Over 1,000 days have passed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. Western countries, in Europe, across the Atlantic as well as in Asia, have since imposed an unprecedented number of sanctions to limit Russia’s ability to wage war in Ukraine and to curb its war economy. Yet Russia, seemingly unhindered, continues to advance rapidly, seizing 1,200 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in the past three months alone and recapturing 500 square kilometers in Russia’s Kursk region.
Meanwhile, record-breaking drone and missile attacks are crippling Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as winter sets in. Both the pace and capability of the attacks are notable not only for the destruction and the lives they cost but because they demonstrate that Russia is not fighting this fight alone. It relies on a network of autocratic supporters who have become critical enablers of Russia’s continued aggression and a new center of gravity in the geopolitical order.
North Korea, Iran, and China have been at the forefront of this effort. While cooperation among these countries existed before February 24, 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has brought a troubling acceleration as well as a deepening of their economic, military, and political ties. What unites them is not a formal alliance or a shared ideological compass, but rather a collective opposition to a democratic, rules-based international order led by the United States and its allies—an order perceived as an existential threat to their aspirations, interests, and futures.
The United Effort
The unparalleled sanctions regime against Russia is aimed at depriving the Kremlin of resources critical to its aggression. The first international sanctions date back to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, but they intensified substantially after February 2022, with over 30 countries expanding existing sanctions. Most recently, in June 2024, the European Union adopted its 14th sanctions package.
This effort is unprecedented in several ways. First, the sanctions were levied with unseen levels of multilateral coordination and cooperation. Second, they were directed against highly liquid global markets for products like oil and technological components, areas where none of the coalition countries held a definitive advantage. And third, unlike countries such as Iran or North Korea, who held previous records in terms of the severity of international sanctions imposed, Western countries were aiming to isolate a country that was deeply entrenched in the multilateral trade system.
While the sanctions are primarily aimed at coercing Russia into ceasing its military actions and unconditionally withdrawing from Ukraine, measuring their success solely against this objective risks oversimplifying a complex issue. Overall, however, the scheme presents a comprehensive framework targeted at Russia’s financial, trade, and energy sectors.
Finance
Financial sanctions were largely in place or threatened since 2014. Shortly after February 2022, the European Union and United States cut Russia off from the international financial system by limiting transactions with Russian banks and restricting its access to SWIFT, the international payments system. The EU also froze €210 billion in Russian Central Bank assets and €25 billion in private Russian assets. Since June 2024,windfall profits from frozen assets have been used by the EU and the United Kingdom to help finance support packages for Ukraine.
However, the Russian financial system to date still remains only partially sanctioned, with multiple banks and transaction types excluded. Major institutions like the Russian Gazprom Bank or Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank are exempted to keep channels for Europe’s remaining energy dependency open. Varying restrictions across jurisdictions add to the intricateness of the system. Moreover, financial transactions are more fungible than physical goods, allowing Russia to utilize financial hubs in third countries, such as Singapore, Dubai, and Hong Kong, beyond the coalition’s influence.
Trade
Trade between the sanctions coalition and Russia has slowed significantly, with few exceptions. The EU, for example, has banned over €48 billion in exports and €90 billion in imports from Russia since February 2022—a 59-percent reduction in exports and an 87-percent decline in imports from 2021 levels. One key aim of trade sanctions has been to undermine Russia’s defense sector, especially through embargoes on arms, cutting-edge technology, and dual-use goods. Since Russia benefited from access to Western technology, these measures are intended to weaken its capacity to mass-produce military equipment and support its war economy.
Despite these efforts, Russia’s economy remains resilient, growing at an annualized rate of 3.1 percent in the third quarter, down from 4.1 percent in the second quarter of 2024. Central Asia, with a massive boom in intermediate trade, seems to have filled the gap of direct trade with the EU. For instance, exports from Kazakhstan to Russia grew from $40 million in 2021 to $298 million in 2023, with imports from the EU to Kazakhstan increasing correspondingly. Other middlemen include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. The latter saw its trade with the EU rise to €46 billion in 2023, a 50 percent increase compared to 2021 levels, driven especially for products under sanctions such as chemicals, electronics, and machinery.
