Russian Geostrategy Monitor, Issue 29: May 2025
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 29 covers the Russian geostrategy for the month of May 2025. 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
- On 11 May, the Polish authorities stated that Russian intelligence agencies had been behind “a massive fire that nearly completely destroyed a shopping centre in the capital Warsaw” in May 2024.
Objective 9: Achieving de-sovereignization of Ukraine
- In the Russo-Ukrainian War, in May 2025, the Russians advanced in the Sumy region, and continued their gradual push forward in the areas of Kostyantynivka, Pokrovsk, and the south of the Donbas frontline.
Objective 16: Entrenching Russian influence in sub-Saharan Africa
- On 15 May, the Africa Intelligence reported that “for the past fortnight” Russian Wagner troops had been fighting, along with the Central African Republic regime forces, against the Zande rebels in the southeast of CAR.
- On 24 May, Russia launched the construction of a solar power station in Sanankoroba near Mali‘s capital city Bamako.
- On 28 May, Russian sources reported that the Equatorial Guinean presidential guard was being trained by the Russian military officers.
Objective 18: Gaining strategic presence on the waterways connecting the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean basins
- On 12 May, Russian sources reported that a Russian base was being built on the coast of the Red Sea, in Port Sudan.
Objective 19: Gaining strategic superiority in the Arctic region
- On 27 May, Moscow continued its series of accusations against Norway regarding the Svalbard, saying Oslo was engaged in the militarization of the archipelago and bringing military activities closer to the Russian territory.
Objective 20: Alignment with China
- On 8 May, Russia and China issued a “joint statement on further deepening China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era.” Moscow called “the Russia-China foreign policy partnership” “a key stabilizing factor on the international stage” that was going to “defend the formation of a more just and democratic multipolar world order.” Beijing said the two powers were to “lead global governance in the right direction,” and had “special responsibilities” to stand against “an international countercurrent of unilateralism and the hegemonic practices of the powerful.”
Objective 24: Developing partnerships with Middle Eastern regional powers
- On 14 May, Russia and Egypt signed a deal on a long-term grant of land for the Russian industrial district in Egypt.
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