Putin’s Rapidly Shrinking World

By Gregory W. Slayton & Sergei Ivashenko

Wednesday, January 14, 2026

 

Vladimir Putin’s world is shrinking quickly, and no amount of bombast, nuclear saber‑rattling, or choreographed summits can hide that fact. Too many still believe the Russian lie that victory in Ukraine is assured, even though the facts on the ground say otherwise. But when we look globally, it is clear that Putin’s Russia is rapidly losing allies, partners, and influence.

 

The Russian president once aspired to sit at the center of a revived great‑power system, a czar of the 21st century balancing East and West, disciplining neighbors and humiliating a decadent liberal order. What he has instead is a brittle network of unstable autocrats and nervous partners who are quietly planning for a post‑Putin future. The war in Ukraine, which Russia was supposed to win in a few days, has dragged on for almost four years and has destroyed the myth of Putin as master strategist.

 

For years, Putin’s defenders pointed to Syria as proof that Russia had reclaimed its status as a great power. Moscow propped up an increasingly unpopular dictator in Bashar al‑Assad, secured naval and air bases, and presented itself as a reliable patron.

 

That narrative collapsed in December 2024. Forces opposed to Assad’s regime swept through the country and put the dictator to flight. Assad asked Putin directly for reinforcements to save his brutal regime. Putin’s answer? Nyet. Moscow’s resources are fully committed to its never-ending quagmire in Ukraine, and it could not help one of its most important client states. Russian allies took note.

 

Venezuela tells a similar story. Moscow invested heavily in Nicolás Maduro as a geopolitical provocateur, using him to poke Washington and spread its authoritarian cancer. Now, Maduro and his wife are locked in a New York jail awaiting American justice, and Putin can do naught but whine.

 

And it is not just in Venezuela where Putin’s limitations are laid bare. Cuba is teetering. Its economic situation was already in crisis, and now that its access to Venezuelan oil has been cut off, its situation is worsening rapidly. However, Russia does not have the reach or the economic capability to prop up its longest-standing ally in the Western Hemisphere.

 

Looking east, we see more headaches for the Russian dictator. Iran, Russia’s most important partner in the Middle East, is convulsing with national protests. Its economy is crashing. Iranians openly call for the death of its pro-Russian leadership. Early in 2025, Ayatollah Khamenei sent Iran’s foreign minister to Moscow to beg for military help when Iran was being threatened by Israel. Again, Putin talked big but sent no help at all.

 

Nowhere has Putin’s diplomatic incompetence been clearer than in the Caucasus. For decades, Russia styled itself as the indispensable security guarantor between Armenia and Azerbaijan, freezing conflicts to preserve its leverage. That system collapsed the moment it was tested. When Armenia needed protection, Moscow equivocated. When Azerbaijan pressed its advantage, Russia stood aside. The result was predictable: Armenia lost faith, froze its participation in Russian‑led security structures, and began openly courting Western protection. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, completed its pivot toward Turkey, confirming that the real power in the region is no longer in Moscow.

 

Moldova’s trajectory reinforces the narrative. Long vulnerable to Russian energy blackmail and political manipulation, Moldova has drawn a hard conclusion from the Ukraine war: Partnership with Russia is a liability, not destiny. Its steady march toward Europe reflects rational self‑interest. Moscow can still harass and destabilize, but it can no longer credibly offer a future that competes with European integration.

 

Even Putin’s supposed allies inside the European Union reveal the hollowness of his position. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is often cited as proof that Russia retains friends in Europe. In reality, Hungary is economically dependent and politically divided, and Orbán is increasingly unpopular. Orbán can obstruct EU consensus and provide talking points, but he cannot deliver relief from sanctions, strategic legitimacy, or economic salvation for Russia.

 

Central Asia, once assumed to be safely within Moscow’s sphere, is also slipping away from Putin. Kazakhstan and its neighbors have not turned against Russia openly; they have learned to hedge. They maintain formal ties while expanding relations with China, Turkey, Europe, and the United States.

 

These trends have accelerated following Putin’s ill-fated invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and now appear irreversible. Russia’s army proved far weaker than expected. It has wasted more than one million of its best soldiers and billions of dollars destroying the same Eastern oblasts of Ukraine that it promised to liberate. The Russian economy is in free fall. With declining birth rates and rising mortality rates, the country faces a demographic disaster that is among the worst in the world. NATO is far larger and more united in its opposition. In short, Russia has far fewer allies and far more adversaries than it did just four short years ago.

 

Worst of all, Putin appears to have lost his most unlikely ally and dear friend: Donald Trump. The American president has just green-lighted a Russian sanctions bill that will sharply penalize countries that fund Russia’s ongoing war efforts. If the bill is signed into law as expected, Trump could use it to push Russia’s few remaining trade partners to abandon it entirely.

 

Vladimir Putin set out to resurrect an empire and instead exposed the limits of coercion, corruption, and hollow power. History is closing in on him. The world he sought to dominate is steadily, and irreversibly, moving on without Russia at its center.