Turkish warship design offered to Azerbaijan as part of its naval modernization program.

In 2018, Azerbaijan held negotiations with the Turkish shipyard Dearsan to jointly build four warships, while in 2025, Baku publicly showcased its Turkish-produced “Salvo” unmanned surface vessel (USV) for the first time, marking a significant step in the country’s maritime modernization efforts. Further efforts to increase military capabilities culminated in the demonstration of Baku’s most recent acquisition of Israeli-made anti-ship missiles, namely Sea Breaker, capable of hitting sea and land targets with high accuracy at ranges of 32 to 300 kilometers (km), including the Israeli-made fifth-generation Ice-Breaker anti-ship cruise missile system. For Azerbaijan, its public display effectively confirmed the system’s existence and highlighted the creation of a robust barrier on the maritime flank, significantly enhancing its coastal defense capabilities.

*Image: The Salvo: Azerbaijan’s first-ever Turkish-made Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV) naval drone in operation in the Caspian.

Considering that Azerbaijan possesses critically important energy infrastructure in the Caspian Sea, including offshore platforms and main export pipelines, which are vital to the country’s economy and Europe’s energy security, Baku’s ambitions to enhance naval partnerships and maritime security seem rational.

Russia’s frequent use of the Caspian Sea to launch missiles against Ukrainian territory since 2022, along with Iran’s transfer of Shahed drones to Russia via the Caspian route, has triggered concerns in other littoral states. Indeed, burgeoning military trade between Moscow and Tehran has further emboldened Azerbaijan to expand its outreach to Türkiye, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. This engagement, pursued within the framework of the Turkic community, reflects Baku’s effort to consolidate regional partnerships at a time when Moscow and Tehran’s influence is declining.

Caspian Breeze 2025

In 2025, Baku and Astana conducted their first-ever joint large-scale naval exercises, “Caspian Breeze-2025,” in the Caspian Sea to prepare for potential asymmetric threats. Using a similar title as the former NATO-led Sea Breeze exercises in the Black Sea was perhaps no accident in the choice of the term, as other regional countries might one day join the exercise. Undoubtedly, the Caspian basin’s transformation into “a contested strategic zone” facilitated the emergence of multi-country blocs, namely Russia-Iran (with China’s muted support) and Azerbaijan-Turkic states. The latter is aimed at developing plausible means to counter emerging regional threats.

Azerbaijan’s continuous efforts to strengthen its naval capabilities and ongoing threat assessment with strategic partners form a comprehensive system for protecting the country’s energy and logistical interests. Therefore, without robust communication and coordination among the West, Türkiye, Israel, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan, powers such as Russia and Iran could dominate key regional trade routes, leading to both expansion and fragmentation across the Caspian basin.

Nevertheless, the current level of engagement between Azerbaijan and other regional states with the Trump administration, culminating in Vice President JD Vance’s visit to the Caucasus and the signing of a strategic partnership document, may have convinced Baku that it has secured Washington’s vocal support. In addition, Vice-President JD Vance in his speech in Baku, emphasized that the US will supply Azerbaijan with new patrol boats to strengthen Azerbaijan’s maritime security as part of long-standing US-backed counter-terrorism initiatives with Baku. While this decision highlights the US’s core interests in the Caspian basin, it also seems a rational choice amid the eruption of the US-Iran War in March, 2026.

The ongoing confrontation between the United States and Iran has dramatically reshaped the fragile geopolitical landscape of the Gulf, inflicting severe damage on Iranian military infrastructure and unsettling the Gulf monarchies. In the wake of Tehran’s strategic setbacks, most notably the assassination of senior military and political elites and the destruction of key defense assets, Iran appears intent on widening the theater of conflict by targeting Washington’s regional partners in the Gulf. On the other hand, on March 5, reports indicated that an Iranian Arash drone struck the passenger terminal in Azerbaijan’s Nakhichivan exclave, raising alarm over the future security of critical energy infrastructure across the Caspian basin and beyond. Therefore, Azerbaijan will likely double its efforts to diversify its maritime security partnerships in order to mitigate potential risks and challenges.

Pakistan-Azerbaijan Naval Cooperation

One country that stands out for Azerbaijan in the new regional security order is Pakistan. Islamabad has critically important naval capabilities after having successfully established a sustainable manufacturing cycle in shipbuilding and naval systems. In addition, the Pakistani Navy operates COSMOS-class mini-submarines with a displacement of about 110 tons, produced at the Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works under license from the Italian company Costruzioni Sommergibili S.p.A. These small mini-submarines are designed for sabotage and coastal operations and are well-suited for operating in the enclosed waters of the Caspian Sea. Moreover, in 2018, Türkiye announced that it delivered the second of four MILGEM corvettes to Pakistan under a defense contract.

Given Azerbaijan’s established shipbuilding infrastructure and expertise, Baku is likely to pursue joint production of military boats and frigates in partnership with Pakistan and Türkiye. Over the past decade, the Azerbaijan–Pakistan–Türkiye axis has delivered significant results, particularly in the military and defense sectors, laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive and enduring partnership. As such, the visit of Azerbaijani Rear-Admiral Shahin Mammadov to Islamabad amid heightening tensions around Iran and the buildup of American forces in the Middle East can be seen as a vital element of Baku’s extended strategy of diversification of its military-technical capabilities and a strengthening of the naval component of its national security.

Outlook

Azerbaijan steadily acknowledges that the Caspian basin is becoming an intersection of energy, transport, and military interests of regional and global powers, making efforts to boost its naval and deterrence capabilities mark a further evolution of the country’s national security interests as a growing regional power in the South Caucasus.

Moving forward, Azerbaijan’s ability to secure its offshore energy platforms and export pipelines remains a cornerstone of both domestic economic stability and European energy security. By conducting large-scale joint exercises like “Caspian Breeze-2025,” Azerbaijan is positioning itself not just as a littoral state but a country with maritime aspirations and an emerging ability to neutralize asymmetric threats in an increasingly changing security environment in the Caspian.

About the Author:

Fuad Shahbazov is a political scientist and analyst focused on regional security in Eurasia and the Middle East. He holds a master’s degree in Political Science from Vytautas Magnus University, a professional master’s degree in Terrorism and Countering Religious Radicalization from the University of Bergamo, and a master’s degree in Defense and Diplomacy from Durham University.

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*Image above: Russian military satellite taking off from Plesetsk cosmodrome (Source: Roscosmos)

By Pavel Luzin

Russia is urgently attempting to close its strategic communication gap through the Rassvet satellite program after losing access to Starlink. Since Russia’s domestic satellite capabilities following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine proved to be woefully inadequate, Russian military forces were forced to rely on captured or smuggled Starlink terminals. However, after SpaceX deactivated these illicit connections in early 2026, Moscow had to fill the gap by pivoting toward a rapid-deployment solution: a “Starlink-like” constellation developed in apparent cooperation with China’s Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST).

While this partnership enables Russia to bypass the immense costs and risks of domestic manufacturing, it facilitates a creeping “Sinicization” of Russia’s military space sector. By adopting Chinese hardware designs, such as the flat-panel Rassvet Gen1 satellites, Moscow appears to have gained a potential battlefield equivalent to Starlink but risks a precarious, long-term dependency on Beijing in exchange for its access to this technology. Russia is trading its last remnants of strategic autonomy in space for a survival-driven military capability that appears to be strongly influenced by an influx of Chinese technology for its ailing satellite communications program.

Picture above: Russian soldier using satellite comms image: Source ITAR-TASS

Moscow’s Wartime Gap in Tactical Space Communications

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, its space-based inventory for conducting the war was ill-equipped for the demands of modern, high-intensity warfare. Moscow’s primary military communication systems, Blagovest and Meridian, lacked the capacity and satellite density required to support Russian forces deployed across a 1,000-kilometer (630 miles) frontline. While the low-orbit Strela-3M/Rodnik system was partially operational, its low satellite count meant it could only play a limited support role alongside its commercial counterpart, the Gonets-M.

Russia’s Ekspress fleet of commercial satellites also was unavailable to the military as its capacity was entirely booked by its corporate clients. This left the Yamal satellites—belonging to the state-owned energy giant Gazprom—to try and fill the remaining gaps, but they could only partially satisfy the military’s communication requirements. This systemic shortfall, compounded by a shortage of mobile satellite ground terminals, many of which were old and bulky, eventually forced Russian personnel into the precarious position of relying on captured or smuggled Starlink hardware for battlefield connectivity.

The following table details the status of Russia’s orbital assets at the onset of the Russian war with Ukraine:

Due to these shortcomings in its wartime space communications, Russian military personnel were forced to switch to using Starlink on the battlefield as early as the fall of 2022, which began after they started utilizing captured Ukrainian terminals. Given their importance to Russian military operations, Moscow sought to fill its battlefield communication requirements by developing a massive clandestine smuggling supply network overseas. These purchases enabled Moscow to make significant clandestine acquisitions of the Starlink terminals abroad, most of which were acquired in Europe, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and a few other countries. As a result of this effort, Starlink terminals increasingly appeared in the occupied territories of Ukraine. In fact, the number of terminals acquired by Moscow was so successful that Russian forces began mounting Starlink terminals on expendable Shahed-type drones used in strikes against Ukrainian cities and electrical power plants.

By February 2026, SpaceX had finally switched off all the terminals illegally acquired by Russian forces, causing a temporary – but major - collapse of Russian military communication systems in Ukraine. To make matters worse for Moscow, its own military communication services still had not registered any improvement in filling the gap in tactical military communications problem since 2022. Regardless, it continued to search for an acceptable solution to its problem by investing in the development of a system capable of replacing Starlink from 2022 to 2025.

It was during this period that Russia began investing more intensely in the development of small communication satellites for low Earth orbit. This effort initially began as early as the late 2010s when SpaceX and OneWeb started to deploy their satellite constellations. The dominant idea behind Russian thinking for this effort was to develop a satellite system for the Internet of Things and to obtain more money for its space industry from the domestic, as well as the global market. Through these efforts, Russia was attempting to keep its place among the world’s leading space powers.

By 2026, Russian ambitions for the global space market had been mostly abandoned as Moscow turned its efforts to developing wideband satellite communications for combat operations needed to operate different types of drones, particularly long-range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), as well as those to assist in military command and control. By October 2025 there had been an even higher upsurge in demand for these systems on the battlefield, according to ITAR-TASS. Russian universities and UAV manufacturers experimented with the control of unmanned aerial vehicles via satellites in low-Earth orbit (1,400 kilometers) and in geostationary orbit (approximately 36,000 kilometers).

Moscow’s Pivot to the Rassvet Network

On March 23, 2026, a batch of 16 small wideband communication satellites, Rassvet (Dawn in Russian) were launched into orbit from the Russian military space launch site Plesetsk. By mid-April 2026, these satellites were still in an early phase of deployment because they needed to move from the 300-kilometer (km) orbit of placement to an 800-km operational orbit using onboard electric thrusters. The developer and manufacturer of the satellites is a Russian private space company known as Bureau 1440, which belongs to X-Holding, and is focused on Internet surveillance and lock-up hardware and software, and affiliated with the leadership of the Russian Federal Security Services (FSB). Bureau 1440 itself was established in November 2020.

The entire Rassvet constellation will eventually consist of between 292 to 318 satellites by the end of 2028. The satellite system could cost more than 430 billion rubles ($5 billion), including about 103 billion rubles ($1.2 billion) from the federal budget and 329 billion rubles (about $3.9 billion) of the company’s own investments. This means the average cost of one Rassvet satellite, including the cost of launch services, would cost $15.7 million per each micro-satellite, or be approximately 15 times higher than the production and orbiting cost of one Starlink satellite. Moreover, the planned cost of the fully deployed and operational system is comparable to the originally planned cost of the GLONASS program for 2021–2030, 484 billion rubles or $6.7 billion. Even though the cost of the Rassvet program includes the research and development phase, it still appears extremely high.

