Russian Geostrategy Monitor, Issue 31: July 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 31 covers the Russian geostrategy for the month of July 2025. The numbering and contents of the Outcomes, Goals and Objectives follows The Structure of Modern Russia’s Foreign Strategy framework.
Outcome 1: Replacement of the United States’ international preeminence with a ‘multipolar’ or ‘polycentric’ system, with Russia in the position of one of the principal ‘poles’
- Russia’s foreign minister Lavrov said in his statement at the BRICS summit in Brazil on 6 July that multipolarity has been replacing “the neoliberal model built, essentially, on the neocolonial practices,” and that “the traditional paradigm of globalization with the leading role of the so called developed states of the West is moving into the past.”
Objective 3: Enhancing internal political instability and polarization within Western states
- On 30 July, the Russian foreign ministry attacked France’s policies in New Caledonia, accusing Paris of limiting the rights of the territory’s indigenous population, suppression of protests, political repression, and inability to deal with the “growing socio-economic problems,” adding that New Caledonia’s decolonization process has not been completed.
- On 2 July, the German foreign ministry stated that Russia had employed an online outlet called Red, styling itself as “a revolutionary platform for independent journalists,” “to sow discontent in German society.” The Red had “close links” with the Russian propaganda asset RT.
Objective 7: Achieving instability in the Western Balkans
- Moscow issued another salvo of accusations against Kosovo, of “unending ethnic cleansings” and “growing terror against the Serb residents” on 25 July.
Objective 9: Achieving de-sovereignization of Ukraine
- In the Russo-Ukrainian War, during July 2025, the Russians advanced in the area of Pokrovsk and in the southern Donbas, and made new gains in the areas of Kupyansk and Kostyantynivka.
Objective 11: Achieving decisive influence over Moldova
- On 30 July, Moldova’s authorities stated that Russia was “preparing unprecedented interference” in the September 2025 general elections in Moldova, including through “bribery of voters, cyberattacks, information manipulation campaigns and paid protests.”
Objective 27: Alignment with North Korea
- Financial Times reported on 20 July that “deeper commercial cooperation between Russia and North Korea is taking root and extending beyond Pyongyang’s military support for Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, offering the isolated regime an economic lifeline.”
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