In 2025, Russia emerged as more than just an ‘alternative for the West’
Published 1 day ago
Source: rt.com
The Middle East is increasingly treating Russia as an independent center of power with which it is advantageous to sustain stable political and economic engagement
In 2025, Russia continued to strengthen its ties with Middle Eastern countries in a steady, incremental way, not through headline-grabbing 'breakthroughs,' but through the consistent expansion of a practical, day-to-day agenda.
Over the course of the year, Moscow’s regional track looked like a systematic fine-tuning of existing channels. This included regular high-level engagement, intensive foreign-ministry diplomacy, a more active use of intergovernmental and economic commissions, and a distinct security track focused on regional stability, defense-technical cooperation, and broader security issues. The underlying logic was straightforward – not so much to invent new formats from scratch, but to consolidate the dialogue already in place, make it more predictable, and broaden the overall package of cooperation, from energy and investment to logistics, financial mechanisms, and technology projects.
A defining feature of 2025 was that this rapprochement unfolded against the backdrop of an accelerating erosion of the familiar rules of global politics. As the old international order continued to fray, Middle Eastern states increasingly avoided anchoring their foreign policy to a single 'primary' patron and instead diversified their partnerships. For most regional capitals, this was less an ideological choice than a pragmatic strategy: spreading risk, expanding room for maneuver, and benefiting from competition among major powers. That is why, in 2025, Moscow was viewed not as a narrow 'alternative to the West,' but as one of several centers of power with which it was useful to maintain steady contact, on political crises, economic cooperation, and security alike.
This context also shaped the nature of Russia’s dialogue with the Middle East in 2025. It was grounded and transactional, yet strategically purposeful. The region needs partners able to speak with multiple actors without demanding exclusivity; Russia, in turn, needs the Middle East as a space to reinforce its international agency, sustain economic ties, and preserve political presence amid global turbulence. As a result, the year was defined less by grand gestures than by sustained, methodical work – consolidating what had been achieved and deepening those lines of interaction that had already proved mutually beneficial.
Seen through the same lens, Russia’s Middle Eastern diplomacy in 2025 was a chain of concrete engagements whose aim was not to 'make a splash,' but to strengthen functioning channels and keep the dialogue in working order. Contacts took place in Moscow, in regional capitals, and on neutral venues, reflecting a new reality in which regional players increasingly pursue multi-vector policies rather than tying themselves to any single center of power.
Iran set the tone early in the year. On 17 January, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian visited Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin. The central outcome was the signing of a long-term strategic partnership agreement, intended to lock in the framework for relations for years ahead and expand cooperation beyond politics to practical domains, including the economy, transport connectivity, and coordination on regional security issues.
Türkiye’s track became more visible toward the end of winter. On 24 February, Sergey Lavrov was in Ankara, where he was received by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The talks covered the familiar core of the Russia-Türkiye agenda, from bilateral issues to broader international questions. The format itself mattered as well, since Türkiye in 2025 continued to play a dual role: engaging Moscow directly while also serving as a convenient venue for sensitive discussions at times when other channels were strained.
In the spring, diplomatic activity was especially pronounced in Moscow. On 17 April, Vladimir Putin received Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. The talks combined political and practical issues, including the regional situation, Gaza, and bilateral cooperation in trade and energy. In essence, it was a discussion about how to preserve the resilience of the relationship amid heightened turbulence in the region.
A few days later, toward the end of April, Moscow continued its engagement with Gulf partners. On 30 April, at the Kremlin, Putin received the UAE’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Such visits are typically driven by a practical agenda, with inter-agency coordination and security at the forefront, along with a broader set of working arrangements designed to keep ties stable regardless of the shifting news cycle.
In May, Moscow reinforced ties on two tracks at once. On 9 May, in Moscow, Vladimir Putin met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi, who had come to attend Victory Day commemorations. Beyond the symbolism, the meeting provided an opportunity to discuss bilateral matters and compare assessments of the regional situation.
Shortly thereafter, the Russia-Türkiye dialogue continued on Russian soil. On 27 May, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was in Moscow, holding talks with Sergey Lavrov and being received by Vladimir Putin. Publicly, the discussions touched on both bilateral issues and the broader international agenda, including Ukraine. In practical terms, it was a clear example of how Moscow and Ankara maintained a steady working relationship throughout the year without reducing it to a single file.