Bureau 1440

Besides the outrageous cost of the system, another prominent aspect involved here is the specifications of the Rassvet satellites and the role of Bureau 1440. Bureau 1440 is a Russian private aerospace company that is part of ICS Holding, developing a low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband internet designed to compete with Starlink.

Bureau 1440 launched its first three test satellites as part of the Rassvet-1 mission in June 2023. These satellites had a mass of 80 kilograms (kg). This was followed by the Rassvet-2 mission, which began in May 2024, and there were three completely new satellites with a mass of 120 kg. The second mission was focusing on testing broadband communication equipment and the laser communication system between satellites. Twenty-two months later, Bureau 1440 orbited another generation of Rassvet satellites: Rassvet Gen1. These satellites have little in common with the Rassvet-1 and Rassvet-2 satellite missions, and although they are newer satellites, they are also significantly heavier, weighing up to 370 kilograms, and feature 6-beam active phased array antennas that provide a communication speed of 1 gigabit per second. Simply speaking, the Rassvet R&D phase spanned five years and included two technology demonstration missions, each deploying as many as three satellites. Consequently, the production-series Rassvet Gen1 satellites differ significantly from the experimental models trialed between 2023 and 2024.

On the one hand, Bureau 1440 publicly declares that it has approximately 3,000 employees, and 80% of these personnel are engineers. However, on the other hand more than half of its employees seem to have never been associated with the space industry before, and possibly could be nothing more than software engineers. Its manufacturing facility is located somewhere in or near Krasnogorsk. Located on the outskirts of the Moscow metropolitan area, this is not a likely place to build satellites. The company also cooperates with Bauman Technical University (including the use of the university’s test laboratory) and the Moscow Aviation Institute, and this cooperation is especially related to satellite onboard electrical propulsion systems.

However, these examples outlined above are the only known cooperative ties between Bureau 1440 and other Russian scientific entities or suppliers of satellite components. Therefore, Bureau 1440 pretends to produce hundreds of small but advanced low-orbit communication satellites from scratch, mostly by itself, using unknown manufacturing facilities, and inevitably faces a shortage of qualified workforce personnel because of labor shortages inside Russia caused by the negative demographic trend, decline of the education system, and the ongoing war against Ukraine, now in its fifth year.

The Sinicization of Rassvet

The only plausible explanation for the unusually rapid high-speed development of the Rassvet Gen1 satellite and the sudden transition from its predecessor, Rassvet-1, is Russian cooperation with China. For example, the Rassvet Gen1’s flat-panel architecture closely mirrors SpaceX’s Starlink (v0.9, v1.0, and v1.5), which was deployed between 2019 and 2023. Similarly, China’s Qianfan low-orbit communication satellites, which began deployment in August 2024—eighteen months before Rassvet Gen1—also share significant design similarities with earlier Starlink generations. Qianfan was developed by Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST) in the early 2020s and is quite similar to the first generations of Starlink satellites, as well as the Rassvet Gen1 satellites. Moreover, the Qianfan satellite constellation became operational one and a half years before the Rassvet Gen1.

Consequently, Rassvet Gen1 is likely the result of close cooperation between Bureau 1440 and SSST. Under this assumption, Bureau 1440 would primarily focus on adapting Chinese satellite hardware to meet Russian specifications, as well as developing proprietary software for the space-based platform.

Through this approach, the Russian company bypasses the immense complexity and cost of building its own domestic manufacturing facilities and supply chains. In addition, Russian officials can avoid incurring most of the development risks because SSST took the risks on its own.

Outlook

Going forward, the only major considerations for the Russian side are money for the purchase of the satellites and developing the necessary hardware and software upgrades to operate the new Russian space-based constellation network using Chinese tech. In short, the Kremlin appears to be leveraging Chinese manufacturing capabilities and risk-taking to bypass its own domestic supply chain needs. However, it is doing so at the expense of its own long-term strategic autonomy in space. Ultimately, if the entire supply chain of Rassvet Gen1 satellites were delivered from China, Russia could lose the last remnants of its strategic autonomy in space affairs.

In the final analysis, Moscow’s strategy to offset the loss of illicit Starlink access just to maintain parity with Ukraine on the battlefield runs the risk of a ‘Sinicization’ of its military space sector. This creates a precarious dependency that not only threatens to compromise the independence of Russia’s military space activities but could ultimately become irreversible.

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By Alexander Melikishvili

Georgia’s State Security Service (SSS) has not captured any foreign intelligence operatives since 2012, so it came as a great surprise when, on April 22, it announced the arrest of Tamaz Goloev (Goloti). According to the SSS First Deputy Head Lasha Magradze, a representative of an unidentified foreign intelligence service recruited Goloev, who was allegedly tasked with collecting information on the SSS, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Ministry of Defense, including their forces and assets, which he was to monitor (photo and video surveillance).

Similarly, Goloev was tasked to collect information on Georgia’s critical infrastructure, including bridges, highways, and railroads. Magradze also mentioned that two other Georgian citizens were involved as well, but they were not in Georgia, prompting the SSS to charge them in absentia and request international arrest warrants for both from Interpol. On April 24, the Tbilisi City Court held closed hearings and ordered Goloev to remain in pre-trial detention for two months. If convicted, he faces 8–12 years in jail under Article 314 (Espionage) of Georgia’s Criminal Code.

*Picture of alleged Russian spy Tamaz Goloev taken from his Facebook page

Goloev is a native of the town of Akhalgori, which is located in the Russian-controlled breakaway region of South Ossetia. He is from a mixed (father – Ossetian, mother – Georgian) family. Prominent Georgian human rights defender Tamta Mikeladze (NGO Social Justice Center) claimed that Goloev was known to Georgian civil society because he was keen to maintain connections to Georgian society and visited Tbilisi regularly. Mikeladze questioned the spying allegations, while former Human Rights Ombudsman Ucha Nanuashvili emphasized that the investigation must produce convincing evidence of Goloev’s guilt or risk being seen as scapegoating him. The separatist authorities in Tskhinvali confirmed that Goloev entered Georgia via the Odzisi (Razdakhan) checkpoint on April 21 and was arrested in Tbilisi a day later. They condemned Goloev’s arrest and demanded his release via the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM), which is facilitated by the European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM) and the OSCE.

Another State Minister Without Staff

These developments are taking place against the backdrop of a major personnel reshuffle in Georgia’s law enforcement and intelligence communities. On April 21, the de facto* Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze outlined the changes, according to which SSS Head Mamuka Mdinaradze would assume the newly created position of State Minister for Coordination of Law Enforcement Bodies and also become Deputy Prime Minister. With no prior experience in security or intelligence, Mdinaradze, who is a lawyer by trade, has been in charge of the SSS only since September 2025, but this did not prevent his meteoric rise through the ranks (from lieutenant to major general) in this time span.

In announcing the personnel changes, Kobakhidze heaped praise on Mdinaradze, whose tenure at the SSS he assessed as “very successful.” Mdinaradze was also not shy about taking credit—in a late-night interview with the pro-government TV channel Imedi on April 22, he noted that, owing to his efforts, the SSS now collects more information than before, including through an increased number of court-approved wiretaps.

The procedural committee of the rubber-stamp parliament, dominated by the ruling party Georgian Dream (GD), formally ended Mdinaradze’s mandate as SSS Head on April 27. He is replaced by Gela Geladze, who has been the Minister of Internal Affairs since May 2025. Geladze, in turn, is replaced by Sulkhan Tamazashvili, who has been the Chairman of the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara since April 2025. It should be noted that in December 2024, the British government placed Tamazashvili under sanctions for his role in the violent dispersal of peaceful protesters in Tbilisi. At the time, Tamazashvili was the Director of the Tbilisi Police Department. It is unclear who will be in charge of the government in Adjara. Georgia’s de facto legislature approved the new appointments of Mdinaradze and Geladze on 28 April without holding any parliamentary debates.

Mdinaradze will be the second member of Kobakhidze’s cabinet with the title of State Minister (after Tea Akhvlediani, who is the State Minister for Reconciliation and Civic Equality). He will have no staff of his own and will work out of the Administration of the Government of Georgia (formerly the State Chancellery). While Mdinaradze’s exact remit will be spelled out in a forthcoming special government decree, he will coordinate the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the SSS, and the Special State Protection Service. He will also cooperate with the State Audit Service, the Prosecutor’s Office, and the Ministry of Justice, as explained by the Parliamentary Secretary of the Government, Vakhtang Bachiashvili, who noted that this will be a temporary position based on current policy priorities.

Outlook

The GD government’s refusal to identify the foreign intelligence service on whose behalf Goloev purportedly worked is consistent with its broader policy of avoiding actions that might irritate Russia. However, Goloev’s arrest does not represent a change in the SSS modus operandi toward more counterintelligence activities. It is more likely that this episode has been staged as part of the GD government’s Public Relations (PR) campaign to burnish Mdinaradze’s credentials and justify his transition to the new role for a domestic audience.

Notwithstanding the vague official explanations about the need to improve the efficiency of security services and law enforcement, Mdinaradze’s new appointment probably has more to do with Kobakhidze’s efforts to find a suitable niche for him in the Georgian government. Before his SSS appointment, Mdinaradze served as the leader of the GD parliamentary majority and was one of the key GD figures known for abrasive media appearances in which he often made provocative statements, accusing the “deep state” in the West of trying to drag Georgia into war with Russia and castigating the “radical opposition” in Georgia.

As for Goloev, once his trial ends this summer and public attention to this case wanes, it is quite likely that he will be quietly exchanged for any number of Georgian citizens who are routinely detained by separatist militia and Russian border guards along the de facto border separating the South Ossetian enclave from Georgian-controlled territory.

*Editorial Note: Because Georgia’s 2024 parliamentary elections were rigged, it is important to emphasize that the Georgian Dream government is not legitimate. Neither is the parliament of Georgia. As such, this lack of legitimacy must be reflected by certain qualifiers preceding the titles. For instance, one can say, “the Georgian Dream Prime Minister Kobakhidze” or “de facto Prime Minister Kobakhidze.”

About the Author:

Alex Melikishvili is a senior country risk analyst with more than a decade of experience working in the private sector (S&P Global, IHS Markit) with focus on Eurasian security. Alex holds a master's degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.

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By Fuad Shabazov

On April 17, 2026, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met with the Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Türkiye. The recent meeting between the two leaders has become a tradition in the post-Assad period, paving the way for a stronger partnership between Baku and Damascus. Indeed, diversification of partnership with particular countries like Azerbaijan and Türkiye is of strategic importance for the former war-torn country, especially amid post-war reconstruction efforts, regional volatility, and Israel’s expansion deeper into Syrian territory.

In May 2025, a high-level Azerbaijani delegation arrived in Damascus to explore opportunities for cooperation across key sectors, including the economy, energy, culture, and education. The visit underscored the deepening ties between Baku and Damascus, but it also coincided with escalating security challenges in Syria, marked by an Israeli Defense Forces incursion and subsequent violent tensions involving Syria’s Druze minority.

*Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev & Syrian President al-Sharaa in Baku in July 2025

Shortly after this visit, President al-Sharaa paid a one-day visit to Baku in July 2025, meeting his counterpart Aliyev, reportedly as Azerbaijan simultaneously launched mediation efforts between Syria and Israel in early August 2025. Although official media sources in Baku did not issue any comment or statements on this matter, diplomatic sources reported that the meeting focused on the ‘security situation, particularly in southern Syria’ — where Bedouin and Druze militants had been clashing.

