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 44 covers the Russian geostrategy for the month of August 2026. The numbering and contents of the Outcomes, Goals and Objectives follows The Structure of Modern Russia’s Foreign Strategy framework.
Objective 2: Strengthening the Western political forces considered by Moscow to be inimical to the Western-led international order, and the Kremlin’s relationships with such forces
- On 6 August, France24 reported that Russia was running disinformation campaigns against French presidential candidates Gabriel Attal, Raphaël Glucksmann and Edouard Philippe ahead of the 2027 French presidential election.
Objective 3: Enhancing internal political instability and polarization within Western states
- On 9 August, Germany‘s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said that Germany was facing daily hybrid warfare from abroad, including espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks, and covert operations, “aimed at destabilizing Germany or inflicting direct harm.”
- On 10 August, Sweden‘s SAPO security service stated it had dismantled a Russian SVR-directed espionage operation seeking to influence Swedish decision-making and discredit Sweden and its EU and NATO allies.
Objective 4: Disrupting Western international alliances
- On 11 August, Germany’s top military officer, General Carsten Breuer, stated that Russia was conducting daily hybrid attacks against NATO countries, systematically using drones to probe European air defenses for weaknesses to exploit in a future conflict.
Objective 5: Thwarting policies of the US and its allies in the MENA region
- On 18 August, NBC News reported that Russia had been shipping drone components, ammunition, and other military supplies to Iran through the Caspian Sea by more than two dozen sanctioned vessels, helping Tehran replenish stockpiles degraded by American and Israeli airstrikes.
Objective 9: Achieving de-sovereignization of Ukraine
- In the Russo-Ukrainian War, in August 2026, Russians continued to attack in the area of Slovyansk, Kramatorsk and Druzhkivka, while Ukrainians counterattacked in the area of Lyman, and in the southeastern part of the front.
- On 7 August, WSJ reported that the US intelligence had linked an explosive-laden drone found near a Ukrainian cargo jet at the Leipzig Airport in Germany to the Russian government.
- On 26 August, ABC News reported that a US intelligence source had linked the explosive drone found at Leipzig airport on 4 August 2026 to Russia’s GRU, citing the structure and explosives as “typical” of GRU devices. Investigators reportedly believed it was designed to disable aircraft and delay arms shipments to Ukraine.
- On 14 August, Reuters reported that Russia had “significantly stepped up its online disinformation campaign in Poland,” seeking to exploit the Polish-Ukrainian dispute over the Volhynia massacres to inflame tensions between the two countries.
Objective 16: Entrenching Russian influence in sub-Saharan Africa
- Russia’s Africa Corps reportedly helped repel an attempted coup in Niger, with Moscow’s foreign ministry confirming its forces had assisted the Nigerien regime’s troops in containing the mutiny.
Objective 18: Gaining strategic presence on the waterways connecting the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean basins
- On 9 August, Russia and Syria signed a memorandum of understanding on the future of Russian military bases at Tartous and Hmeimim, under which these facilities were to be formally repurposed as joint training centers within three months, with Russian forces still stationed there under the new arrangement.
Objective 28: Achieving decisive influence over Armenia
- Meta’s report identified Russian state-linked non-profit ANO Dialog as having run a coordinated covert influence operation targeting Armenia’s June 2026 parliamentary elections, to boost Prime Minister Pashinyan’s opponents Samvel Karapetyan and Strong Armenia.