These factors force Russia to focus on Southern Europe, but it must do so with Turkey serving as a central node and partner, especially since its previous efforts to build pipeline infrastructure around the country have come to naught.
Russian-Turkish energy cooperation has led to the completion of several large-scale pipeline projects. As of January , when the Turkstream pipeline across the Black Sea began operations, Turkey stopped receiving Russian gas through the Trans-Balkan Pipeline from Ukraine, which it had done since the mids. Still, the example of Turkey illustrates the limits of natural gas as a lever of influence for Russia.
By expanding its use of LNG as the third-largest importer in the world in , Turkey no longer has to rely solely on piped gas from Russia, Azerbaijan, and Iran, but is diversifying its supply from at least seven new partners, including increasing volumes from the United States. Moreover, cooperation on gas projects is in the interests of both countries as they look to expand their influence in Southeastern Europe.
Russian gas companies have also expanded aggressively into new markets in the Mediterranean, offering financing and expertise to develop new fields. The agreement was signed in but production has not yet started. Dependence on Russian oil might at one time have been a lever of political influence in some European countries of the region, but the Mediterranean is of declining importance to Russia as a customer. The reduction in imports of Russian oil was likely market-driven, rather than geopolitically motivated, as oil is a widely traded commodity whose price fell substantially after The Russian national security establishment views civilian nuclear power exports as an important tool for projecting influence as well as creating revenue streams for sustaining intellectual and technical capabilities and vital programs in Russia.
They can be of dubious value to the host government, or saddle the state nuclear power monopoly Rosatom with debts it cannot collect. Therefore, Russia has more often than not overpromised and underdelivered when signing agreements to build nuclear plants.
Most are never fully implemented. On the European rim, France and Spain have domestically owned nuclear programs and both have committed to reducing nuclear power, while Italy shuttered its program after the Chernobyl disaster in Rosatom has signed agreements, however, with Turkey and Egypt for large nuclear plant projects.
The company plans to open the first unit of the four-unit plant in , in time for the hundredth anniversary of the Turkish republic. While Egypt has sought to build a nuclear power plant for decades, the decision to sign with Rosatom in over bids from U.
Construction has not yet begun. This is a major tool Russia uses for influence in the Mediterranean, but with most of the northern littoral states being NATO members, its arms-sales relationships focus on the eastern and southern ones see Figure 4. Of these countries, Algeria, Egypt, and Turkey deserve special mention.
Between and it was also the largest arms importer in Africa and the sixth-largest in the world, importing 4. Starting in , however, Algeria began to diversify its imports, concluding deals with France, Italy, Germany, and even China for ships and accompanying weapons, armored personnel carriers, and armed unmanned aerial vehicles. After , Russia worked diligently to regain its position, selling and transferring sixteen combat aircraft, forty-two combat helicopters and two submarines to Algeria through Maintaining market dominance is important to Russia, but this volatility suggests that it cannot rely on past sales to remain competitive, even in its key markets.
Egypt is a newer success story for Russia. The United States reduced arms sales to the country during and after the Arab Spring, eventually freezing arms exports in the wake of the military taking over the government in That embargo lasted two years, until the multiple ongoing conflicts in the Middle East forced then U.
Arms contracts, in general, take time between signature and delivery, so the effect of this increased procurement from Russia can be seen in arms transfer data starting only in , when Russia and the United States transferred roughly an equal value of weapons to Egypt see Figure 5.
These sales have also led to closer military cooperation, including joint exercises. As a long-standing NATO ally, Turkey did not purchase Russian arms between and , other than some second-hand armored personnel carriers and helicopters in the early s to be used by the police. According to SIPRI, from to Turkey dropped from being the sixth-largest arms importer to the twentieth, due to the development of its own defense industry.
At the same time, the U. This sale was a clever move to drive a wedge between Turkey and its NATO allies, as the United States was forced to respond by removing Turkey from the F fighter jet program for fear of release of sensitive technology to Russia through the S system. Discussions reportedly continue between the Turkish government and the Biden administration on a path forward on the issue of the S system, which Turkey has tested but which is not yet in full use.
Russia is frequently accused of using illicit financial transfers, corruption, and other organized criminal activity as economic tools of influence. Through money-laundering schemes, funds obtained illegally in Russia can be moved out of the country and then used to buy real estate or other legitimate goods and services, transferring them into what otherwise appear to be legal assets.
In the Mediterranean, there are numerous examples of allegedly illicit Russian money flowing to both legitimate and illicit businesses, particularly along the northern littoral states. Navalny also accused Lopatina of connections to an organized criminal gang, and claimed she owned a large villa near the hotel. While the OCCRP was not able to track the owners of all the bank accounts involved, it found that the main users of the scheme were wealthy Russian businessmen who had made their fortunes through connections to the government.
Russian money has no larger destination in the Mediterranean than Cyprus. Even after the large losses from the financial crisis, Russian money continues to flow to Cyprus. Russians accounted for nearly half of the 3, passports awarded between and under the scheme, including some individuals who are now sanctioned by the United States and the EU.
The Russian money going in and out of Cyprus has included legitimate transfers and some that funded criminal activity, such as money stolen from the Russian treasury and funneled through the now-shuttered FBME bank in Cyprus, and then used to fund the production of chemical weapons in Syria. Efforts by the EU and the United States to push Cyprus to improve its anti—money laundering practices have worked to some extent, as a report on its compliance with Financial Action Task Force regulations showed.
