Russia’s collapsing domino: What will Putin sacrifice for Ukraine after Nagorno-Karabakh and Syria?
For many, the daily news out of Ukraine paints a dour picture of Kyiv’s future. Russian troops continue to grind forward, sacrificing themselves by the tens of thousands for the sake of seizing more and more Ukrainian land. Dreams of a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive are long gone, with calls in the West for everything from Ukrainian neutrality to recognizing Russian sovereignty on stolen Ukrainian lands picking up steam, Foreign Policy writes.
As noted, a clear trend line has emerged over the past few years. Thanks to Putin’s monomaniacal fixation on Ukraine, he has been willing to sacrifice other geostrategic projects elsewhere.
The first domino to fall came in 2023, when troops from Azerbaijan stormed into the separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing ethnic Armenians to flee en masse. Rather than being the supposed guarantor of stability—and a key security partner of Armenia, which backed Nagorno-Karabakh for decades—Russia wilted in the face of Azerbaijan’s push. Tucking tail, Russian troops left the region entirely, scuttling a military base where nearly 2,000 Russian troops had once been deployed.
A year later, the next domino toppled. With the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Russia not only lost its key regional ally, but watched as its primary claim as a security guarantor for autocratic regimes disintegrated. Both developments—the disappearance of Nagorno-Karabakh and the dissolution of Assad’s regime—are downstream from Putin’s overwhelming focus on subjugating Ukraine, regardless of the cost.
“Which pro-Russian domino will be the next to fall? And how can Western policymakers be ready to take full advantage?” Foreign Policy states, noting that it is somewhat shocking that the West hasn’t sketched out a better strategy for the broader region in recent months. “The European Union has continued encouraging Moldova’s pro-EU direction, but the West remains effectively a nonactor when it comes to things like Transnistria. In Georgia, the United States recently sanctioned Bidzina Ivanishvili, the architect of the country’s democratic decline, but it’s clear that there’s little strategy beyond these kinds of individual responses. And Belarus, meanwhile, is effectively a black hole of policy analysis, even for the new administration in Washington. Reams of paper have been produced on new U.S. strategy regarding Ukraine, Russia, and Europe, but there’s been precisely nothing written on Belarus, which appears to be a complete vacuum of strategic thinking,” the article states, adding that that’s all an opportunity foregone. The Russian president will always prioritize Ukraine. Questions and crises of Russia’s internal stability are still a ways off. But that is, ultimately, where this accelerating collapse of dominoes is heading.
“That is all the more reason the West must begin formulating policy not just on the next dominoes to fall—places like Transnistria, Georgia, and even Belarus—but also on what a post-Putin Russia may well, and should, look like,” the article says.