Syria’s decision to turn to Azerbaijan as a reliable interlocutor in the mediation process with Israel can be traced to its longstanding strategic ties with both Israel and Türkiye. At the same time, Syrian officials increasingly view Azerbaijan as a credible actor and potential mediator between Syria and Israel, but also between Syria and Russia in April 2025. Even though the mediation efforts with Israel did not yield significant results and stopped Israeli military advancements in Syria, it opened additional horizons for the Baku and Damascus bilateral partnership.

Energy map of Azerbaijan-Turkiye-Syria natural gas pipeline: Map Source:

Shah Deniz Fuels Syrian Economic Recovery

As such, in 2025, the Azerbaijani State Oil Company (SOCAR) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Syrian government to supply natural gas to Syria, which stands to reshape the Middle East’s geopolitical and energy landscape. Under the new agreement, Azerbaijan exports 1.2 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually to Syria via Türkiye from the BP-operated Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian Sea. This supply is earmarked for Syria’s gas-fired plants, with Energy Minister Mohammad al-Bashir estimating it will boost the country’s electricity generation by about 750 megawatts, enabling some regions to receive up to 4 additional hours of electricity daily.

Overall, since diplomatic relations were restored between the two countries, Azerbaijan has announced plans to invest between $400-600 million in Syrian energy infrastructure, while a joint venture between SOCAR and Türkiye’s BOTAŞ aims to explore and develop new reserves and invest in petrochemicals. Azerbaijan’s further investment plans are essential for Syria, as the country anticipates that Baku’s investments in local infrastructure would serve as a natural shield against potential Israeli air strikes, given the nature of its relations with Tel Aviv.

Azerbaijan’s efforts to mediate between Syria and Israel have failed so far. The prospect of joint participation in the Abraham Accords, as pursued by other Arab states, also did not materialize. In response, Baku and Damascus appear to be exploring the creation of a new geopolitical axis linking Azerbaijan, Türkiye, and Syria. Strategic cooperation in this framework could open the door for Syria’s eventual engagement with the Organization of Turkic States (OTS). This would offer a significant avenue for Syria’s post-war recovery, as well as introduce Damascus to a new network of countries and trading partners in Central Asia, and even participation in the Azerbaijan-led Middle Corridor project.

As such, Syria could benefit from Azerbaijan and Türkiye’s expertise in transport and energy infrastructure development, as well as gain access to additional markets in the wider Eurasia, strengthening Syria’s regional position. On the other hand, Azerbaijan’s willingness to enhance its partnership with Syria is part of its broader strategy to recalibrate its footprint in the Middle East after 2020, enabling it to diversify its energy portfolio through investments in Israel, Syria, Türkiye, and the Gulf. If successful and resilient, gas exports to Syria could enable Azerbaijan to make inroads into Egypt’s energy market using Syria as a transit country.

Outlook

The overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024 and the ongoing war with Iran in the Persian Gulf have led to a decline in Iranian influence in the immediate neighborhood, namely Syria, creating a vacuum that Azerbaijan is eager to fulfill. As such, Azerbaijan and Turkiye’s growing footprint in Syria, complemented by energy-related projects and infrastructure upgrades that bypass Iran, could further unsettle Tehran. Azerbaijan’s long-standing strategic partnership with Israel and recent efforts to mediate a diplomatic thaw between Syria, Israel, and Türkiye are seen as a source of threat by Tehran.

For Tehran, the emergence of such a cooperative format and axis reflects a broader pattern of geopolitical encirclement. This perception of encirclement has become increasingly pronounced amid the ongoing war and Washington’s August 2025 agreement with Azerbaijan and Armenia to establish a 42‑kilometer transit corridor, known as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).

Nevertheless, lingering domestic instability in Syria, the ongoing war in Iran, and a regional security gap highlight limitations for Azerbaijan in capitalizing on Iran’s preoccupation at the moment, as eventually larger energy and infrastructure projects could face serious stalemates or even delays, stretching Baku’s diplomatic capacities to build wider relations with Damascus. Regardless, the shadow of the South Caucasus energy giant, Azerbaijan. By assisting Syria in its post-war economic recovery, Azerbaijan is opening a new chapter in the post-war economic recovery of Syria, driven by the shifting energy geopolitics of the Middle East.

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About the Author:

Fuad Shahbazov is a political scientist and analyst focused on regional security in Eurasia and the Middle East. He holds a master’s degree in Political Science from Vytautas Magnus University, a professional master’s degree in Terrorism and Countering Religious Radicalization from the University of Bergamo, and a master’s degree in Defense and Diplomacy from Durham University.

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By Vusal Guliyev

The sharp escalation of the Iran-related crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has once again exposed the fragility of global energy supply chains dependent on maritime chokepoints. Nowhere is this vulnerability more visible than in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a substantial share of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows. As the war enters its second month, its impact is immediate and far-reaching. The war is causing higher shipping risks, rising insurance costs, and increased volatility across energy markets. What began as a regional security crisis has quickly emerged as a global economic concern, reminding energy-importing states that maritime disruption in the Gulf is reverberating far beyond the Middle East.

For East Asian economies, the implications are especially serious. Japan, South Korea, and China remain deeply reliant on Middle Eastern crude, making them highly vulnerable to disruptions in Gulf transport routes. Japan is the most reliant, with roughly 95% of its imports coming from the region, followed by South Korea at about 70%, and China at approximately 52%. Japan alone imports about 2.8 million barrels per day, with approximately 70% of these volumes passing through the Strait of Hormuz. This heavy reliance on a single source is intensifying the urgency of diversification efforts, pushing East Asian governments and energy conglomerates to accelerate efforts to secure alternative suppliers and develop more resilient supply routes beyond the Gulf.

Recent reporting by NHK World-Japan suggests that Tokyo is actively intensifying its search for alternative sources of supply, including deeper engagement with producers in the broader Caspian region. In this sense, the Iran crisis is functioning less as a sudden rupture than as a catalyst pushing Tokyo's existing strategic thinking into a more urgent phase of implementation. Japan’s response is particularly notable because it is not new to the race for Caspian oil and has been involved in the region for several decades.

Unlike countries that are only now beginning to diversify, Tokyo is building on a long history of diplomatic engagement with the Caspian region and prior upstream investment experience through firms such as INPEX Corporation, Japan’s largest exploration and production company. This provides Japan with a relative advantage in accessing Eurasian energy resources.

The Caspian Basin, particularly Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, has long been an important component of Japan’s regional strategy. More specifically, INPEX Corporation has held a 7.56% stake in the Kashagan Field in Kazakhstan since 1998. This major offshore project produces roughly 430,000 barrels per day, with ongoing expansion plans aimed at further increasing capacity. On the western shore of the Caspian Sea, INPEX has also strengthened its position in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) oil fields in Azerbaijan, becoming a significant stakeholder through its subsidiary, holding a 9.31% stake since 2003. Producing over 330,000 barrels per day, the ACG stands as the largest oil field in Azerbaijan’s sector of the Caspian Basin. INPEX holds rights under Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) in both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The PSA for the ACG remains in force until 2049, while the PSA for the Kashagan Field is valid through the end of 2031, with an option to extend it to 2041 under the existing terms

From Tokyo’s perspective, these producers offer more than just additional barrels. They represent a pathway toward greater supply security at a time when dependence on the Strait of Hormuz is highly fraught with geopolitical risk. At a time when energy importers are searching for reliable and politically resilient alternatives, the Caspian stands out as a region that can contribute to diversification away from the most vulnerable maritime routes. Its strategic value lies not only in resource abundance but also in its potential for integration into broader cross-Eurasian trade and transportation networks.

Japan and the Middle Corridor

This is where the Middle Corridor becomes central to Japanese strategy. Often seen mainly as a trade and logistics route linking Asia and Europe, it is increasingly gaining importance as an energy corridor as well. In the current context, its role goes beyond simple connectivity. If further developed and effectively operationalized, it can enable more secure and diversified energy flows from the Caspian to East Asian and global markets. Japan has already demonstrated its interest and commitment by investing significant effort in developing and digitalizing the Middle Corridor through a range of Central Asia–Japan initiatives, particularly under the Tokyo Declaration announced in December 2025 at the inaugural Summit of the Central Asia plus Japan Dialogue. These efforts directly respond to Japan’s growing concerns about transit security and broader supply chain vulnerabilities.

At the same time, Japan’s renewed focus on the Caspian could give rise to a quieter yet more meaningful form of strategic competition with China. Over the years, China has steadily expanded its economic, infrastructural, technological, energy, and security presence across Central Asia through major economic initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative and multilateral platforms like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Through sustained investment, the development of transport corridors, and bilateral energy partnerships, Beijing has significantly deepened its footprint in a region at the heart of Eurasian connectivity, as demonstrated by the second China–Central Asia Summit and its decades-old engagement with the region.

Japan’s return to the region, even if framed in commercial and security terms rather than open rivalry, is likely to increasingly intersect with Chinese interests. This is unlikely to take the form of open confrontation, but rather a more layered competition over influence, access, and long-term positioning within Caspian energy and trade networks. This possibility reveals an important transformation in Asian energy geopolitics. The Caspian Basin is no longer just a secondary source of supply on the periphery of the global energy map. It is becoming a strategic arena in its own right, where major Asian powers seek to secure redundancy, resilience, and leverage. Japan’s energy strategy, shaped by the Iran crisis, reflects a broader recognition that supply security now depends as much on geography and diplomacy as on market prices. In this context, Caspian engagement is not merely about replacing one source with another. It is about constructing a more durable architecture of energy security.

Outlook

The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz not only affects Japan. South Korea also remains highly exposed, with roughly 61% of its crude oil imports passing through the strategic chokepoint. Recent agreements between South Korea and Kazakhstan highlight a similar shift toward Eurasian energy diversification. Kazakhstan is set to supply around 18 million barrels of oil, supporting Seoul’s efforts to secure volumes through routes that bypass the Gulf chokepoint. While modest relative to South Korea’s overall import needs, this partnership carries clear strategic weight. It signals a deliberate effort to reduce reliance on Middle Eastern transit routes and to integrate the Caspian Basin into a more diversified and resilient energy supply framework.

In sum, the deeper significance of the current shock lies in its structural effects. It is accelerating East Asia’s shift away from chokepoint-dependent energy supply chains toward more diversified Eurasian corridors. The Strait of Hormuz remains indispensable, but it is now also understood as a vulnerability that cannot be ignored. In response, the Caspian Basin is gaining great strategic importance as a critical node in the emerging geography of energy security. What is unfolding is not just a temporary adjustment to crisis conditions, but a broader reconfiguration of how East Asian states think about risk, resilience, and strategic access in a more uncertain global environment.

About the Author:

Vusal Guliyev is a frequent contributor to The Saratoga Foundation. He is a Sinologist, TCSOL Specialist, and Policy Analyst specializing in the geopolitical affairs of Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific region. Mr. Guliyev currently works as a Leading Advisor at the Baku-based Center of Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center) and serves as the Head of the Shanghai Office at AZEGLOB Consulting Group.

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By Giorgi Lebanidze

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has ordered a change in the status of the Circassian Cultural Center (CCC) that will likely lead to its permanent closure. The CCC has been a major window for Georgia on the North Caucasus for the past 14 years promoting cooperation with the Circassians since its creation in 2012. During the past decade it has organized numerous conferences and events, but now is on the verge of being permanently shut down. While the center continues to functionally operate, its main office house in the Georgian Ministry of Culture has been significantly downgraded since the decision was made on January 1^st, 2026.

