Russia Courts the Global South While Pressing a Neighbor on Trade

President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania is set to make a state visit to Russia at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin, part of Moscow's continuing effort to deepen ties with African and other Global South partners as it works around Western sanctions.

At the same time, Russia is applying pressure on a neighboring country. Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of Russia's State Duma, warned that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is concealing the consequences of a possible exit from the Eurasian Economic Union, the Russian-led trade bloc, and tied the country's future to remaining inside it.

The two moves reflect a single strategy. Moscow is recruiting new commercial partners abroad while seeking to retain existing members of its regional blocs, both aimed at insulating Russian trade from sanctions and building a network of arrangements outside the Western financial system.

This is the slow construction of a parallel commercial order. Each state visit and each warning about bloc membership is a step in reorganizing trade around groupings that Moscow can influence, a process that over time reduces the centrality of Western institutions and the dollar in global commerce.