Author: David Batashvili

 

The Rondeli Foundation’s Russian Geostrategy Monitor is a monthly brief that tracks Russian geostrategy worldwide employing the framework set in The Structure of Modern Russia’s Foreign Strategy. Russian geostrategic activities are also tracked on the regularly updated interactive Russian Geostrategy Map.

Issue 23 covers Russian geostrategy for the month of November 2024. The numbering and contents of the Outcomes, Goals and Objectives follows The Structure of Modern Russia’s Foreign Strategy framework.

 

Objective 3: Enhancing internal political instability and polarization within Western states

  • Russia targeted the US elections of 5 November 2024 with disinformation attacks in an “effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans.” US officials stated that ”Russian groups and other foreign adversaries have unleashed an extensive disinformation campaign to undermine confidence in the U.S. election.” Russian attempts to cause disruption in the electoral process included making “fake bomb threats to polling locations in several states” on the election day. The sum of Russian attempts to target the US 2024 elections apparently indicated that “the Kremlin’s ideal outcome was not a particular winner but a conflict over the vote itself.”

 

Objective 5: Thwarting policies of the US and its allies in the MENA region

  • In November 2024, shortly before Russia suffered strategic military defeat in Syria with the elimination of its ally, the Assad regime, Israeli sources had reported that Russia was creating a chain of military observation posts on Syria-Israel border, with at least eight such posts already established.
  • Following the start of the rebel offensive against the Assad regime in Syria on 27 November, the Russian air force launched a campaign of airstrikes in an unsuccessful attempt to stem the rebels’ advance.

 

Objective 9: Achieving de-sovereignization of Ukraine

  • In the Russo-Ukrainian War, during November 2024 Russians continued to advance in the south Donbas region, particularly in the area of Kurakhove. In the Kursk region, Russians retook some of the territory previously taken by Ukrainians.
  • On 22 November 2024, South Korean authorities stated that Russia had provided North Korea with serious military aid including anti-aircraft missiles in exchange for the North Korean weapons and troops sent to Russia for the war against Ukraine.

 

Objective 11: Achieving decisive influence over Moldova

  • On 3 November 2024, pro-European president of Moldova, Maia Sandu, won the presidential election in the face of “‘massive interference’ from Russia in Moldova’s electoral process that had ‘high potential to distort the outcome,'” including Russian-organized “buses and large charter flights to bring voters to polling stations” as well as bomb scares designed to disrupt voting at polling stations where voters were deemed likely to favor Sandu.
  • On 5 November, Moscow denounced Moldova’s presidential election as “neither democratic nor fair” and said it did not “see the winner, Maia Sandu, as the legitimate president of the country.” The Kremlin’s speaker Peskov said President Maia Sandu, who had won the election, “is not, in our understanding, the president of her country.”

 

Objective 16: Entrenching Russian influence in sub-Saharan Africa

  • Russia continued to develop its military presence in Equatorial Guinea with up to 200 of its troops present in the country as of 12 November.
  • An FPRI material from 8 November described Russia’s “multidimensional, malleable, and opportunistic” information operations in Africa designed “to expand Russia’s presence on the continent and to turn African countries into allies of Russia in its confrontation with the West.”
  • On 9-10 November, Russia hosted the first ministerial conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, with the Russian foreign minister Lavrov holding meetings with representatives of many African states.

 

Objective 20: Alignment with China

  • The Russian foreign ministry said on 24 November that the United States was “using Taiwan to provoke a serious crisis in Asia,” attacking the US for “strengthening military-political contacts with Taipei under the slogan of maintaining the ‘status quo’, and increasing arms supplies.”
  • On 30 November, Russian and Chinese strategic bombers conducted “a joint air patrol over the Sea of Japan, East China Sea, and western Pacific Ocean.” The joint patrol took eight hours. The Russian aircraft took off from and landed “at an airfield in China.”

 

Objective 25: Developing partnerships with regional powers in the Southern Hemisphere 

  • According to reports emerging on 21 November, Russia had been developing ties with white supremacists in South Africa in order to “discreetly exert pressure on the majority party, the ANC.”
  • On 4 November, Russia and Indonesia launched their first bilateral joint naval exercise off Surabaya on the eastern coast of Java island, with four Russian warships participating.