The Center’s status was changed earlier this year when its status was reclassified by the Prime Minister from a Legal Entity under Public law (LEPL) to that of a Non-Entrepreneurial Non-commercial Legal Entity (NNLE). This was not just a mere name change. The downgrading of its LEPL status allowed the “Center” to be more active, attract donors, and expand into the international arena. Furthermore, the LEPL “Circassian Cultural Center” operated under the “umbrella” of the Georgian Ministry of Culture, which increased its administrative and financial capabilities. Moreover, the change in status to an NNLE will likely result in the CCC being integrated into Tbilisi State University, where the organization will have even fewer resources and limit its operations even further.

This information was confirmed by CCC founder Merab Chukhua who served as director from 2012 to 2023, during an April 7 interview with the author. Chukhua, who is a professor and linguist, noted that Georgian authorities have long wanted to close the Circassian Cultural Center, but the government was unable to achieve that goal while he was director. Chukhua said that: “We had broad international support, primarily from the United States” and “authorities were unable to completely liquidate the Center” so they opted to change its status “hoping there would be no outcry from its supporters in Europe and the United States. Formally, the Circassian Cultural Center is now integrated into Tbilisi University, but this is merely an opportunity to pursue its final closure,” he said.

Chukhua is convinced that the Georgian authorities are acting on Moscow’s orders and essentially seeking to “destroy everything Georgian and especially everything Caucasian in our country.” Chukhua left the center several years ago to begin political activities as the leader of a new Georgian opposition party known as ‘On the Behalf of Georgia Party.’ The CCC is currently led by Nugzar Antelava, who has proven unable to resist the decision made by the Georgian Dream government to alter its status.

CCC’s Soft Power Influence on Abkhazia and the North Caucasus

Georgian-Circassian relations have a long history, both in the Middle Ages and in modern times. On May 11, 2011, upon the initiative and support of then-President Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian Parliament recognized the Circassian genocide. The parliamentary resolution established several state institutions, and a Circassian genocide memorial was built on the Black Sea coast in the village of Anaklia.

The LEPL “Circassian Cultural Center” was formally established in 2012 under the Georgian Ministry of Culture, where it has continued to operate until recently. During his recent interview, Chukhua reflected on the CCC’s achievements over the past decade, stating: “We enjoyed great popularity among Circassian diasporas worldwide. We held special conferences on Circassian culture and history.” Chukhua described how the CCC fought for the rights of Circassians living in Russia and the Circassian diaspora living in more than 50 countries around the world, making great progress in elevating global understanding about the historical tragedy that fell on the Circassians and their important role as a long-suffering people in the North Caucasus.

*Image: Merabi Chukhua, noted Georgian ethnographic expert on the North Caucasus

Chukhua and his “On the Behalf of Georgia Party” is part of a broader organized opposition movement inside Georgia whose goal is a peaceful change in the current government controlled by the Georgian Dream (GD) party. Chukhua asserted that “I have always felt the interest of the Russian special services behind this effort to shut down the CCC and I have even been declared persona non grata in Russia.” Not surprisingly, Russian authorities have listed the CCC as among the five most hostile organizations to Russia.

In 2014, at the invitation of Glen E. Howard, a North Caucasus expert living in the US who previously worked for Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Chukhua and other CCC leaders visited the United States to participate in a conference on the impact of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics on the North Caucasus. Merab Chukhua spoke at several Washington, D.C. based thinktanks, including the Carnegie Center.

Chukhua emphasized in his interview with the author that the creation and functioning of the CCC in Tbilisi was welcomed and positively received in Abkhazia and the North Caucasus due to its soft power impact on the region. For example, many Circassians who fought in Abkhazia against Georgia from 1992 to 1993 spoke in favor of Georgian-Abkhaz reconciliation after these efforts began. In fact, one of the leaders of the Circassian movement, Ibrahim Yaganov, who fought in the 1992-1993 Georgian-Abkhaz war on the side of Russian-backed Abkhaz forces, and was awarded the title “Hero of Abkhazia” radically changed his views on Abkhazia, its relations with Russia, and the prospects for resolving the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict.

In particular, Yaganov believes that Abkhazia has failed as an independent state and risks eventually being fully absorbed by Russia. According to Yaganov, the only solution is for Abkhazia to reach out and come to an agreement with Georgia and reconcile their differences with Tbilisi. Yaganov’s changed views about Georgia is emblematic of the lasting effects of Georgian soft power diplomacy toward the Circassians which significantly altered some of the negative stereotypes created by the Kremlin about Georgia in the decades after the Abkhaz war.

*The picture above is of the Circassian Culture Center in Tbilisi

The Circassian Cultural Center, which the Georgian Dream party is moving closer to permanently shutting down, officially opened on February 16, 2012, in the building of the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia in Tbilisi. The opening ceremony was attended by Mirza (Papuna) Davitaia, State Minister of Georgia for Diaspora Issues; Nugzar Tsiklauri, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Diaspora Issues; David Tskhadadze, Deputy Minister of Culture of Georgia; and several renowned Caucasus scholars and special guests from the Caucasus and abroad. “The Georgian state extended a helping hand to the Circassian people by creating one of the main centers of Caucasian culture in Tbilisi so that they can preserve their language, culture, and identity. This is difficult for them in exile,” Davitaia stated during a recent interview.

According to Davitaia, the CCC’s purpose is to research and popularize the history and culture of the Circassians, as well as other Caucasian peoples. “Protecting the cultural heritage of the Caucasian peoples is one of the priorities of the Georgian state. Restoring Georgia’s functions as a regional leader and political center is also a priority for Georgia. The creation of this center was another step in this direction,” Tsiklauri said during a recent interview. In attendance at the time of the opening of the center was Iyad Youghar, President of the Circassian Cultural Center based in Patterson, New Jersey. Patterson is home to over 7,000 Circassian Americans and remains one of the largest bastions of support for the Circassians in North America.

During that ceremony, Youghar said: “It is gratifying that the Circassian Cultural Center has opened in Georgia. This center will facilitate the study and popularization of the history and culture of the Circassians and the Caucasian peoples in general, which is very important. This will deepen relations between our peoples.” In a recent interview with the author regarding the looming closure of the CCC, Youghar said he was “deeply concerned about the closure of the Center” and noted that “the CCC in Georgia under Chukhua’s leadership had been immensely helpful to many Syrian Circassians fleeing the Syrian Civil War, who had sought refugee status and relocation to Georgia when Russian officials repeatedly blocked their efforts to relocate back to their homeland in the North Caucasus. Circassians will be immensely grateful to Chukhua’s efforts and those of Georgia in helping Circassian refugees from Syria.“

*Picture Above: Circassian monument in Anaklia, Georgia, site of Russian deportations.

Georgia’s Circassian Memorial in Anaklia

A year after becoming the first country to recognize the 19th-century massacre and deportations of Circassians by Tsarist Russia as “genocide,” Georgia opened a monument in 2013 dedicated to the victims of those tragic events almost 150 years ago in Anaklia on the Black Sea coast. The site is near the administrative border of Abkhazia, known as the “Memorial for the Victims of the Circassian Genocide.” Papuna Davitaia. The Georgian minister in charge of diaspora issues attended the ceremony in 2013 to unveil the monument dedicated to the deportation of Circassians.

May 21^st remains a highly symbolic event to Circassians because it is the day when, in 1864, the Russian Empire declared its victory in its decades-long war against the North Caucasus peoples, removing the Circassians, who were the last peoples in the region to resist Russian rule, having defeated the Imam Shamyl and his Chechen and Dagestani followers several years before. May 21st is considered by Circassians to be their day of commemoration as victims of that deportation. Each year from May 21st to 22nd, a number of events are held in Anaklia to mark that day, including a conference to discuss the results of the recognition of the Circassians genocide by Georgia.

“This [monument] is an important step towards the Caucasian solidarity,” Papuna Davitaia, the Georgian state minister for diaspora issues, said, adding that the Georgian state was now capable to carry out its Caucasian policy and engage with the peoples of the North Caucasus. May 21st is also marked in Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia as the Day of Remembrance of the Caucasian War as well. Abkhaz leader, Alexander Ankvab, took part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the monument to the Muhajirs – those Muslim Abkhazians who were forcibly deported to the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century.

Moscow has intensely monitored the Georgian-Circassian dialogue and often tried to interfere in this process, especially after the change of power in Georgia in 2012 and the formation of a new government led by the Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream (GD) party. In an interview on April 8, Paata Zakareishvili the former State Minister of Georgia for Reconciliation and Civic Equality (2012 to 2016), believes that at various diplomatic levels, Russian officials have demanded that Tbilisi disavow its recognition of the Circassian genocide. However, the Georgian parliament cannot make such a decision because it would create a major backlash of discontent from its neighbors in the North Caucasus.

Zakareishvili pointed out during a recent interview that “as we see now, the Georgian authorities are acting in '“small steps,” and with these ‘small steps,” such as ‘“changing the status of the Circassian Cultural Center, the Georgian government is clearly sending a message of loyalty to Moscow.” He noted further, “Georgia no longer cooperates with the peoples of the North Caucasus. Delegations from Caucasian peoples no longer travel to Tbilisi. The parliamentary committee on relations with the peoples of the North Caucasus has been liquidated, as well as the Mir TV Company, which previously broadcast news and cultural programming to the North Caucasus” Mir (which means peace in Russian), aired programs in the three principal languages of the region: Cherkess (Circassian), Chechen and Avar languages, the former state minister underscored.

When he was in office from 2012 to 2016, Zakareishvili noted that “we financed the studies of students from the North Caucasus at Georgian universities.” Paata Zakareishvili calls relations with the peoples of the North Caucasus “very important.” Even during Soviet times, he pointed out, many Caucasians, including Circassians, came to Tbilisi to study because of the attractiveness of the Georgian capital, which was widely regarded as a center of higher learning and education in the Caucasus. Today, however, the Georgian capital has lost its status as a “center of attraction” for the North Caucasians, and their only opportunities for higher education lie in Moscow, which is often closed to those seeking opportunities to study from outside the Russian capital. Regardless, Zakareishvili remains confident that the peoples of the North Caucasus will remember their identity, and the restoration of relations between Georgia and the Circassians depends on Ukraine’s victory in its war against Russia.

Despite the GD ruling party’s support for Moscow, only Georgia and Ukraine have recognized the Circassian genocide. But more recently, a third country, Lithuania, is joining the ranks of former captive nations (the first in the Baltics) to consider recognition of the Circassian genocide, creating new momentum and support from among the former captive nations of the Soviet Union. No other country, including those with a Circassian population, has made such a decision, fearing it might provoke anger from Moscow. This precedent is crucial because it creates the conditions for Circassians to fight for their rights and historical truth.

Outlook

Georgian society continues to maintain a strong amount of affinity for the Circassians. This, too, is a historical tradition. Perhaps for this reason, despite the CCC’s change in status, its office in the Georgian Ministry of Culture has not yet been fully closed. A plaque with the CCC inscription still hangs on the wall outside the main building, where the Georgian and Circassian flags continue to fly.

While the looming closure of the Circassian Cultural Center could be viewed as a setback to the Circassians, noted Caucasus expert Paul Goble recently emphasized that the Circassian movement has achieved several major milestones in the past decade, notably: “What makes this change so important is that Circassians both in the homeland and in the diaspora have invested great importance in Georgia’s support both in the opening of the Center and recognition of the genocide in 1864. Anything which appears to be backsliding from that is thus not surprisingly viewed as being even more significant than it may ultimately prove to be.”

About the Author:

Giorgi Lebanidze is a Georgian journalist and expert based in Tbilisi, Georgia.

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About the Saratoga Foundation

The Saratoga Foundation is a research and analysis organization focused on Eurasian security and geopolitical developments. Founded in 2023, the Foundation provides analysis on timely security issues shaping U.S. strategic interests related to the Eurasian chessboard.

