The Royal United Services Institute published in September 2021 a policy brief titled "Russia's Growing Ambitions in the Red Sea Region" by Samuel Ramani, University of Oxford.
The paper addresses why Russia is paying greater attention to the Red Sea region. It concludes that Russia's policy towards the Red Sea appears opportunistic.
Although Russia's commitment to the Red Sea region has grown since 2017, the foundations of its influence are shallow and remain vulnerable to competition and disruption from external stakeholders. Except for arms sales and nuclear energy, Russia's commercial presence in the Red Sea region is small in scale, its cooperation with the West and China on maritime security issues is limited, and it has struggled to convert assertive rhetoric in the UNSC into influence over regional arbitration processes.
