The New Axis: Russia

Russia is not a misunderstood power reacting defensively to Western provocation. It is an imperial state in decline, compensating for weakness with brutality, coercion, and deception.

The world is changing, and not for the better. The Pax Americana, the idea that the United States could underpin a relatively stable global order through military, economic, and technological dominance, is coming to an end. In its place, a more chaotic and lawless international system is emerging, one in which rival powers seek to expand their influence without regard for liberal norms, national sovereignty, or basic human rights.

This transition is often described as a move toward a more “multipolar” world, as if the mere dilution of Western power is inherently just or stabilising. This assumption is profoundly mistaken. Power vacuums do not remain empty, and they are not filled by benevolent alternatives. As Western influence has receded, conflict has intensified, wars have grown more brutal, and the prospects for humanitarian restraint or intervention have diminished.

The regimes most eager to inherit the West’s diminished role are not liberal democracies committed to pluralism. They are authoritarian states that exploit instability through proxy wars, coercion, territorial revisionism, and information warfare aimed at weakening democratic societies from within. Moral relativism cannot survive contact with reality.

Whatever one’s grievances with the United States or Europe, their failures are minor when weighed against the ambitions of the authoritarian powers now positioning themselves as the West’s successors. The question is not whether the West is perfect. It is whether the alternatives are better. They are not.

The West is not merely a historical accident or a colonial hangover. It is a civilisational project rooted in the protection of individual rights, political accountability, legal equality, and economic systems designed to serve citizens rather than entrench ruling elites. These principles are often applied inconsistently, but where they exist, they allow for correction, dissent, and reform. Undermining them in the name of ideological purity does not advance justice. It accelerates disorder.

This article is the first in a series examining the most prominent members of an often-informal alliance of states that seek to undermine the West and its institutions. This grouping has been described as the Axis of Evil, the Axis of Upheaval, and CRINK. Here, it will simply be referred to as the New Axis, a new generation of authoritarian states that reject the values that built the free world.

Russia: The Eternal Imperialist

The Russian Federation has long milked its role as the invader of Berlin and the destroyer of Nazi Germany. Today, the Kremlin weaponises this legacy, using the terms fascist and Nazi to tar dissent and to legitimise aggression against other countries.

Yet Russia was an ally of Nazi Germany until Hitler betrayed Stalin in 1941. In terms of values and political culture, modern Russia remains far closer to authoritarian Axis states than to the democratic allies it retrospectively claims as kin.

Throughout the Soviet period, millions of innocent people were sent to labour camps. The state dictated culture, industry, property, and justice. This totality of control eroded not only freedom, but the human spirit itself.

Between 1932 and 1933, the Soviet government caused a man-made famine in Ukraine, killing an estimated 3.5 to 5 million people. This was not an aberration, but a feature of imperial rule.

The irony is that Lenin and Marxists decried imperialism as a product of Western capitalism, yet it was the Soviet Union that ruled an empire, refusing to allow conquered states to secede. Fourteen captive nations were forced under its flag, alongside additional territories denied meaningful autonomy.

Little has changed since 1991. Russia has invaded Georgia, Ukraine twice, Chechnya twice, and Moldova. It operates paramilitary forces abroad, destabilising countries and extracting mineral wealth, particularly in Africa. Many who decry the IMF, ICC, or ICJ as neocolonial ignore the reality that it is Russia operating inside their borders, extracting resources and spilling blood.

This behaviour is rooted in a national ideology of conquest as security. Russia’s leadership interprets history as a series of existential threats, from steppe hordes to Napoleon to Hitler. The response has been to seek safety through territorial expansion. Yet every buffer demands another buffer beyond it. The logic is endless, and inherently aggressive.

Human rights

Russia’s human rights record is abysmal. Political opposition is repressed, independent media dismantled, and civil society treated as a threat to state power. Minority rights are routinely violated, with discrimination enforced by legislation rather than restrained by law. These are not incidental failures, but features of a system that prioritises regime survival over human dignity.

For those on the political left who frame Russia as a counterweight to Western power, this should be disqualifying. For conservatives who imagine Russia as a defender of Christian or traditional values, it should be equally sobering. Modern Russia is built on loyalty to the state, corruption, and coercion. Russia is not religious. It is nihilistic. Citizens are treated as expendable instruments of state ambition, deployed in foreign wars with little regard for human cost.

Economically, Russia is hostile to genuine private enterprise. Major industries are state controlled or politically captured, wealth is concentrated among regime aligned elites, and the rule of law exists only insofar as it serves those in power.

Attacks on the free world

Russia is a paper tiger. The war in Ukraine proves it. A two week “special operation” has lasted longer than the Soviet Union’s involvement in the Second World War. Millions of young men have been thrown into a meat grinder to satisfy Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambition.

Russia cannot win a traditional war against the West. Only its nuclear arsenal, and the threat of mutually assured destruction, allow it to misbehave with relative impunity. Unable to achieve decisive victories, it has instead become a master of information warfare.

The Kremlin operates expansive troll farms that impersonate citizens of Western countries, sow division, interfere in elections, and inflame internal conflict. This strategy exploits the West’s greatest strengths. Open societies rely on trust, pluralism, and free expression, all of which are difficult to defend against a hostile actor facing no reciprocal constraints.

Russian information warfare does not aim to convince Western publics that Moscow is virtuous. It succeeds when citizens conclude that truth is unknowable, institutions are corrupt, and political participation is futile. By amplifying extremes, laundering narratives through fringe media, and flooding discourse with noise, Russia weakens its adversaries without firing a shot. Information warfare is not a supplement to Russia’s weakness. It is a substitute for it.

What this has to do with South Africa

Many ANC leaders were trained in Moscow; they never forgot this. Their loyalty to Cold War allies runs deep, and even when Russia acts against South Africa’s national interests, they continue to back the Kremlin under the guise of neutrality.

The ANC has refused to condemn the invasion of Ukraine, despite global pressure to do so. Yet neutrality collapses when Russian warships are welcomed into South African ports, and when Simon’s Town is very likely used to facilitate Russian military logistics.

This alignment was exposed years earlier in the attempted Russian nuclear deal under Jacob Zuma. The agreement with Rosatom was pursued in secrecy, bypassed procurement processes, and would have locked South Africa into an unaffordable, multi trillion-rand commitment. Courts later ruled the deal unlawful, confirming that it was never about energy security. It was about patronage, rent extraction, and deepening political ties with Moscow.

Zuma’s links to Russia continued after his expulsion from the ANC. The MK Party has been widely suspected of receiving support from the Kremlin, while fake news networks bearing the hallmarks of Russian information warfare were used to promote its agenda. That MK members were reportedly sent to fight in Ukraine should surprise no one.

Conclusion

Russia is not a misunderstood power reacting defensively to Western provocation. It is an imperial state in decline, compensating for weakness with brutality, coercion, and deception. It cannot defeat the free world militarily, but it can destabilise it politically, corrupt it economically, and undermine it psychologically.

Understanding Russia’s role within the New Axis is essential to understanding the moment we are living through. But Russia is not alone. Its most dangerous partner is a regime that combines internal terror with external chaos, and whose ideological hostility to the West is matched only by its willingness to spill blood to achieve it.

That regime is Iran. And it will be the subject of the next article.

Nicholas Woode-Smith the Managing Editor of the Rational Standard, an author and a geopolitical analyst. He is a senior associate of the Free Market Foundation and writes in his personal capacity.