What Putin Stands to Gain From Israel-Hamas War

As Israel reeled in the wake of Hamas’s violent rampage 10 days ago and Palestinians in Gaza braced under retaliatory airstrikes, Russian President Vladimir Putin knew just who to blame: the United States. Three days after Hamas militants breached the fortified border with Israel, the Russian leader offered his first remarks on the explosion of violence in the Middle East.

“This is a vivid example of the failure of United States policy in the Middle East,” he said during a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani. Dmitry Medvedev, the increasingly caustic former Russian president, had earlier chimed in to decry the United States’ “manic obsession to incite conflicts” around the world, and Russian state TV loyally followed its cue in broadcasts that followed.

Russia may not have had any hand in or even foreknowledge of Hamas’s surprise attack that has cost 1,400 Israeli lives and about 200 hostages so far, but the country’s opportunistic president spies an opening amid the chaos that has ensued. The Israel-Hamas war has, after 600 days of fruitless fighting in Ukraine, given Moscow a priceless opportunity to turn the West’s eyes elsewhere, as well as a poisoned-chalice chance to reshape its entire approach to the Middle East.

“Putin benefits from global chaos. His goal remains the destruction of the current international system,” said Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

For the Kremlin, the first and most immediate fruits of the renewed war in the Middle East are found far away—on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine and on Capitol Hill in Washington. While Israel was fending off a surprise attack, reorganizing its scattered troops, and preparing a devastating counterblow to crush Hamas, Moscow launched a hugely ambitious, if costly, 10-day attack to retake territory around Avdiivka, in the Donbas region of Ukraine. What two weeks ago would have snared the world’s attention has now struggled to make headlines, thanks to the turmoil in southern Israel.

“They might exploit it because it will distract from Ukraine,” Adm. Rob Bauer, NATO’s senior military officer, said in an interview at the alliance’s Brussels headquarters last week.

The longer-term gain could come in Washington. The Israel-Hamas war has suddenly shrunk the bandwidth of even the majority of legislators who had long supported U.S. aid for Ukraine’s fight for national survival; the need to rush aid to Israel has put immediate assistance to Kyiv in some doubt. Even pro-Ukraine lawmakers such as Rep. Don Bacon urge prioritizing deliveries of arms to Israel, precisely as the Biden administration seeks to link funding for all U.S. defense priorities in one big omnibus.

If there were tensions before over the U.S. ability to bolster Ukraine while ramping up support for Taiwan, those have only been heightened by the threat to a country that is politically near and dear to much of Washington. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, no less than U.S. President Joe Biden himself, was lambasted by conservatives for suggesting that the United States could continue to fund multiple wars. For the Kremlin, those are sweet chirpings.

What is more complicated is Russia’s position in the Middle East. For years, Moscow has been skilled at working with all parties in the region, including archrivals such as Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hamas. Russia has managed to cozy up to Cyprus while courting Turkey, even while it moved closer to Egypt, and it supported Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. Amid the complex web of alliances and enmities in the Middle East, Russia has distinguished itself in its ability to work with all sides by making itself indispensable to various players in the region.

“The idea is you don’t side with one against the other, you play one off against the other,” said Mark Katz, a professor at George Mason University and an expert on Russia’s foreign policy.

It’s a policy that dates back to the tsarist era, Katz said, but one that might be about to change.

“Look at how Russia did not directly condemn Hamas at the U.N. Security Council—it signals clearly [Putin’s] preference for anti-American forces even as he is trying to balance,” Borshchevskaya said.

The first tripwire for Russia in the region may be its growing reliance on Iran for drones to be used on the battlefield in Ukraine—even as Tehran, a longtime backer of both Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, lurches closer to playing an active role in the widening conflict.

A limited conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza would likely come as a welcome distraction for the Kremlin. But a wider war between Israel and another Iran-backed proxy could raise the stakes of Moscow’s balancing act, forcing it to come down more on Tehran’s side, said Hanna Notte, the Eurasia director for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “I’m not sure that’s something that Russia really wants,” she said.

While Moscow may seek to offer its services as a mediator, experts are skeptical that the Kremlin had a realistic role to play in any prospective talks. Until last year, a few bright spots of collaboration remained in the Middle East between Moscow and the West as Russian diplomats worked assiduously with the United States to help preserve and revive the Iran nuclear deal. That all changed following the invasion of Ukraine, and countering the U.S. has become the near-singular preoccupation of Russian foreign policy.

“You see this zero-sum logic playing out,” Notte said.