War in Ukraine undermines Putin’s geopolitical campaigns worldwide

This is reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

“The cost of the Russian war in Ukraine will likely continue to undermine Russian President Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical campaigns worldwide,” ISW report says.

As experts remind, the UK Ministry of Defence reported on December 11 that Putin had signed a law allocating more than nine trillion rubles (approximately $143 billion) for defence, security and law enforcement agencies from the 2023 budget. According to the World Bank, this amount is about 8% of Russia's gross domestic product in 2021. The British Ministry of Defence has also estimated that Russia's defence spending has increased significantly and will account for more than 30% of Russia's total budget for 2023.

“Putin is thus continuing to drain his budget into his war in Ukraine and may need to defund other international or domestic campaigns in the process,” experts estimate.

Russian forces are redeploying equipment and personnel from other conflict zones, such as Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, and may abandon other combat operations and "soft power operations" in favor of continuing the protracted war in Ukraine, according to the ISW experts.

However, Putin remains unwilling to sacrifice his geopolitical initiatives in the short term and risks facing a financial predicament in which he cannot balance maximalist goals in Ukraine with his global power projection campaigns.

Putin, for example, continued his attempts to re-establish Russia's position in Central Asia, unsuccessfully proposing a trilateral alliance between Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in late November and during the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in Bishkek.