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By Michael Horton

On February 28, 2026, hours after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the Houthis announced they would resume attacks on Red Sea shipping and Israel. Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the group’s leader, warned that his forces had their fingers on the trigger. Bahrain and the UAE were warned they would be the first to pay if they aided operations against Tehran. Closure of the Bab el-Mandeb, the strait connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, was described as likely if the assault on Iran continued.

In the weeks that followed, the Houthis launched ballistic missiles toward Israel on March 28th, March 30th, April 1st, and April 2nd. As yet, the Houthis have not launched any attacks on maritime targets or on GCC states. The strait remains open. The disparity between the Houthis’ rhetoric and actions is a product of lessons learned from two years of conflict following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, mounting domestic concerns, inter-organizational tensions, and curbs on Iranian-sourced materiel.

Always quick to learn and adjust to changing political and martial realities, the Houthis are pursuing a well-calibrated policy of conditional deterrence.

Lessons Learned

Operation Rough Rider, which ran from March 15th to May 6th, 2025, struck more than a thousand Houthi targets across Houthi-controlled northwest Yemen in roughly seven weeks. Supply depots were hit. Missile launchers were targeted, and some of the infrastructure that supports drone and missile production and assembly was destroyed. Major General Zakaria Abdullah Yahya Hajar, who ran the Houthis’ drone force, was killed in a March strike on a headquarters north of Sana’a, along with Major General Mohammed Khaled Yahya al-Haifi, chief of missile-force operations, and several other senior commanders — deaths the Houthis concealed for nine months before quietly acknowledging them in December. The campaign cost the United States an estimated two billion dollars or more. The Houthis shot down seven MQ-9 Reaper UAVs during the campaign, and one F/A-18E Super Hornet fell overboard when the USS Truman was forced into evasive maneuvers after an incoming Houthi ballistic missile. The Houthis absorbed the attacks, derived operational lessons from them, and largely fought the U.S. to a standstill.

On May 6th, the U.S. and the Houthis agreed to an Omani-brokered ceasefire in which the Houthis agreed not to target American vessels and not to impede shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb. Both sides declared victory. Reporting by the New York Times, based on interviews with over a dozen U.S. officials, confirmed that the Trump Administration ended the campaign because the strikes were not achieving their objectives. The Houthis were explicit that the agreement did not include the cessation of attacks on Israel. After the end of Operation Rough Rider, Israel continued to target infrastructure in Houthi-controlled areas, and the Houthis continued to launch missiles and drones toward Israel.

Each side’s reading of the outcome helped shape what came next. For the Houthis, the March to May hostilities confirmed something they had been testing since late 2023: a mass maritime campaign draws a military response that degrades real capabilities, while a calibrated campaign does not. Consequently, in 2024, they struck commercial shipping roughly 150 times. In 2025, this dropped to seven attacks, even as they continued operations against Israel. This shift shows the Houthis became far more selective and measured in targeting maritime assets. The leadership seemingly realized that the threat of attacks could act as a kind of strategic reserve.

Operation Rough Rider also reinforced lessons the Houthis had absorbed during the Saudi-led coalition air campaign that began in 2015 and lasted, with brief interruptions, until the 2022 ceasefire. Concealment of weapons, materiel, and signals hygiene is paramount. Northwest Yemen’s rugged mountain terrain favors concealment. The Houthis have modernized and deepened Saleh-era underground depots and have dug new ones. They also located drone and missile production and assembly infrastructure in densely populated areas. These facilities are dispersed with multiple backup sites to compensate for any losses.

While the U.S. and Israel were able to successfully target some Houthi commanders and lower-level leadership, the Houthis are quite adept at minimizing their electronic emissions. Following strikes on their leadership, the Houthis launched an internal purge to root out suspected informants and doubled down on organizational security. It is likely that the group uses runners for communication with top-tier leaders, carrier pigeons (a method used by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP), and possesses a hardwired internal communication system in areas around Sana’a.

A Wasting Asset

Another crucial factor behind the Houthis’ strategic restraint is a material challenge. Their missile program still depends on key components sourced from Iran. Although the Houthis have successfully diversified supply chains for their drone programs, they continue to struggle with finding alternatives for critical missile parts. Leadership understands that each missile launched will be harder to replace going forward. Continued war with Iran will almost certainly further constrain these Iran-linked supply chains.

The Houthis’ missile supply gives them considerable leverage over regional powers, namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as over their domestic foes. The Houthis can easily target command centers and any concentration of forces in areas controlled by the recognized government of Yemen. With the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the East-West pipeline now running at full capacity to export Saudi oil via the Red Sea port of Yanbu, the Houthis’ leverage has increased sharply. Closing the Bab al-Mandeb or striking the pipeline and Yanbu’s port infrastructure would directly threaten Saudi Arabia’s primary remaining oil export route. The Houthis have already demonstrated the capability: a Houthi drone strike temporarily shut down the East-West pipeline in May 2019.

While UAVs can target all of these sites, the Houthis’ more sophisticated missiles pose a greater challenge to Saudi and Emirati air defenses and have a higher chance of inflicting serious damage. The same limited supply of missiles poses a threat to the U.S. base at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and Emirati installations near Berbera in Somaliland.

Domestic Pressure

The Houthis are also contending with growing domestic pressures stemming from a moribund economy, declining revenue from formal and informal taxes, and the sale of refined petroleum products. These pressures have intensified due to attacks on port infrastructure by Israel in 2025, as well as U.S. sanctions that followed the formal redesignation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department on March 4, 2025, pursuant to an executive order Trump signed on January 22nd. As a result, the once-significant revenue the Houthis derived from taxing and selling imported refined petroleum products has eroded. The Houthis depend on this revenue not only to fund their government and military, but also to sustain a vital patronage network.

The Houthis’ power rests on the continued compliance, forced or otherwise, of northwest Yemen’s tribes. While the Houthis have worked to infiltrate and compromise tribal power structures across the northwest, much of the compliance is still bought. Former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh also relied on patronage networks to maintain his grip on power. Corruption, declining oil exports, and his heavy-handed prosecution of six wars against the Houthis between 2004 and 2010 all contributed to the erosion of his authority and his eventual removal during the Arab Spring uprisings. Just as the Houthis have learned lessons from Operation Rough Rider, they are keenly aware of how Saleh lost power. Another extended bombing campaign by the U.S. and or Israel will not displace them, but it will further impede their ability to buy the compliance of key tribal allies.

Inter-Organizational Tensions

Running through all of this is a factional argument about what the Houthis are, and what they owe Iran. On one side, what can be called pragmatists are rooted in the movement’s Yemeni political tradition. The pragmatists have long resisted full subordination to Iran’s Axis of Resistance framework. These figures are by no means pacifists; most fully backed and helped prosecute the Red Sea campaign and missile launches toward Israel. But they understand that further escalation — the kind that invites another sustained bombing campaign, or that depletes inventory the group cannot easily replace — does not serve their goal of maintaining power and slowly expanding their political influence across Yemen. Many of these men also have personal fortunes to protect and are likely more interested in business than in sustaining a war that will slowly erode Houthi control.

On the other side are the maximalists, figures for whom the war with the United States and Israel is an ideological obligation that cannot be so easily weighed against domestic calculations. Many of these men are part of the younger generation that came of age during the last years of the Saleh government. While many are undoubtedly wealthy due to corruption and the war economy, they have not amassed the personal fortunes that many in the older generation have. They have less to lose, and it is largely through war that a Houthi commander can prove himself and advance within the organization.

Tehran’s position complicates any simple reading of this contest. The Iranians want the Houthi threat activated and credible — a second front that disperses American and Israeli attention and keeps Saudi Arabia in particular in check. But Tehran does not want the Houthis to be degraded by a serious escalation. Iran’s preferred outcome, a Houthi posture of maximum menace with minimal commitment, aligns, at least for now, with what the pragmatists are already arguing.

The Bab al-Mandeb

The Bab el-Mandeb carries, in normal times, between 10 and 15 percent of global seaborne trade. With the Strait of Hormuz now largely closed to non-Iranian vessels, its strategic weight has increased further still. The Houthis hold parts of its eastern shore, and they have the weapons — anti-ship ballistic missiles, drones, and naval mines — to make transit through it prohibitively dangerous. They have said, on the record, that closure is likely if the assault on Iran escalates further, especially if there are U.S. boots on the ground in Iran.

The arithmetic of the Houthis’ restraint is clear. Closing the Bab al-Mandeb ends the threat because it produces a response from the United States and Israel that will not displace the Houthis but will degrade them militarily and further stress their ability to fund patronage networks. Escalation by the Houthis could also provoke Saudi Arabia into backing ground operations by forces allied with the Government of Yemen (GOY). While such an operation is unlikely to dislodge the Houthis, GOY-allied forces are better organized and more capable than they have been for years.

The Houthis, and for now Iran, benefit more from holding the threat to close the Bab al-Mandeb and attack oil handling infrastructure in reserve. It is also highly likely that Saudi Arabia, which has maintained backchannel communications with the Houthis since at least 2022, is ensuring that the group receives some economic support. Reports indicate that Saudi salary transfers to Houthi-controlled areas helped shape the timing of the Houthis’ entry into the current conflict. If accurate, this underscores Riyadh’s continued interest in managing — rather than confronting — the Houthis directly.

What Comes Next

The Houthis will continue launching missiles at Israel — enough to maintain the appearance of solidarity with Iran and the Axis of Resistance — but not enough to deplete an inventory they cannot easily rebuild. Maritime threats will continue at a frequency calibrated to sustain elevated insurance rates and keep some U.S. naval assets committed to the region. However, barring U.S. troops on the ground in Iran, the Houthis are unlikely to cross the threshold that would provoke another sustained bombing campaign. The Bab el-Mandeb will remain open and threatened.

The danger in this situation is not that the Houthis will rationally decide to close the strait. It is that they will not have to decide. Miscalculation is not a failure of intent; it is what happens when multiple actors are moving simultaneously up an escalation ladder, none of whom can see to the top. A single exchange — a vessel sunk, a naval asset struck, a threshold crossed by one of the other parties — can produce an escalatory loop that removes the option of restraint before any party has specifically chosen to abandon it.

The Houthis have endured six Saada wars, seven years of Saudi-led military intervention, successive Israeli campaigns to decapitate their leadership, and two American bombing operations. They are not a movement that makes decisions from desperation. They make them from a precise, if sometimes ruthless, accounting of what they possess, what they stand to lose, and what price their adversaries are prepared to pay. That accounting currently argues for continued restraint.

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About the Author:

Michael Horton is the co-founder of Red Sea Analytics International (RSAI) and a contributing author at Eurasia Outlook. He has two decades of experience as an analyst and researcher in Yemen and the Red Sea region. Michael has written policy briefs and conducted briefings and seminars for the US National Security Council, the British Foreign Ministry, the British Ministry of Defense, the US State Department, and senior members of the British Parliament and the US Congress. He has written extensively about the region for The Saratoga Foundation, Jane’s Intelligence Review, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Oxford Analytica, and The Economist,.

About the Saratoga Foundation

The Saratoga Foundation is a research and analysis organization focused on Eurasian security and geopolitical developments. Founded in 2023, the Foundation provides analysis on timely security issues shaping U.S. strategic interests related to the Eurasian chessboard.

Thank you for your support! Please remember that The Saratoga Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Your donations are fully tax-deductible. If you seek to support The Saratoga Foundation, you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the PayPal link below! You can also subscribe to our website to support our work.

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On March 18, Israeli military planes carried out attacks on Bandar Anzali, headquarters of Iran’s Northern Fleet and its largest port on the Caspian. Reports about the air strikes the following day noted that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) hit the port and other adjoining areas, destroying infrastructure and at least five Iranian naval vessels and merchant ships during the nighttime attack.