Summer showed that engagement also continued on the margins of major international events in Russia, which served as convenient venues for meetings without the need for a formal state visit. On 20 June, in St. Petersburg on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin spoke with Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, representing Bahrain. Such contacts typically focus on investment, economic projects, and humanitarian cooperation, in other words the elements that create a durable cushion for bilateral relations.
The Syrian track became one of the key storylines of the second half of the year. On 31 July, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al Shaibani visited Moscow. He held talks with Sergey Lavrov and met Vladimir Putin. The main purpose of the trip was to mark a new phase in relations after political changes in Syria and to begin revisiting earlier arrangements while laying an updated foundation for cooperation.
A week later, Moscow hosted one of its leading Gulf partners. On 7 August, Putin met at the Kremlin with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The talks covered bilateral economic cooperation and investment, alongside the broader regional agenda. Visits of this kind captured the logic of 2025: Gulf states were widening their external partnerships and increasingly viewed Russia as an important power center with which it was advantageous to maintain a steady and predictable relationship.
In the autumn, a multilateral format also played an important role in strengthening Russia’s dialogue with the region. On 11 September, Sochi hosted a ministerial meeting of the strategic dialogue between Russia and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Lavrov discussed regional security and major crises, including Gaza, as well as economic cooperation, with representatives of Gulf states. In effect, it was a comprehensive alignment of positions with the Gulf bloc as a whole, rather than with individual capitals.
The high point of the Syrian track came with a top-level meeting. On 15 October, Putin received Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa in Moscow. Judging by the public background, the central issues were the future parameters of the relationship and Russia’s presence in Syria. The talks were about preserving cooperation in a new political reality and establishing clear, workable rules for the next stage.
In November, diplomacy visibly intensified along the security line. On 9 November, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu arrived in Egypt for talks on military and defense-technical cooperation and broader regional security. On 13 November, Shoigu was in Muscat and was received by Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq. The agenda focused on security and defense cooperation, as well as a wider discussion of regional stability.
During the same period, the Iranian track continued at the intergovernmental level. On 17 November, in Moscow, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin met with Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref. Meetings of this kind typically concentrate on concrete projects and economic cooperation, the routine but essential layer that underpinned the broader momentum of rapprochement in 2025.
Finally, a distinctive feature of the year was the growing importance of neutral venues, where discussions took place on the sidelines of international gatherings. On 12 December, Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. They discussed the international agenda, including Ukraine, once again underscoring Türkiye’s role as one of Russia’s key partners for regional dialogue and as a country able to engage Moscow in different formats and across different platforms.
There were far more visits, contacts, and phone calls than those listed here, but the core point remains the same. Moscow spent 2025 actively reinforcing ties with regional states across multiple tracks. This strengthening was also reflected in economic indicators. In 2025, Russia’s trade and economic relations with Middle Eastern partners developed through a steady, quiet consolidation of the links built over recent years. It was less a story of a single major deal than of many small and medium-sized decisions that, together, produced tangible results. Against the backdrop of Russia’s overall foreign trade, during the first nine months of 2025 total turnover exceeded $425 billion, with exports at $255 billion and imports at $170 billion.
In this picture, the Middle East served Russia simultaneously as a market, a financial and logistics corridor, and a space where it was often easier to arrange payments and rebuild supply chains.
Looking at the Arab vector as a whole, the figure most often cited publicly was straightforward: Russia’s trade turnover with the member states of the League of Arab States exceeded $34 billion. This does not cover the entire Middle East, since Türkiye and Iran stand apart, but it does capture the scale of Russia’s engagement with the Arab segment and shows that it has long moved beyond occasional, one-off deals.
The most striking growth story of 2025 was the United Arab Emirates. Trade expanded not only through direct flows, but also through the UAE’s role as a hub for settlements and re-exports. In the first half of 2025, Russia-UAE trade turnover rose to $6.6 billion, nearly doubling year on year. Over the first nine months of 2025, the figure reached $8.9 billion, and expectations for the full year were that it would exceed $10 billion. What mattered was not only the trade volume itself, but also the broader business infrastructure behind it. In 2025, estimates suggested that Russian business assets in the UAE had surpassed 1 trillion rubles (over $12 billion), helping to explain why the Emirates increasingly looked like one of Russia’s principal economic footholds in the region.