Energy
The source of Russia’s prosperity is mainly grounded in its vast fossil fuel reserves. Since Russia depends on these energy exports for its macroeconomic stability, sanctions on this sector are significant in the attempt to undercut Russia’s war financing. Several countries with rather low energy imports from Russia were quick to impose embargoes such as the US, the UK, and Canada in early 2022. But restrictions in Russia’s largest market, the EU, only materialized in December 2022, with the EU’s oil embargo and the G7’s price cap on Russian crude oil.
Already before its full-scale invasion, Russia had limited its gas supplies to Europe, leaving gas storage facilities to run empty. Two days before the full-scale invasion, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stopped the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that was nearing completion, while Russia continued to reduce flows through Nord Stream 1 which it stopped altogether at the end of August 2022. The explosions that damaged both pipelines in late September of that year brought the definitive end of Russian gas supplies to Europe via that route.
Given the ongoing war and the prospect of a cold winter for Europe, energy prices in 2022 climbed to new heights (up to €345 per megawatt-hour in August 2022), leaving Russia with record profits. In 2022, Russian goods exports hit a record high of nearly $532 billion. While imports stayed low for most of 2022, the Kremlin’s war chest was filled with a trade surplus of $316 billion. This financial cushion also enabled Russia to expand into new markets, such as India and China, who have since replaced Europe as Russia’s main importers for energy products.
While the coalition’s sanctions regime has impacted Russia at an estimated $50 billion in forgone oil export earnings alone, delayed implementation and gradual phase-ins have blunted their effectiveness, giving Russia ample time to adjust.
The Axis of Autocrats
However, it’s been the tacit and often open support by the axis of autocrats that enabled Russia’s continued aggression.
Mutual support between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea is not new. Russia and China have strengthened ties since the end of the Cold War, with Moscow becoming a key trading partner for Beijing. Between 2019 and 2023, Russia accounted for 77 percent of China’s arms imports, advancing its air defense and submarine technology. Both China and Russia have shielded Iran from US energy sanctions, and a 2021 strategic partnership agreement between China and Iran outlined objectives for joint military exercises to further expand cooperation. North Korea, meanwhile, has supplied Iran with missiles for decades, including those used by Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah. It also has counted China as its primary ally since signing the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Friendship Treaty in 1961.
But the acceleration in convergence that has been taking place since February 2022 transcends past relationships. High-level reciprocal meetings between leaders and top officials resulted in a series of agreements to collaborate across economic, technological, and various other sectors. In November, the leaders of Russia and North Korea ratified a mutual defense treaty, agreed upon at a joint summit in June 2024. The treaty commits either side to “immediately provide military and other assistance using all available means” in the event of war. Moreover, joint military exercises have intensified in both scope and frequency such as the recent drills between China and Russia in September 2024.
Cooperation between the axis members also increased at the diplomatic level, by protecting each other in the UN Security Council. In March 2024, Moscow even shielded Pyongyang from adverse resolutions that reviewed the UN sanctions framework on North Korea, using its veto powers. Additional platforms, such as the BRICS forum, offer even greater room to sidestep Western influence. This year’s BRICS summit, hosted by Russia, was especially favorable for the Kremlin, with 36 leaders attending the meeting in the Russian city of Kazan, underscoring the very limits of Western attempts to isolate Russia.
A Give and Take
When it comes to direct military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, Pyongyang has become Moscow’s most substantial contributor. Since September 2023, North Korea is reported to have sent Russia over five million artillery shells as well as dozens of short-range ballistic missiles. Given that Russia’s annual production capacity is around two million rounds of artillery, these supplies are considerable. Moreover, the training and deployment of 11,000 North Korean soldiers fighting the Ukrainian army in Russia’s Kursk region is the latest escalation in North Korea’s support. Russia is likely supplying its neighbor with oil as well as space and satellite technology in return.