Not only did the air strike signal to Tehran and the Iranian people that US-Israeli attacks would no longer be limited to Iran's southern portions of that country—effectively eliminating any safe havens—but it also threatened to spill over into Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and Turkmenistan, as well as their trading partners in China and Europe. By suggesting that north-south and east-west trade corridors, which make use of shipping via the Caspian Sea, are now at risk, the incident sparked a foreign ministry protest in Moscow and still silent anger elsewhere.

In the wake of these attacks, some analysts and officials in the region are already suggesting that this could lead to shifts in these trade corridors away from one’s dependent on the use of the Caspian Sea to the use of overland land routes, benefiting a few countries but harming others. But all who have offered commentaries on these attacks agree that the Israeli move has brought the Iranian war to the Caspian and that even if there are no further strikes in the near term, the littoral countries as well as their trading partners must be alert and ready to respond to such attacks in the future, lest those attacks drag in one or more of the countries involved into a broader war around Iran.

In addition, regional commentators are also warning of other, less obvious but potentially equally or even more disastrous consequences from strikes like this, including both the triggering of an ecological disaster for the Caspian or even possibly the revival of the Islamic State movement (ISIS), which operates in the region and would threaten not only the neighboring states but the world as a whole.

*The photo above is a damaged ship after the Israeli air strike on Bandar Anzali on March 18.

The Israeli attack on the Caspian port damaged at least five ships at the headquarters of Iran’s Northern Fleet, and also caused significant damage to the port itself, the surrounding military facilities, and the ships, but it involved no casualties. What it did do was send important messages to the Iranian government and people, to the governments of the littoral states, and to all countries and international corporations involved in both east-west and north-south trade in the Caspian region.

The March 18 air strike on Bandar Anzali clearly demonstrated to the Iranians that the Israel, and potentially the United States, are quite prepared to expand their attacks beyond Iranian nuclear facilities and southern economic infrastructure and that no one in Tehran or Iran as a whole should count on their being any safe havens where people and officials can go about their business with little need to fear a military attack. Clearly, that was the primary reason for the attack, although Israeli officials suggested that what they really wanted to do was degrade trade between Iran and its supporters in Moscow, given that the Caspian has been a major channel for such trade, especially in sanctioned items and weaponry, as it becomes part of a Russia-Iran arms corridor.

Regional Repercussions

All things considered, if the Israeli attack was directed in the first instance at Iran, it also sent shockwaves through the other four Caspian littoral states and the governments and businesses that are seeking to develop both east-west and north-south trade routes via the Caspian, given the existing political difficulties and infrastructure shortages in both Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Moscow has been especially outraged by the Israeli action because it challenges the 2018 accord on the delimitation of the Caspian signed by all five littoral states (but not yet ratified by Iran) that specifies that none of the countries will allow other states any military presence on that body of water. However, what Israeli planes have done is to show how hollow that accord is.

But more than that, this attack has shown that plans to use the Caspian for either north-south trade between Russia and the Indian Ocean via Iran or east-west trade from China and Central Asia to Europe via the South Caucasus are not as well-situated as the Kremlin has insisted. Instead, all countries involved are now waiting to see what happens next, thus casting doubt on both these corridors: the Russian-led route and the one backed by China and the West. The Israeli attack has, at a minimum, put these plans on hold for moving forward and quite possibly may have derailed them permanently.

Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan have been seeking to develop land routes for each of these corridors, and now are certain to press the advantage that the caution the Israeli attacks have instilled in the other littoral states and businesses, and their policies may lead outside actors to focus more on railway and pipeline construction through or from them than at any point in the recent past. If Israel pursues any additional attacks, then there certainly could be a fundamental reordering of the geo-economic and geo-political order in Central Asia and the Caucasus, a reordering that will call into question recent assumptions about Russian retreats and American gains in both places.

Threat to TRIPP?

The Israeli move in the Caspian is a significant development—despite the limited attention it has received in the Western media. It may also be a potential turning point for the wider region and might even have repercussions as far east as China and as far west as the United States. It also raises a level of uncertainty concerning the future of the US-backed Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) should there be additional airstrikes on Iranian ports and vessels in the Caspian as the specter of a wider war threatens the Caucasus. After all, TRIPP was one of several reasons that promoted US Vice President J.D. Vance to visit the region only the month before.

Finally, in addition to these changes, two other developments are likely to cast a far larger shadow than anyone is currently prepared for. On the one hand, the Israeli attack has released a variety of poisonous materials into the Caspian, a sea that is closed off to the rest of the world and one that will suffer greatly if these materials are not contained and cleaned up quickly. And on the other hand, what Israel has done might give aid and comfort to those who want to restart the Islamic State (ISIS), a group quite prepared to take its message and its terrorism far beyond where they come from. Such people may see the instability that is now spreading to the north of Iran as a result of the ongoing military campaign by Israel and the United States as a perfect time to come back together and launch new attacks. That one can even think about such a possibility is one more reason why both the campaign and the Israeli attack on northern Iran is likely to have deleterious consequences, however tempting it may have been as a military target.

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*Picture above: Chechens in Grozny commemorating the Day of Memory of Kunta-Khadji Kishiev.

Introduction

In late January during a recent meeting at the Kremlin between United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ramzan Kadyrov the Russian installed leader of Chechnya, called for Russia to bring the war in Ukraine to a final end. By Kadyrov’s definition of the term, this means ending the war on Moscow’s terms: ‘denazification’, the cession of conquered territories, the designation of Russian as a state language, etc.

As the head of one of Russia’s largest Muslim republics Kadyrov’s statement is important because he seeks a level of legitimacy among Russia’s Muslims and Moscow has endlessly used this as a bridge to the Arab Gulf countries and the rest of the Muslim world building on the notion of Chechens as great fighters. At the same time Kadyrov has militarily backed the Kremlin war against Ukraine to the point of deploying Chechen units to fight against Ukraine since the outbreak of he war. Kadyrov’s calls for an end on such terms is out of the ordinary because Kadyrov is also a murid, or follower, of a famous Sufi sheikh known as Kunta Haji Kishiev. Sufism is the dominant form of Islam in the North Caucasus republic and the fundamental philosophy of Sufism is not predicated on resolving issues through military means. In fact, Sufism prioritizes the internal moral struggle and rejects war as an end in itself; armed conflict is acknowledged as permissible only under specific conditions—namely, for the purpose of defense against an enemy.

Kadyrov’s call for the end to the war on Kremlin terms raises a major question as to how the Chechen strongman attempts to motivate Chechens, who as Sunni Muslims, are being called upon to fight a “holy war” against Ukraine on behalf of Russia. Since the majority of Chechens adhere to Sufi philosophy (referred to in Chechnya as “traditional” Islam), how does this relate to their participation in the war and is this policy succeeding? Furthermore, how does Kadyrov manipulate Islam in a struggle alongside Russia, given the fact that Chechnya militarily resisted Russian rule in the 19th century and fought two wars of independence against Moscow in the 1990s?

Western policy audiences should keep in mind that everything Kadyrov says reflects his personal loyalty to the Kremlin. At the same time, however, he also expresses his support for the war through the use of religious motifs—primarily those associated with so-called “traditional Islam,” which in modern Chechnya draws upon their Sufi heritage. An analysis of public statements, visual symbols, and institutional support from the official clergy suggests that this is less a matter of theology than the use of religion as an instrument of propaganda to support and promote Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine. Kadyrov’s exploitation of religion cannot be fully understood without first examining the historical roots and structure of Sufism within Chechen society, which continue to shape both Chechnya’s religious identity and political mobilization today.

*Image of Sheikh Imam Shamyl who led the North Caucasus resistance movement i the 19th century

Sufism in the Chechen Tradition: An Overview

During the last two centuries, Islam in Chechnya has historically developed in the form of the two major Sufi tariqats, or orders, known as the Naqshbandiyya and Qadiriya orders. These groups are the two most predominant Sufi religious orders in the Northeast Caucasus. Experts and observers tend to assume that most residents of Chechnya and Ingushetia are adherents of Sufism, which is an esoteric branch of Islam. However, for those who are unfamiliar with Sufism, a tariqat is an organized spiritual order that provides a structured path in the way of Sufism of discipline, guided by a teacher, to achieve direct knowledge of God, which is conductd through the two dominant orders, the Naqshbandiyya and Qadiriya.

Prominent Muslim leaders and organizers of the national liberation movement, the most prominent of whom was the military commander Imam Shamyl, who opposed the Russian army’s conquest of the North Caucasus for nearly three decades. Imam Shamyl was preceded by others in the first half of the 19th century, such as Sheikh Magomed Yaraginsky, Sheikh Dzhemaludin Kazikumukhsky, Imam Ghazi-Magomed Gimrinsky, Sheikh Tashu-Haji Sayasan, and others. All of whom were notably Sufis. One of the most important propagators of the Qadiri tariqat was the famous Chechen Sheikh Kunta-Haji Kishiev Ilsikhanurtovsky.

One of the distinctive features of Sufism in Islam is that its teachings are passed on from the teacher (ustaz, sheikh) to the student (murid). The teacher gives his murids a virde. By doing so, he relies on a particular spiritual method called tariqa, which translates from Arabic as “path.” Even during periods of armed resistance in the 19th century, the Sufi tradition viewed violence as a necessary defense rather than a universal religious duty. Historical examples exist of Sufis participating in wars, for example, in 1516 in the Ottoman Wars, or the murids of the first and second imams of Dagestan who fought in the late 1820s and early 1830s. Conversely, during the collapse of the Russian Empire, Sufi sheikhs and murids were frequently active in the political processes taking place in the North Caucasus and were also active in the 1990s in Chechnya as well as during the two wars of Chechen independence fought against Russia.

*Note: Chart of major Sufi Sheikhs of Chechnya

State and Islam in Chechnya: Kadyrov’s Embrace of Sheikh Kunta-Haji

As an adherent of Sheikh Kunta-Haji’s Sufi brotherhood, Ramzan Kadyrov constantly seeks to strengthen his personal authority in the republic by cultivating the image of his spiritual teacher (ustaz) Kishiev. In addition to Kunta-Haji Kishiev, there are several dozen other notable sheikhs inside Chechnya, of both the Qadiri and Naqshbandi tariqats. Therefore, Kadyrov’s actions cannot be universally approved because the cult of Kunta-Haji is not entirely acceptable in the republic simply because there are at least six other Sufi brotherhoods of the Qadiriya order and 22 brotherhoods of the Naqshbandi order in Chechnya. For each of them, their own sheikh is far more authoritative than all the others.

                                               Sheikh Kunta Haji Kisheiv

Contemporary politicians in Chechnya today use the cult of Sheikh Kunta-Haji Kishiev to justify and sanctify their reconciliation with Russia. In an effort to suggest that they adhere to the sheikh’s supposed main tenet of “non-resistance to force” they often compare Kishiev to Russian writer Leo Tolstoy or Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi. However, no such tenet exists in the sheikh’s works; he does not advocate resigning oneself to the fate of the conquered. On the contrary, the sheikh supports the notion of strengthening one’s inner peace for the purpose of fighting foreign oppressors.

Through Kadyrov’s state-sponsored program, Sheikh Kishiev has emerged as a respected figure among much of the republic’s population, while the Chechen strongman has deliberately leveraged the Sheikh’s influence to strengthen his own power base. However, because Islam in the republic is institutionally subordinate to the executive branch—with salaries paid to imams, qadis, and mufti employees —the muftiate’s financial dependence on Chechen authorities effectively undermines its autonomy. This suggests that religious leaders have become part of the vertical structure of the Chechen government.