Still, the report highlighted that the authorities must do more to pursue the proceeds of criminal activity generated outside Cyprus, which it identified as the largest threat to its financial system. In addition to immigrants from Russia and other post-Soviet states, Kremlin-backed media focuses on inhabitants of the former East Germany.
Many former East Germans speak Russian as a second language. Communist rule, moreover, left eastern Germany with distinct institutional and cultural legacies that overlap in certain ways with the rest of the post-Communist world, including Russia. Salaries, education levels, and other status markers in eastern Germany remain behind those in the former West Germany.
As expressed in surveys and votes for non-mainstream political parties like AfD and Die Linke , easterners have higher levels of dissatisfaction with the status quo than their western counterparts. In perhaps the most famous instance of Russian disinformation in Germany, media outlets in circulated a fabricated story about a Russian-German girl named Lisa who was supposedly raped by migrants.
It was also referenced on two occasions by Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, who criticized the role of the German police and intelligence services for allegedly allowing the crime to happen.
Russian-backed media outlets promoted tailored disinformation for far right, far left, and Russian-German audiences. They also sought to portray the AfD in particular as a mainstream party while downplaying scandals surrounding its leaders. During the election campaign, Russian information operations used foreign-language media broadcasts and online activity to target both ends of the German political extreme.
The St. In conducting the disinformation campaign surround the federal elections, the IRA did not rely heavily on bots. Despite these efforts, the impact of Russian disinformation on the election outcome appears low.
Overall, the effects of Russian information and influence operations appear less pronounced in Germany than in many other states, including the United States.
While Russia has pursued elite capture, cultivation of fringe groups, and disinformation tactics, German political cohesion is comparatively high, while support for non-mainstream groups is comparatively low. At the same time, support for good relations with Russia remains more widespread within the German political and business elite as well as the general public.
The dominance of mainstream media outlets, especially the state-run television networks ARD and ZDF, seems especially important. With a less fragmented and more centrist-dominated media environment, Germany is a harder target for Russian and other disinformation campaigns—with the important exception of groups like Russian-Germans and Turkish Gastarbeiter who get their news from non-German language sources.
RT and Sputnik appear to have shelved plans to turn Berlin into a hub for their European operations in part because of the difficulty they faced gaining traction within Germany. On the whole, the continued dominance of mainstream media in Germany acts as a check on the spread of disinformation and misinformation—except when mainstream outlets themselves fall victim, as with the Lisa case. Social media exposure, conversely, seems lower than in many other states: the percentage of Americans on Twitter is double the percentage of Germans.
In , the German government implemented a new regulation, the Network Enforcement Law, or Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz , that obliges social media companies to cooperate in identifying and removing defamatory content and junk news and imposes fines of up to 50 million euros for non-compliance. This regulation is perhaps the most stringent of any EU member. Despite concerns around freedom of expression which in Germany has long been regulated by anti-hate speech laws , the Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz provides a strong incentive for social media companies to cooperate in the fight against disinformation.
Mainstream political parties and big business in Germany are also more favorably disposed to Russia than in most other central and European states. Though Merkel is famously skeptical of Vladimir Putin and inclined to view Russia as a threat to German interests and European unity, influential voices in both the CDU and the SPD continue to view Russia as at least a potential partner.
Italy's right-wing Lega party has also reportedly held meetings with Russia's top brass. What those parties and politicians share is the kind of euroskepticism that has led to unprecedented political upheaval, like the U. There has, in fact, been an investigation into possible Russian interference in the referendum, but the report has not yet been published.
Perhaps the biggest issue for Europe is how Russia has treated an aspiring EU and NATO member, Ukraine, by annexing Crimea in and for its role in a pro-Russian uprising in the east of Ukraine that is still unresolved. Russia is still subject to international sanctions for these actions although support for sanctions is low among some EU members.
There have been some concerns in other former Soviet states, like the Baltic nations Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, that a resurgent Russia could provoke a military confrontation or even invade, particularly given the sizable minority of ethnic Russians still living in those countries since the Soviet Union collapsed. Concerns have led to NATO stationing more troops in the Baltic states and Poland to act as a deterrent to Russia, who has made the Baltic states nervous in light of some provocative military exercises and maneuvers it has carried out in the Baltic Sea or in airspace close to the Baltic nations — often prompting NATO jets to be scrambled to investigate.
But close watchers of Russian politics say it's very unlikely that Russia would ever provoke an actual conflict in its former territories, however. Don't forget their history: For much of the nineties, they were really down on their knees and now they're upstanding and doing relatively well. So, I think you need to see it in that light. This is why they fly their planes and invest in new weapons and they just want to show that they are someone.
Other countries that were also part of the Soviet Union — those in the Caucasus which include Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia — have a checkered relationship with Russia. While relations between Moscow and Georgia remain strained following a military conflict between the countries in there were anti-Russian protests in the capital Tbilisi in those between Russia and Azerbaijan have improved.
In December, Putin wished his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev a happy birthday and said "it is hard to overestimate your personal contribution to consolidating the strategic partnership between our two countries. I genuinely value the trust and mutual understanding that has developed between us.
Experts diverge on how extensive and influential Russia actually is abroad. McDowell made the important distinction between Russian companies' influence in other countries, and the Russian state too. It is more that certain individuals and groups are allowed to market their services as mercenaries in Africa, with the Russian foreign ministry following in the wake of a successful engagement to trumpet the foreign policy 'success'," he noted.
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