Russia Sidelined In New Middle East After Trump’s Israel-Gaza Deal

Summary

Russia’s influence in the Middle East has declined significantly since its 2015 intervention in Syria to support Bashar al-Assad.

Moscow was excluded from a major October 13 summit in Egypt, highlighting its diminished diplomatic role in the region.

Russia faces challenges balancing ties with Iran and Gulf nations amid strategic shifts and its focus on the Ukraine war.

In late 2015, the Kremlin achieved a key victory when it launched a military intervention in Syria to rescue the fast-sinking regime of then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and enshrine its role as a leading player in the Middle East.

But 10 years later, Assad has been overthrown and a series of decisive events – the latest of which is an October 13 US-brokered cease-fire agreement between Israel and Gaza – are reversing that impression.

“Russia has not been sidelined diplomatically in the Middle East like this since it intervened in Syria in 2015,” Hanna Notte, director for Eurasia at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told RFE/RL.

This diminished status was on display in Egypt on October 13 when US President Donald Trump co-chaired a summit attended by the leaders of more than 20 countries aimed at finalizing a permanent truce in Gaza. Russia was notably absent from the diplomatic gathering and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters that Moscow was not invited.

That followed the Kremlin cancelling a planned summit with Arab leaders in Moscow slated for later this week, with Bloomberg citing sources familiar with the matter as saying that the real reason for the cancellation was that too few regional leaders had confirmed their attendance.

“It was definitely another sign that Russia’s role is diminishing in the region,” a European Union official focusing on Russia and Eurasia told RFE/RL. “The cancelled summit is another. Only two leaders – from Syria and Iraq – had agreed to come.”

Another EU diplomat told RFE/RL that Russia’s absence from the summit in Egypt marked “a win for the West.”

“Seeing US, Arab, and Western leaders up on the podium and zero Russian – or Chinese – role in all this, was quite a sight,” the EU diplomat told RFE/RL.

Moscow Faces A Quickly Changing Middle East

This comes after Russian prestige has suffered a series of losses in the Middle East in recent years as Moscow has been prioritizing its nearly four year invasion of Ukraine.

Assad, who Moscow had intervened militarily in conjunction with Iran to bolster during Syria’s civil war, was toppled in late 2024 and later fled to Moscow.

Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks that sparked a broader Israel-Gaza war then left Moscow facing new diplomatic challenges with Tel Aviv after the Kremlin spent decades building up strategic ties.

This was followed by US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran in June, which left Tehran – Moscow’s principle partner in the region – weakened militarily and Russia hesitant to supply Tehran with more arms./Rferel/