By placing the official clergy on a par with local officials and within the category of “legitimate” Islam in Russia, the republic has effectively suppressed or repressed all alternative interpretations of Islam. Consequently, independent Sufi brotherhoods and Salafism existing outside the muftiate are considered illegal. In other words, at the government level we have “official (traditional) Islam,” whose main function is to legitimize political decisions rather than provide religious guidance. For example, not a single mosque exists in Chechnya that could even be remotely associated with Salafism. However, there are mosques of this kind in the neighboring North Caucasus republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia.

Moreover, when Kadyrov learned that there were followers of Sufism among the Chechens who were engaged in self-mutilation—similar to that propagated in Iraq among the followers of the teachings of the Kurdish Sheikh Muhammad al-Qasnazi—the head of the republic “exposed” them in front of the cameras live on a local television channel television channel. In doing so, he declared that he would not allow such teachings to be practiced in Chechnya; this was not a mere wish, but an order that no one could discuss or protest.

At the same time, no theological discussions were permitted in the region, and no one has even cited classical Sufi texts or recognized Islamic legal opinions (fatwas) to justify the need for Chechens to fight in the Russian war against Ukraine. Consequently, only the variety of Islam that Kadyrov considers correct and acceptable for all Chechens has the right to exist in the republic. No element of choice exists; rather, it is a matter of necessity to accept this as dogma. Therefore, due to the absence of public debate, it is impossible to have a public discussion about everything that is happening in Ukraine. Fear and forced conformity dominate the political discourse in the republic.

Chechen authorities are more than eager to send any critics to the war in Ukraine, and if such critics are unavailable because they reside in Western European countries, the burden of guilt is then placed on the relatives of those who criticized the actions of Chechen authorities. The rhetoric used stands in direct contradiction to the Sufi tradition, in which the cult of power and ostentatious violence is incompatible with Sufi asceticism—not to mention that the war is not justified by Sharia law and that religious forms are reduced to mere ritual trappings. In fact, today Chechen Sufism is reduced to little more than cultural décor, deprived of its rich inner content.

Sufi Rhetoric in the Context of the Ukraine War

On March 16, 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a conference was held in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, where the spiritual leaders of Russian Muslims supported Russian President Vladimir Putin by adopting a fatwa supporting his war known as: “On those who died defending the Fatherland and civilians during the Russian military operation in Ukraine to force the aggressor to peace.” The fatwa stated that all those who were killed in the war in Ukraine would be considered martyrs who died in the holy path of Islam.

Inside Chechnya, “jihad”, or “holy war”, has become the main “argument” in the campaign to attract residents to participate in the ongoing Ukraine war. Magomed Daudov, chairman of the republic’s parliament once boasted this in a video posted on Ramzan Kadyrov’s Telegram channel. Chechens participating in the Russian invasion of Ukraine are “defending Islam,” he said.

Under the control of the muftiate and security forces, mass nightly prayers are organized in the republic to support the Russian army in its war against Ukraine, utilizing state administrative resources. Employees of state institutions have reported that under various pretexts they are also frequently forced to participate in collective night prayers at Chechen mosques. According to employees of the Chechen organization “Vayfond,” women were sometimes taken from their homes and transported “by the busload” to the mosque, which usually resulted in prayers lasting three hours, after which the women were taken home. In fact, the degree of government involvement even had reached the point where school-age children were being forced to attend nightly prayers in the republic’s mosques as well. In fact, this initiative was organized by Ramzan Kadyrov’s daughters.

Kadyrov’s “Murids”

The Chechen leader went a step further in the fall of 2022 by announcing that the Sufi brotherhoods in Chechnya could begin organizing their own named units, meaning that they should be named after their ustadz (sheikhs). “All murids (followers) should unite into groups, create and name their battalions, companies, and detachments, naming them after their ustadz“ (teachers, founders of Sufi movements). This decision was related to Russian manpower concerns and the need to search for people to send to the Russian front lines to fight in Ukraine. The results, however, failed to meet Kadyrov’s expectations. By August 2022, the speaker of the republican parliament, Magomed Daudov, who is one of Kadyrov’s closest associates, stated that it was impossible to find people willing to go to war, even with promises of payment. For example, in the Chechen city of Argun, out of 412 low-income families, only three men had agreed to serve in the new regiment, despite the lack of other work. Kadyrov then ordered those who refused to be deprived of their benefits.

Russian Propaganda Portrays Chechen Imams undergoing military training in Chechnya which later proved to be fake news.

Here, too, we see an element of propaganda—a desire to show how the war against Ukraine is supported at all levels in the republic. Kadyrov announced that “it is necessary to create units named after each Chechen ustaz in the republic. We need to study military affairs and prepare for the possibility that the special military operation may be prolonged,” he said at a meeting with representatives of law enforcement agencies in Grozny on November 15, 2022.

Following this announcement, more than 300 imams and qadis (a qadi is a judge in a Muslim community who interprets and renders binding decisions based on Islamic religious law) of the Chechen clergy, led by the Mufti of Chechnya, Salah-Haji Mezhiev, were forced to undergo seven days of military training at the so-called “special forces university” located outside Grozny in the nearby city of Gudermes. According to Kadyrov, the training included the safe handling of weapons, basic tactical and firefighting skills, and first aid.

Once completed, Salah-Haji Mezhiev stated that “theologians are ready, if necessary, to go to the zone of special military operations (as the Russian authorities call the war in Ukraine) in Ukraine to make their contribution to the victory of our state over the servants of Satan,” Ramzan Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel. Moreover, in his sermons, Mezhiev referred to the war in Ukraine as “sacred” and “blessed” for Muslims. Russian propaganda channels covered these events and claimed that a battalion of imams would soon be sent to war, led by the Mufti of Chechnya, Salah Mezhidov, which ultimately turned out to be nothing more than a publicity stunt.

Regardless, this did not prevent the mufti from becoming a “hero of Chechnya“ in February 2024 - “for his personal contribution to the achievement of the goals and objectives of the Russian led Special Military Operations (SMO) in Ukraine. According to some Chechen imams, Mezhiev transformed himself from a respected Chechen spiritual leader before his election as mufti into an official backer of the Kadyrov regime. For reasons that are unclear, the Chechen leadership proved to be unable to organize units from among Chechen imams and murids from the Sufi brotherhoods, setting out to actively “rescue” the Ingush murids of Sheikh Batal-Haji Belkhoroev. Russian authorities have been persecuting members of this brotherhood for many years, accusing its “military wing” of organizing the murder of a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Ingushetia.

*Picture depicts members of Ingush Sufi Batalkhajin unit sent to Ukraine

Kadyrov Intervenes to Protect the Sufi Batalkhajin Brotherhood

Ironically, Kadyrov has also sought use his influential ties to the Kremlin in a positive way to protect regional Sufi groups that the Kremlin is weary of, notably in neighboring Ingushetia. Following reports of the Sufi Batalkhajin Brotherhood being involved in attacking Kremlin-backed Ingush government officials, Kadyrov intervened to help protect one of these groups.

On December 31, 2018, the great-great-grandson of Sheikh Batal-Haji, Ibrahim Belkhoroev, was killed in Ingushetia. The Batalkhajins believe that Ibrahim Eljarkiev—head of the Ingush Center for Countering Extremism and a member of the security forces—may have been behind the assassination. Eljarkiev was subsequently killed in Moscow in November 2019.

From that moment onward, the entire Sufi branch of this brotherhood faced intense pressure from Russian law enforcement. Since much could be forgiven in Russia for those who volunteered to fight in Ukraine, Kadyrov intervened and found a way to resolve the situation by suggesting to Moscow that the Batalkhajins could atone for their ‘sins’ by forming their own military units and depart for the Ukraine front. After this, the Batalkhajin Rapid Response Unit (BOBR) became part of the Akhmat special forces and began participating in Russian military operations, as confirmed by the head of Chechnya on December 13, 2025. The Batalkhajin Rapid Response Unit consists of only 31 persons and underwent training at the Russian Special Forces University in Gudermes (a city in Chechnya, outside Grozny), after which they were then deployed to the front in Ukraine.

In this way, the members of the Batalkhajin brotherhood sought to avoid conflict with the security forces, which began after the murder of the head of the Ingush Center “E.” But this did not help them. Regardless, Russian officials remain convinced that the Brotherhood has a “military wing.” Consequently, some members of the mystical wing Ingush Sufi branch were declared a terrorist organization in Russia, which illustrates how Kadyrov cleverly sought to use his role to save the Sufi group from Kremlin retribution. Neverthless, Kadyrov ultimately failed when it came to preserving at least the mystical wing of the Batalkhajin from the wrath of the Russian security services.

Conclusion

Chechnya’s Sufis remain a resilient force inside Chechnya, and for that matter, throughout the entire Northeast Caucasus and Ramzan Kadyrov has cleverly tried to manipulate Chechnya’s Islamic heritage in his rhetoric to strengthen his rule even though it has no theological basis. What is happening today is not the Islamization of war, but the militarization of Chechnya’s religious identity. For this reason state propaganda in Chechnya continues to depict Kadyrov as “a servant of the Holy Quran, a hero of Islam, and a defender of the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad.” On the contrary, he acts the exact opposite. He often sharply criticizes manifestations of intolerance towards Islam, especially abroad, while he himself systematically ignores violations of Muslims’ rights inside Russia, including those held in Russian detention facilities.

To legitimize his power, Kadyrov uses rituals, fatwas, and symbols instead of resorting to theological discussions. Prayers and public religious justification of the war have served as a useful tool for mobilization. Moscow’s support for the Chechen leader’s actions serves its own self interests. No other Russian regional leader has been able to repeat or even come close to what Kadyrov is doing to mobilize his population to fight in the war against Ukraine.

In the final analysis, Ramzan Kadyrov’s actions are aimed at demonstrating his complete solidarity with the Russian president in Moscow, the republic’s residents, and the Russian political establishment. Regardless of what Kadyrov does or says, all his actions have one goal: to demonstrate his unconditional loyalty to President Vladimir Putin. Kadyrov performs this role by exploiting “traditional Islam” in Chechnya, using it as a tool of control, subjugating it to his will. Islam functions here as an institutional resource, with the Chechen clerical establishment becoming completely dependent on him.

It continues to be a matter of political exploitation of the republic’s religious heritage, which leads to the discrediting of the Sufi tradition, the destruction of the boundary between faith and violence, and ultimately will cause long-term damage to religious consciousness in Chechnya, which will lead to a future departure from Sufi traditions by Chechen society.

Given the long history of Sufi resistance to Russian rule in the North Caucasus, religious developments in Islam in Chechnya have important long-term implications for regional stability. On the one hand, they weaken Chechen nationalism; on the other, they solidify Kadyrov’s hold on power. Hence, controlling the Sufi movement is an important goal in helping Moscow fulfill its imperial agenda. No other region in the North Caucasus—or in Russia more broadly—affects Russian stability more than Chechnya. Developments there, particularly regarding the Sufi movement, can play a dramatic role in igniting the North Caucasus powder keg by spilling over into neighboring Dagestan and Ingushetia. Accordingly, keeping the Sufis in check is a vital element of the agenda of both Kadyrov and the Kremlin and is something that haunts Putin and other Russian policymakers, having fought two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s.

About the Author:

Mairbek Vatchagaev is a Senior Fellow at The Saratoga Foundation and one of the world’s leading experts on Islam in the North and South Caucasus and Russian nationalities issues. He is the author of Chechnya: The Inside Story, From Independence to War, a chronicle of the dramatic events that took place in Chechnya during the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Chechen war for independence.

Glen E. Howard is the President and Chairman of The Saratoga Foundation.

