Russia’s Fading Leverage in the Middle East

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Executive Summary 

Alignments in the Middle East and North Africa are wide open. Confronted with a growing set of threats by 2026, regional powers are intensifying hedging and balancing, reinforcing diversified, multivector foreign policies and competitive multipolarity. In this volatile environment, Russia has shifted from the perceived success of its low-cost expeditionary model—most visible after the 2015 Syria intervention—to a more constrained and marginal posture after 2022, as the war in Ukraine absorbed military capacity, political attention, financial resources, and diplomatic bandwidth. 

Three shocks reshaped regional risk perceptions and Russia’s standing: the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and the ensuing Gaza war; the fall of the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024; and the 2025–2026 US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran. Together, they accelerated regional realignment, narrowed the operating space of several Iran- aligned actors, returned Palestine to the center of regional diplomacy, opened a new competition for influence in post-Assad Syria, and triggered a sharpened sense of vulnerability in the Gulf. For Moscow, the result has been a shift from expansion to damage control, prioritization, and adaptation under strain. 

Russia is no longer a decisive power broker in MENA, but it remains a spoiler and an opportunistic enabler. Its leverage now lies increasingly in selective access, logistical hubs, arms transfers, sanctions-adaptation mechanisms, and transactional partnerships. Regional actors continue to hedge. Türkiye combines calibrated opportunism, deconfliction, and leverage over the Straits1 and post-Assad Syria. Israel maintains operational coordination with Russia in Syria even as Moscow’s ties with Iran strain the relationship. Gulf states preserve selective functional ties, especially in energy, while viewing Russia as a costlier partner after the Iran war. And Egypt, Algeria, Libya, and the UAE reflect a broader pattern of diversification without alignment.

Syria remains the clearest barometer of Russia’s regional position. The fall of Assad removed Russia’s most important regional anchor and turned Syria from a launchpad for power projection into a test of whether Moscow can still translate residual military access into political relevance. As Russia’s Syria platform thins, Libya and the Sahel are emerging as the main arenas of Russian adaptation. Moscow is losing the ability to set outcomes, yet it retains enough access, networks, and pressure points to shape outcomes at the margins and raise the price of Western actions in a more competitive and volatile Middle Eastern order.

The views expressed herein are those solely of the author(s). GMF as an institution does not take positions.