Iran was involved from early on in supporting Russia’s war with thousands of Shahed drones and even helped Russia to kick-start its own production at a rate of 330 drones per month. Drone attacks allow Russia to maintain high levels of missile stocks while overwhelming Ukrainian air defense systems and significantly damaging Ukraine’s infrastructure. Since September 2024, Iran has also been supporting Russia with hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles. Amid rising tensions with Israel, Tehran is likely to seek Russian Su-35 fighter aircrafts and S-400 air defense missile systems in return. Yet, given Russia’s own needs and maxed-out war economy, such deliveries remain rather a long-term prospect.
The relationship between Russia and China is the most special, however. Despite pledging a “no limits” partnership on the sidelines of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games in February 2022, only a day before the launch of the full-scale invasion, China has provided Russia with everything but a direct supply of lethal weapons. Instead, it has sharply increased its procurement of oil, gas, and other natural resources at heavily discounted prices. Additionally, China has supplied Russia with semiconductors and dual-use technology as well as radar and communications equipment, all of which are essential for Russia’s domestic arms production, especially amid Western sanctions. Less clear is what Beijing is receiving in return, apart from cheap energy and unrivaled influence over Moscow. China may also see this partnership as a promissory note in the event of rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific.
Between Division and Isolation
Addressing this axis requires strategic nuance. While some experts argue for a ruthless crackdown on individual actors, others only believe in the success of a comprehensive effort. Breaking the link between either pair won’t be possible anytime soon. But that does not mean their partnership is anything close to the depth of cooperation within the EU or that the US enjoys with its allies. Nor are they free from ideological differences.
China seeks to be on par with the US, economically and militarily; the others seek an outright revolution of the world order. Russian President Vladimir Putin views his relationship with the US and Europe as entirely adversarial; China depends on both markets to prosper economically. Ultimately, the right approach should focus on internal division and external isolation.
Putin’s geopolitical maneuvering is heavily focused on competing for attention and international alliances. The recent BRICS summit showed the limits of Western efforts to isolate Russia. It also allowed Moscow to engage with “strategic midsized powers”—a group of nations that hold sufficient collective weight to influence the direction of the geopolitical order. These countries—Brazil, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey—maintain economic, diplomatic, and military partnerships with both the axis and the West. It should be a strategic priority to isolate Moscow’s military and economic ties from these midsized powers by maximizing diplomatic outreach, enhancing trade relations, and bolstering military cooperation.
China, however, is the most crucial link for Russia, and this is where division efforts should be focused. While breaking Sino-Russian ties is unlikely in the near term, especially with Ukraine’s future uncertain, that doesn’t mean that China’s interests cannot be leveraged. The prospect of secondary sanctions signals Western “red lines” and higher tariffs have the potential to erode China’s economic power in its most important markets—the EU and US.
Moreover, as former US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley wrote recently, “China has made its prestige hostage to the success of its axis partners.” If the other axis members fail in their revolutionary and imperialistic ambitions, Beijing would have to acknowledge that it is surrounded by failing states and faltering leaders, which can undermine Chinese President Xi Jinping’s image both at home and aboard.
The recent surprise collapse of the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is one such example. For both Russia and Iran, the success of the shock offensive that toppled Assad is a disaster. Iran, in the course of this year alone, has suffered a series of significant setbacks following the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Its key allies Hamas and Hezbollah have been severely weakened, and Israeli airstrikes have inflicted substantial damage to its own air-defense network and missile factories. Now, it has lost its only formal ally, Syria.
For Russia, which stepped in militarily to save Assad’s regime in 2015, the lack of sufficient support highlights the limits of Moscow’s resources amidst its war against Ukraine. Russia now faces the potential of losing its naval base at Tartus, a strategic stronghold it has maintained for over 50 years. Without this base, its status as a major naval power in the Mediterranean would be significantly weakened.
After all, if there is a lesson to be drawn from the abrupt fall of the Syrian regime, it is that even the most entrenched dictatorships, which may appear strong and united, are ultimately fragile. Russia’s axis of autocrats is no different.
Jannik Hartmann is an associate fellow at the Center for Geopolitics, Geoeconomics, and Technology at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