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👉 ‘The Russian Orthodox Church has evolved from a religious body into a strategic Kremlin asset in Africa, providing help in intelligence operations & facilitating military recruitment.’

By Paul Goble

The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (ROC-MP) came to Africa about five years ago to expand its influence in the Orthodox world after the Ecumenical Patriarchate extended autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine to weaken the Patriarchate’s claim to primacy even across the former Soviet space. In the last two years, however, the ROC-MP has assumed a vastly more important role as Moscow’s agent on the African sub-continent. It also simultaneously provides a cover for Russian intelligence and covert action operations and even helps Moscow to conduct such operations. More recently, its portfolio has expanded to another new dimension - helping the Kremlin to recruit Africans to fill the depleted ranks of the Russian invasion force in Ukraine, although the church denies doing so.

The Moscow Patriarchate has had some success on the ground and even more in the Kremlin, but by its actions, it has completely compromised itself as a church committed to religious principles. That will not only accelerate the demise of its influence across the former Soviet space but also should alert religious leaders in other countries that when they are dealing with the ROC-MP, they are interacting with an organization that is not so much a religious body but an arm of the Russian state.

*Map of Russian Orthodoxy in Africa: 2022 to 2024: Source Bloomberg

History of ROC Ties to the Russian Intelligence Services

The ROC-MP has a long history of being closely connected with the Soviet and Russian intelligence services, with many of its hierarchs having been and presumably still being officers in those services. But remarkably, it only rarely had much to do with Africa because that continent had long been recognized in the Orthodox world as the canonical territory of the Alexandrian patriarchate, one of the most ancient but smallest and poorest of the Orthodox hierarchies in the world.

The Moscow Patriarchate sought its support and did not want to undermine that chance by poaching Alexandrian churches. However, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople granted autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Alexandrian patriarchate did not oppose it, the Moscow church adopted the position that the old rules were no longer applicable and moved to take over churches in Africa to expand its own network there. It was able to do so because small amounts of aid brought it enormous returns on the ground, opening the path for Moscow to establish its own exarchate to manage its own parishes and bishoprics in Africa, beginning as early as 2022, when the ROC-MP announced it had a presence in 19 countries.

That network quickly fell under the influence of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, which viewed the church as a useful cover for its own agents and an even more useful way to penetrate the political elites of African countries who might have been put off by a more direct approach by Russian intelligence. This subtle form of infiltration served as a necessary alternative to the often heavy-handed tactics of Russian “Private Military Companies” (PMCs), like the Prigozhin-founded Wagner Group, which spearheaded the Kremlin’s overt military presence across sub-Saharan Africa.

The actual number of converts, parishes, and priests is a matter of dispute but appears to be in the hundreds, dozens, and a smaller number, respectively. And the activities of the SVR using the ROC-MP as cover and assistant are also a matter of dispute because what the church does in this regard is hidden beyond a veil of secrecy, something that encourages exaggeration. Regardless, it is beyond question that the Kremlin is using the ROC-MP to achieve its goals in Africa.

The ROC Pivots to African Manpower Recruitment

In the past several months, the ROC-MP has devoted greater attention to attracting Africans not only to join Russian PMCs operating there, such as the Wagner Group, but also to serve as a source of recruitment to replenish the depleted ranks of the Russian army fighting in Ukraine. While the actual number of African recruits is a matter of dispute, ranging from 200 to more than 1500, and should be treated with caution, the ROC-MP is now playing another covert role in helping Moscow in new ways. According to Novaya Gazeta, there is strong evidence that the ROC-MP has become “the African Orthodox Military Commissariat,” a role of increasing importance given the growing manpower shortages in the Russian army. The impact of such recruitment is almost certainly greater in the Russian PMCs that are operating in the African countries from which these troops come than in the battlefields of Ukraine to which at least a few have been sent, but probably far fewer than some claim and others fear.

The Kremlin is undoubtedly pleased with the fact that the ROC-MP is helping to boost the number of Africans cooperating with its PMCs in Africa and even providing much-needed manpower for Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine. The ROC-MP is certainly using this to try to bolster its standing with the Kremlin after losing its dominant position in Ukraine and, at risk of similar losses, any influence it retains across the former Soviet space.

Outlook

For both the Kremlin and, especially, the ROC-MP, these gains have come at a high cost. This highlights the way in which the ROC-MP—which was created during World War II when Stalin restored an Orthodox church in Russia—has willingly accepted the role as handmaiden of the Russian security services, while further undermining its influence in the Eastern Orthodox world. Its contempt for the canonical space of the Alexandrian Patriarchate and the influence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate are destroying whatever influence the ROC-MP had in the Orthodox world and the ecumenical movement. In fact, the day may come when the Kremlin and the Patriarchate will recognize that the price they paid for short-term successes will be an ever-larger failure across the former Soviet space and the world.

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👉‘The strategic triangle region of al-Muthalath at the borders of Libya, Egypt, & Sudan is emerging as a critical flashpoint in Egypt’s strategy to halt the flow of arms to RSF forces backed by the UAE.’

By Andrew McGregor

In a brutal war for control of Sudan, Egypt has avoided direct military intervention despite recognizing the Sudan Armed Forces/Transitional Sovereignty Council (SAF/TSC) administration as the legitimate government of Sudan over the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Cairo has, however, observed both the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Khalifa Haftar’s unrecognized government of eastern Libya joining to support the Arab-supremacist RSF in their effort to seize control of Sudan and suppress its non-Arab communities. Crucial to the outcome of Sudan’s civil war is the question of who will dominate the so-called “Triangle” (Al-Muthalath) region, where Libya, Egypt, and Sudan meet.

On January 9, Egypt carried out airstrikes on a UAE-supplied Libyan weapons convoy passing south from Benghazi, through the Kufra Oasis and past Jabal ‘Uwaynat into northern Darfur, where they were to be received by the RSF. Egypt’s previous warnings to Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) to desist from such activity appear to have been ignored. The convoy is reported to have lost dozens of vehicles carrying arms and fuel to the RSF, with significant loss of life. The strike came only two days before an official visit to Cairo by Saddam Hafter, son (and presumed heir) of LNA commander Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. Saddam is in charge of LNA operations in south-eastern Libya and the Triangle region.

The RSF’s reliance on material support from the UAE and its ties with the LNA provide further cause for Egypt to seek an end to refugee flows and the restoration of a true national government in Sudan. While Egypt and the Emirates both support Haftar’s LNA (Haftar has received military aid in the past from both Egypt and the UAE), the refusal of the UAE to acknowledge its long-suspected military support of the RSF has complicated relations between Cairo and Abu Dhabi. Despite its size and power, Egypt has limited leverage over the UAE, a substantial and much-needed investor in Egypt.

Saharan Supply Line: From Kufra to Jabal ‘Uwaynat

Libya’s Kufra Oasis, 640 miles south of Benghazi and 185 miles from Sudan, is the historic launching point for caravans connecting Libya to Chad and Darfur. Its airport is recently renovated and expanded, and now receives regular arrivals of transport aircraft, many of them carrying arms. Shipments of arms from Kufra to Darfur began in May 2025 despite a UN arms embargo on Sudan. Videos and geolocation techniques have confirmed the establishment of an RSF base in Kufra.

A little more than a century ago, Jabal (Mount) ‘Uwaynat, roughly located at the meeting point of the Libyan, Egyptian, and Sudanese borders, was one of the planet’s most remote locations, more legendary than real, and visited only rarely by Tubu herders and raiders. However, in recent years, it has become a heavily militarized nexus of desert trade, artisanal gold mining, drug smuggling, migrant trafficking, and arms-running.

Egypt has sought to establish a long-term presence in the region with the development of the East Uwaynat Desert Reclamation Project, 37 miles from the Sudanese border. Included in the largely agricultural project is a two-runway airport begun in 2018 and finished in 2024. Beginning in mid-2025, Egyptian authorities started delivering Turkish-made drones and other military equipment to the base in East ‘Uwaynat. Some Turkish Air Force cargo flights have arrived directly from Turkey. Satellite images have confirmed that Egypt is deploying advanced Turkish-built Bayraktar Akinci drones at this base.

*Fighters from the Kufra-based Subul al-Salam militia: Source 👉Libya Observer

RSF fighters and Libyan troops (likely members of Kufra’s Islamist Subul al-Salam militia) first arrived in the Triangle region near Jabal Arkenu on June 10, 2025, forcing out units of the SAF and allied militias of the Joint Forces (former Darfur rebels) and looting local markets of anything of value. The Libyans returned north, while the RSF declared it had complete control of the region.  Control of the Triangle helped secure overland supply convoys to the RSF and provided a potential launching point for RSF incursions into lightly defended northern Sudan. Shortly after the occupation, RSF commander Muhammad Hamdan Daglo “Hemetti” offered to transform the Triangle into a regional trade and economic hub for Sudan, Libya, and Egypt. Uninterested in a scheme that would involve recognition of the RSF as a regional authority, Cairo instead promised SAF leader General ‘Abd al-Fatah al-Burhan that it would not permit the RSF to use the Triangle region as a base for the invasion of Sudan’s Northern Province.

Arms and Mercenaries

When the RSF consolidated its authority over the tri-border region last June, it took control of the supply routes running through it while denying access to the Sudanese military. Supplies and mercenaries arriving from Kufra allowed the RSF to recover from its loss of Khartoum to take al-Fashir and consolidate its control of Darfur. However, the move also brought the RSF, a regional source of instability, into contact with the perpetually instability-averse Egyptian state. Cairo has dedicated diplomatic and political resources to finding a solution to the Sudanese conflict, preferably one that provides unity, prosperity, and stability. In its search for a solution, Cairo has maintained an official neutrality, while leaning toward the familiar, Sudan’s army and traditional political class, rather than the unfamiliar and unpredictable future offered by the RSF and its new political manifestation, the Tasis government. Cairo has strongly rejected the creation of what it terms as “parallel entities that threaten Sudan’s unity and territorial integrity,” calling such efforts a “red line” that threatens Egyptian security, a point that has been emphasized in meetings between LNA leaders and Egyptian intelligence and military officials.

Contradictions are the order of the day when trying to sort out who backs whom in the Triangle region. Kufra’s LNA-allied Subul al-Salam militia is undeniably Salafist and Islamist in nature, yet it appears to be strongly involved in the transit of arms and mercenaries to the RSF, which insists one of the main motives for its military campaign is to prevent an Islamist return to power in Sudan. Hemetti recently acknowledged the RSF’s use of Colombian mercenaries who arrive in convoys from Kufra, saying they are used to supervise drone operations, while accusing the SAF of using Ukrainian and Iranian mercenaries. The RSF leader also claimed Sudanese intelligence is trying to bring in Islamist al-Shabaab fighters from Somalia, promising to eliminate them when they arrive.

Conclusion

Egypt’s willingness to attack RSF supply convoys may force the Sudanese paramilitary to switch to a much longer supply route through Libya’s southwestern Fezzan region, through Chad, and into western Darfur, or a return to a previously-used route by air to eastern Chad’s Amdjarass airstrip, followed by a convoy to western Darfur. However, these possibilities have been complicated by diplomatic pressure from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Chad’s decision to close its border with Sudan following military clashes with RSF personnel carrying out operations against the Zaghawa people in northwestern Darfur.

Cairo prefers a diplomatic solution to the Sudanese conflict, which now threatens to become a regional war capable of creating years of instability along Egypt’s borders. Nonetheless, Egypt remains the region’s most powerful military state and will deploy whatever forces are necessary to preserve the peaceful existence of its 120 million people.

About the Author:

Dr. Andrew McGregor is director of Aberfoyle International Security, a Toronto-based consultancy specializing in the security issues of Africa and the Islamic world.

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