Russia projects confidence as it pursues alliances to undermine West: "Russia’s focus on using its global position to disrupt the West is intensifying, officials said, including in the Middle East." Latest https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/26/kremlin-global-alliances-ukraine-us/…

Internal Russian Security Council documents obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post, show that the Kremlin convened meetings in 2022 and 2023 on ways to undermine the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency.

Russia is “not omnipotent, but they try to use all possibilities. They are very consistent and systematic,” said one senior European official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Deep divisions in Washington, including over continued funding for Ukraine, have fostered the belief in Moscow & elsewhere that the US is paralyzed, said Matthew Redhead, former head of Global Strategic Intelligence at HSBC & currently a senior associate fellow at @RUSI

“It means that hostile states like Russia and Iran and potentially China are going to start pushing the boundaries further to see what reaction they will get,” Redhead said. “It is an invitation to escalate.”

Gen. Richard Barrons, former commander of the British military’s Joint Forces Command, said the risks are growing of strategic failure for the West because of the lack of political will to supply Ukraine with adequate amounts of weapons & to turn around military industrial output

“Putin believes that if he is stubborn enough for long enough, we, the feeble West, will walk away — and he could be right. … That won’t just be shameful. That will be an act of strategic self-harm," Barrons said.