By Kirill Babaev, Director of the Russian Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, of the Russian Academy of Science

The past year has become very successful for the growing trend of a “Pivot to the East” in Russian foreign policy. It seems that Russia this year has finally fully realized that the Asian region can promise tangible dividends in both the political and economic sense. In addition, over the past three years since a new Iron Curtain appeared on the western borders of Russia, domestic businessmen, officials, scientists and cultural figures have already fully learned the intricacies of working with colleagues from Asia and are much better versed in a relatively new environment. In 2022, dozens of companies and departments came to our Institute of China and Contemporary Asia with doubts in their eyes, asking us to hold a seminar or briefing on how to communicate with colleagues from China, India, Vietnam or Indonesia. Today there are fewer and fewer such panic appeals.

The acquisition of new skills has borne fruit. Russian foreign policy in 2024 managed to achieve a number of significant breakthroughs in the eastern and southern directions, which strengthened its efforts to form the Greater Eurasian Partnership – the main task of domestic diplomacy in the current decade.

This policy played the most important role in this BRICS summit in Kazan, which brought together delegations from 36 countries, including 22 heads of state. Regardless of the practical results of the summit, Russia has confidently demonstrated its growing influence in the Global South and the image of one of the leaders of the world majority. The Kazan summit became the largest event in terms of the number of heads of state attending in Russia’s history, while its main signal was addressed primarily to the West, whose efforts to isolate the Russian state on the world stage are obvious: they didn’t provide any results.

Russia’s efforts to raise the main anti-Western force in the world from BRICS have fully justified themselves.

If future President Trump threatens BRICS with 100% duties to protect the US dollar, it becomes clear that the United States has begun to perceive BRICS as its key rival.

At the bilateral level, Russia managed to achieve significant successes with India, whose Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a July visit to Moscow – also very demonstrative for the West. India has become our country’s largest energy partner in southern Asia, and rapprochement with it creates the basis for the successful formation of one of Russia’s most ambitious Eurasian projects, the North South Transport Corridor. India will continue to play into the multilateral nature of its foreign policy, but the fact that one of the main partners for Delhi is Russia is undeniable today.

With Xi Jinping, and Narendra Modi, just two among many, the formation of personal relationships with the leaders of key Asian countries is clearly becoming a trend in Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy strategy, and he has chosen very successfully, taking into account the specifics of Eastern-type cultures. For example, Uzbek experts say that good relations between the leaders of Russia and Uzbekistan became the main argument in favour of the Rosatom project, which was opposed by the pro-Western part of the establishment in Tashkent. (note: Rosatom are currently building Uzbekistan’s first nuclear power plant and were advised by Delhi this would be a sound investment: ed).  

Another positive confirmation of the significance of President Putin’s “personal moments” are seen with Russia’s rapprochement with Malaysia, whose Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim participated at the Eastern Economic Forum in September.

Russia continues to dynamically establish ties with ASEAN states, and include four of them at once — Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia — as new BRICS partners. This symbolizes Russia’s political breakthrough into Southeast Asia, which must now be supported by economic successes. There is a lot of work to do.

This policy also set up reliable contacts with the new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The Comprehensive Partnership Agreement between Russia and Iran is now ready for signing and will be another confirmation for both countries of the consolidation of efforts to confront the West. The delay in signing the agreement, which also provides for a defence component, may be associated with upcoming negotiations between Russia and the United States on the Ukrainian issue, but it is clear that the agreement will be signed one way or another in the near future, and Iran will de jure become an ally of Moscow – if not for military-political, then economic reasons, which are also critically important for Russia’s Eurasian projects.

And in the Far East, the DPRK has become a new ally for us.

The Comprehensive Partnership Treaty, ratified in November, turns relations between the two countries, which practically did not exist 25 years ago, into a full-fledged military-political alliance. Following the formalization of the trilateral military partnership between the United States, Japan and South Korea, this agreement de facto forms a symmetrical triangle Russia – China – North Korea, which paradoxically removes from the agenda the long-standing problem of security and disarmament on the Korean Peninsula. In the context of direct legal guarantees from the largest nuclear powers, nothing now threatens either security or existing weapons on the peninsula.

In the development of relations with China – Russia’s main Asian partner in Asia we have also had a quiet but significant breakthrough. The number of trips by Russian citizens to China in 2024 is expected to increase 2.5 times — China is quickly becoming the leading outbound destination for both businessmen and tourists, overtaking the Emirates, Egypt and Thailand and quickly catching up with Turkiye. The flow of Chinese tourists in the opposite direction has increased an unprecedented sevenfold in the past twelve months. Overcoming visa queues, payment problems, language and cultural barriers, Russians and Chinese continue to rapidly move closer together, do business, build partnerships and study each other. This means that a ‘Pivot to the East’ and strategic partnerships are formed not only in our politics, business, culture or sports, but also in our minds.This article originally appeared, in Russian, in Kommersant, and has been slightly edited to provide better transliterated content when translated into English. The original may be viewed here