The Russian Geostrategy Monitor is a monthly brief that tracks Russian geostrategy worldwide employing the framework set in The Structure of Modern Russia’s Foreign Strategy. Russian geostrategic activities are also tracked on the regularly updated interactive Russian Geostrategy Map.
Issue 36 covers the Russian geostrategy for the month of December 2025. The numbering and contents of the Outcomes, Goals and Objectives follows The Structure of Modern Russia’s Foreign Strategy framework.
Objective 3: Enhancing internal political instability and polarization within Western states
- On 12 December, Germany accused Russia of “seeking to influence and destabilise the country’s federal election in February” 2025, as well as a “cyber-attack against German air traffic control in August 2024″.
- On 15 December, the head of Britain’s MI6 warned that Russian subversion posed an “acute threat” to the West, “plotting arson and sabotage operations, assassinations, and cyber and drone attacks across Europe.”
Objective 7: Achieving instability in the Western Balkans
- On 14 December, Russian foreign minister Lavrov published an article in a Serbian newspaper, accusing the West of trying to “re-format” Bosnia and Herzegovina by its “unitarization” at the expense of the Bosnian Serbs and Croats.
Objective 8: Undermining US Foreign Policy in the Western Hemisphere
- On 11 December, Moscow reassured Venezuela’s dictator Maduro of its “support for his government’s course in the face of growing external pressure.”
- On 18 December, following US President Trump’s decision to impose blockade on sanctioned oil tankers sailing to or from Venezuela, the Russian foreign ministry said it hoped that the Trump administration would not “make a fatal mistake over Venezuela,” expressing concern “about U.S. decisions that threatened international shipping.”
- On 25 December, Moscow said the US was “reviving piracy and banditry in the Caribbean Sea by blockading Venezuela.”
Objective 9: Achieving de-sovereignization of Ukraine
- In the Russo-Ukrainian War, during December 2025, Russians took the town of Siversk, and entered the town of Hulyaipole in the south. Ukrainians counterattacked in the area of Kupyansk, surrounding Russian troops within the city.
Objective 13: Institutional consolidation of the Russian sphere of influence
- On 21 December, the Eurasian Economic Union leaders approved “a differentiated, opt-in framework for the common financial market,” instead of a previous more centralized scheme involving “establishment of a supranational financial regulator” by 2025 which had been mandated in 2014. They also adopted “a strategic road map extending the bloc’s integration goals to 2045.”
The decision marked a slower and less intense pace of the Moscow-centered Eurasian integration than Russia had previously hoped to achieve.
Objective 16: Entrenching Russian influence in sub-Saharan Africa
- On 20 December, Russia reportedly delivered “43 crates of weapons” to Madagascar’s ruling regime.
Objective 20: Alignment with China
- On 9 December, Russian and Chinese bombers flew near Japan and South Korea in a joint patrol.
- On 10 December, Intelligence Online reported that in November 2025 the China-backed junta in Myanmar, which is fighting a war against Myanmar’s pro-democracy forces, had “received Russian anti-drone equipment, as well as a batch of Orlan-30 spy drones,” with the equipment “already being used against armed opposition groups.”
- On 28 December, Russian foreign minister Lavrov stated that “Russia opposes Taiwan’s independence in any form and considers the island an inseparable part of China.” Lavrov also criticized Japan’s “militarization,” and said that the countries supporting the status quo regarding Taiwan were in disagreement with “the principle of national re-unification of China.”