Türkiye remained Russia’s largest and most substantial partner on the southern track, where trade is closely intertwined with energy, transit routes, and industrial cooperation. The scale is evident even in Turkish statistics: from January to November 2025, Türkiye’s imports from Russia totaled $38.625 billion. At the same time, Russian official messaging pointed to a modest 3-percent increase in bilateral trade in the first half of 2025. The point here was not explosive growth, but the preservation of a large base, where even small percentage changes translate into significant amounts. Türkiye also continued to function as a key transit hub for a range of flows, which shaped trade dynamics no less than individual contracts.
Within the Arab part of the region, the most structurally clear and 'real-economy' partner was Egypt. Trade there rests on grain and food supplies, fertilizers, industrial cooperation, and large-scale projects. A record figure of $9 billion was reported for 2024, and for the first nine months of 2025 Russia cited a 12-percent increase in mutual trade. Public estimates suggested that by November 2025 turnover had reached $9.4 billion, with expectations for the full year rising above $11 billion. Even allowing for forecasting errors in some of these numbers, the trend was consistent: Egypt is a partner where trade is reinforced by long-term projects and therefore tends to weather political fluctuations better.
Iran stood out in 2025 because the economic relationship gained a new institutional framework. The baseline was trade turnover of $4.8 billion in 2024, while in the first half of 2025 growth reached 11.4%. The most important development was the entry into force, on 15 May 2025, of the free trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and Iran. Changes of this kind gradually reshape trade structures because they alter the basic business calculus. In 2025, estimates suggested that the average tariff on Russian goods in Iran would fall from about 16.7% to 5.2%, potentially saving exporters around $300 million per year. Against this backdrop, Russian agencies already spoke in 2025 of a clear acceleration, including claims of a 35% increase in turnover and a 50% rise in Russian exports in annual terms after the new regime took effect. In that sense, the Iran track increasingly looked like a shift from political proximity to trade mechanics, where agreements begin to translate into measurable results.
Saudi Arabia delivered the classic low base effect and rapid growth, even though the absolute figures still lagged behind Türkiye and the UAE. Trade turnover exceeded $3.8 billion in 2024, and in the first quarter of 2025 Russia reported nearly a fourfold increase compared with the same period a year earlier. For Riyadh and Moscow, the economic relationship in 2025 was not only about goods trade, but also about an investment agenda that in practice often develops faster through forums, funds, and joint projects.
Taken together, the overall meaning of 2025 is clear. Russia continued to sell to the region the goods that have traditionally formed the backbone of its exports: energy, raw materials, agricultural products, and fertilizers. In the opposite direction, and often via regional hubs, came industrial goods, consumer products, components, and re-export flows. What truly set 2025 apart was the resilience of this working economy. Not a showcase of headlines, but the everyday mechanics of logistics, settlements, contracts, and the steady expansion of business presence.
As the old international order continued to weaken, Middle Eastern states acted pragmatically and pursued more diversified foreign policies. They broadened their external ties and increasingly viewed Moscow as one of the centers of power with which it made sense to maintain an active economic dialogue. For Russia, the Middle East in 2025 became at once a market, a platform for long-term projects, and one of the key routes through which foreign trade adapted to a changing world.
In the end, 2025 further confirmed the Middle East as a sphere of sustained, day-to-day diplomacy and practical cooperation for Russia. Moscow did not try to redesign the region’s political architecture. Instead, it methodically strengthened what already worked: maintaining regular engagement with Iran, Türkiye, the Gulf states, Egypt, and Oman; using Russian venues and regional visits alike; and relying as well on meetings in neutral locations. This steady rhythm made it possible to keep security concerns and regional crises in view while continuing to advance a pragmatic agenda in which investment, energy, logistics, settlements, and technology projects played a decisive role. Over time, this created an effect of predictability and trust that the region values no less than high-profile declarations.
The economic dimension of this approach was equally practical. Against the backdrop of Russia’s overall foreign trade in the first nine months of 2025, when turnover exceeded $425 billion, the Middle East functioned both as a destination market and as an important corridor for financial and logistical solutions. In an era of eroding global rules and an increasingly multi-vector regional strategy, this combination of contacts and figures pointed to one core reality: the Middle East is increasingly treating Russia as an independent center of power with which it is advantageous to sustain stable political and economic engagement, spreading risk and widening room for maneuver.
