The European Union’s leadership has a bad habit of projecting their own anxieties onto Moscow. Antonio Costa, the European Council President, recently claimed that Russia is the "only winner" of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. It is a neat, tidy narrative. It suggests that while the West is distracted and the Middle East is burning, Vladimir Putin is sitting in the Kremlin playing a 4D chess match that he is somehow winning.
It is also fundamentally wrong.
This isn't just a misreading of the room; it’s a failure to understand the mechanics of power. To suggest Russia is "winning" because the West is busy is to mistake a temporary breather for a strategic victory. In reality, the chaos in the Middle East is dismantling the very pillars of Russian influence in the region while tethering Moscow to a volatile Iranian partner that it cannot control and can no longer afford to subsidize.
The Myth of the Great Distraction
The primary argument from Brussels is that the Middle East conflict draws resources and attention away from Ukraine. This assumes that Western support for Kyiv is a zero-sum game of focus. It isn’t.
I have watched how defense procurement works for twenty years. The shells being produced for Israel and the air defense systems needed in the Levant are often distinct from the long-range attrition assets required on the steppes of Eastern Europe. The "distraction" is political, not logistical. If anything, the flare-up in the Middle East has revitalized the Western defense industrial base, forcing a faster scale-up of production lines that will eventually benefit Ukraine more than it hurts it.
Russia isn't winning; it’s just hoping we stop looking. Hope is not a strategy.
The Iranian Liability
For years, the Kremlin played the role of the "honest broker" in the Middle East. They talked to the Israelis, the Saudis, the Emiratis, and the Iranians. They were the only ones who could sit in every room.
That era is over.
By leaning heavily on Tehran for Shahed drones and ballistic missiles, Putin has traded his "broker" status for a "client" status. Russia is now beholden to an Iranian regime that is increasingly cornered. If Israel successfully degrades Hezbollah and Hamas—Iran's primary forward-operating assets—Russia loses its most effective leverage against Western interests in the Mediterranean.
Moscow hasn't gained a "win"; it has tied its regional survival to a burning ship. Every time an Israeli strike hits an Iranian-linked depot in Syria, it’s a direct hit on Russian prestige. The Russian S-400 batteries sit silent because Moscow cannot afford a direct kinetic confrontation with Israel. That doesn't look like winning. It looks like paralysis.
Energy Markets and the Chinese Shadow
The "Russia wins" crowd always points to oil prices. The logic: War in the Middle East = higher oil prices = more money for the Russian war machine.
This is 1990s thinking.
The global energy market is no longer a simple supply-and-demand curve dictated by Middle Eastern instability. The United States is the world’s largest oil producer. Brazil and Guyana are ramping up. Most importantly, China—Russia's only major "partner"—is the world’s largest importer. Beijing does not want high oil prices. If the Middle East goes up in flames, China’s economy takes a hit, and when China’s economy takes a hit, they squeeze their Russian suppliers for even steeper discounts.
Russia isn't getting a windfall. It's getting a choice between selling at a loss to China or not selling at all if the Straits of Hormuz become a no-go zone.
The Ruble is Not a Global Hedge
If Russia were winning, we would see a flight to Russian assets or at least an increase in the geopolitical "soft power" of the BRICS+ framework as an alternative to the "chaos" of the West.
Instead, we see the opposite.
Central banks across the Middle East are not dumping the dollar for the ruble. They are watching the volatility and hedging with gold or deepening their security ties with Washington because, despite the rhetoric, the U.S. remains the only power capable of moving two carrier strike groups into the region in 48 hours. Russia has a rusting carrier that catches fire in its own port.
The Syria Sinkhole
Let’s talk about Syria. This was supposed to be Putin’s masterpiece—a low-cost intervention that secured a Mediterranean port and proved Russia could save a regime.
Now, Syria is a liability.
As the Middle East war expands, the pressure on Bashar al-Assad increases. Russia has already stripped its Syrian bases of high-end equipment and personnel to feed the meat grinder in Ukraine. They are hollowed out. If the regional conflict forces a regime change in Damascus or a major Turkish incursion in the north, Russia has no reserves to stop it. They are holding a winning hand with no chips left to bet.
The Reality of Multi-Front Fatigue
The EU likes the "Russia is winning" line because it serves as a convenient boogeyman to scare member states into line. If Russia is winning, we must do more. While the goal—doing more for Ukraine—is correct, the premise is flawed.
Russia is suffering from the same "multi-front fatigue" that the West fears. They are trying to manage:
- A high-intensity war in Ukraine.
- A crumbling influence in the South Caucasus (look at Armenia's pivot away from Moscow).
- A precarious balancing act in the Middle East.
- An increasing total dependence on Beijing.
Stop Asking Who is Winning
The question "Who is winning the Middle East war?" is the wrong question. In a multi-polar world defined by "polycrisis," there are no winners—only those who lose the least.
The EU’s Costa is right to be worried, but he is looking at the wrong map. Russia isn't the beneficiary of this chaos; it is another victim of it. Moscow’s inability to influence the outcome in Gaza or Lebanon proves its irrelevance, not its mastery.
The status quo isn't being disrupted by a Russian mastermind. It's being disrupted by a vacuum of leadership that Moscow is too weak to fill and the West is too hesitant to reclaim.
If you want to find the real winner, look at the defense contractors in Northern Virginia and the energy exporters in Texas. They are the only ones whose balance sheets look better today than they did six months ago. Russia is just a spectator with a loud megaphone, hoping nobody notices they’re out of ammunition.
The West needs to stop giving Putin credit for a victory he hasn't earned and cannot sustain. Stop treating the Kremlin like a strategic behemoth and start treating it like what it is: a mid-tier power trying to survive a fire it didn't start and can't put out.
Buy the reality, sell the hype.
