One is Ukraine, which faces a third year of an occupation now covering a fifth of its territory – and the uncertain prospect of an enforced peace deal built on the quicksand of an imminent Donald Trump presidency, which will freeze but not resolve the clashes of Ukraine’s independence and its neighbour’s desire to make it submissive.
It has not turned out that way. Syria, long a client state of the former Soviet Union, has seen Assad flee an opposition uprising and end up marking the new year in an unexpected luxury lockdown in Moscow.
It is building ties with the new Islamist coalition which has succeeded Assad, in the weeks leading up to a major government sit-down on how to govern a fragmented and traumatised Syria.
But the implications go further. It is a reminder that Ukraine is conducting its own foreign policy and that will bring its own complexities – not least in a rapprochement with Turkey. It supplies Kyiv with drones, while simultaneously acting as a haven for Russian businesses and tourists, and by involving itself in Syria’s future, becoming an interlocutor for powerful Saudi Arabia, which will finance much of the war-torn state’s revival.
Any shaking of the kaleidoscope in the Middle East affects the major stand-off at the heart of the region: that between Israel and Iran. This is not always a straightforwardly battle between democracies and autocracies – the balance of power often outweighs this.
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Read MoreAdditionally, Netanyahu and Putin share an uncompromising appetite for realpolitik and a functioning relationship, despite the many tensions of belief and outlook between the two countries. Israeli politicians have been as keen to keep channels open to Moscow to mitigate the might of Iran as Moscow is to keep a functioning dialogue.
On this score, the net effect of the Ukraine war in the international picture has been to make Russia’s largest – and previously most intertwined – neighbour a far more autonomous and ambitious player in global geopolitics than it was before the full-scale invasion of 2022. That will doubtless bring successes and setbacks and miscalculations as well.
Anne McElvoy is executive editor of POLITICO and host of the Power Play interview podcast
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