The Role of Energy in Russian Foreign Policy Course

Course Overview

Energy is not merely an economic asset in Russian foreign policy: it is the material foundation of the state’s international standing, the primary instrument through which Moscow exercises leverage over its neighbours, the revenue base that sustains its military capacity, and the strategic currency with which it builds partnerships across Eurasia, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. No serious analysis of Russian external behaviour since the Soviet collapse can be conducted without sustained attention to how hydrocarbons, nuclear technology, pipeline infrastructure, and energy diplomacy have shaped the choices available to Russian policymakers and the constraints within which they operate.

This course examines the role of energy in Russian foreign policy as a sustained analytical and strategic problem. It traces the historical foundations of Russian energy power from the Soviet period through the post-1991 transformation, the consolidation of state control over hydrocarbons under Putin, the weaponisation of gas supply in relations with Europe and the post-Soviet space, the eastern pivot towards China and Asian markets, and the strategic use of nuclear technology exports through Rosatom as a long-term instrument of geopolitical influence. The course also confronts the structural pressures bearing down on Russian energy power: Western sanctions imposed since 2014 and dramatically deepened after 2022, the global energy transition and its implications for hydrocarbon demand, the technological dependencies created by import substitution failures, and the long-term questions raised by Arctic development, critical minerals strategy, and the sustainability of state corporate governance in Gazprom and Rosneft.

Teaching is organised around major analytical questions rather than conventional thematic surveys. Each week, students investigate a central problem through case studies, policy documents, strategic assessments, and primary sources, building towards independent analytical and policy-oriented work. Teaching combines seminar discussion, applied exercises, comparative geopolitical analysis, and a structured simulation. Students are expected to engage seriously with international relations theory, political economy, and strategic studies as analytical tools, while developing the capacity to assess Russian foreign policy behaviour with rigour and without caricature.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Explain and critically evaluate major theoretical approaches to energy and foreign policy, applying them to the specific context of Russian statecraft and strategic culture.
• Analyse how hydrocarbons, nuclear technology, and infrastructure shape Russian geopolitical interests, strategic calculations, and patterns of external behaviour.
• Assess the effectiveness of Russian energy diplomacy across different regional contexts, including Europe, the post-Soviet space, China and Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
• Evaluate the impact of Western sanctions, global energy transitions, and technological change on Russian energy power and strategic adaptation.
• Interpret policy documents, strategic frameworks, energy trade data, and corporate governance structures with critical precision.
• Compare Russian energy statecraft with the strategies of other major energy powers, identifying what is distinctive and what reflects shared structural logics.
• Construct independent, evidence-based analytical arguments in written and oral forms, drawing on primary and secondary sources.
• Develop strategic assessments and policy recommendations under conditions of geopolitical uncertainty.

Assessment

Seminar Participation and Engagement — 20%
Active, substantive participation is an intellectual and professional expectation, not an optional supplement to the written work. Students are assessed on the quality of their contributions across the semester: the rigour of their arguments, their engagement with theoretical frameworks, their willingness to challenge and build upon the ideas of others, and the consistency of their preparation. Students who attend without contributing meaningfully will not score well on this component. Students who lead discussions, bring evidence from primary sources, or connect weekly debates to wider analytical and policy frameworks will be recognised accordingly.

Policy Analysis Report — 20%
A structured analytical report of 1,500 to 2,000 words examining a specific Russian energy foreign policy instrument, relationship, or episode. Students select a case from a provided list and analyse its political, strategic, and geopolitical dimensions, drawing on relevant theoretical frameworks from the course. The report should demonstrate command of the literature, precision in the use of concepts, and clarity of argument. It is submitted at the end of Week 6.

Strategic Policy Brief — 20%
A policy brief of 1,000 to 1,500 words addressed to a specified decision-making audience: a government ministry, an international institution, or a strategic advisory body. Students identify a current challenge arising from Russian energy statecraft, assess its implications, and recommend a course of action, with explicit attention to risks, trade-offs, and alternative scenarios. The brief should combine analytical depth with policy clarity. It is submitted at the end of Week 9.

Simulation Exercise and Presentation — 10%
A structured role-play simulation held in Weeks 10 and 11, in which students represent states, international organisations, energy corporations, or strategic advisory bodies in a multilateral negotiation shaped by Russian energy statecraft. Each student prepares a position paper of 500 words in advance and participates in the negotiation. Assessment focuses on preparation quality, strategic coherence during the simulation, and a brief reflective presentation of five minutes delivered afterwards. Detailed instructions and role assignments are distributed at the end of Week 7.

Final Research Essay — 30%
An extended research essay of 3,000 to 4,000 words addressing a substantive question in Russian energy foreign policy. Students may develop an argument arising from any area of the course, provided they situate it clearly within the relevant theoretical debate, engage with primary sources or policy documents, and advance an original analytical claim. A one-page essay proposal is submitted at the end of Week 8 for feedback before the final deadline in Week 13.

Literature

• Balmaceda, M. M. (2021). Russian energy chains: The remaking of technopolitics from Siberia to Ukraine to the European Union. Columbia University Press.
• Perović, J. (2024). Fuel and power: Energy, trade, and Russian foreign relations from Lenin to Putin. Cambridge University Press.
• Porter, J., & Vinokour, M. (Eds.). (2023). Energy culture: Work, power, and waste in Russia and the Soviet Union. Springer.
• Shiraev, E. (2026). Russian foreign policy (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Syngellakis, S., & Brebbia, C. A. (Eds.). (2018). Challenges and solutions in the Russian energy sector. Springer.
• Tsygankov, A. P. (2025). Russia’s foreign policy: Change and continuity (7th ed.). Bloomsbury Academic.
• Tynkkynen, V.-P. (2019). The energy of Russia: Hydrocarbon culture and climate change. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Students are expected to work across three categories of source material:

• Academic literature provides theoretical frameworks and empirical analysis.
• Policy documents — from Russian state institutions, Western governments, international organisations, and think tanks specialising in Russian affairs and energy — provide the primary material through which Russian energy foreign policy is formulated and contested.
• Energy trade data and strategic assessments, produced by bodies such as the International Energy Agency, the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, and national energy security authorities, provide the empirical foundations for policy analysis.

Learning to read across all three, and to identify the assumptions, interests, and limitations embedded in each, is itself a core intellectual skill of the course.

Research articles do not appear in the bibliography above. This is intentional. Each week, students are expected to identify a peer-reviewed article relevant to that week’s topic, bring it to the seminar, and share it with the group. The lecturer contributes selections alongside the class. This practice develops independent literature-searching habits, exposes the seminar to a wider range of scholarly perspectives than any fixed reading list could provide, and keeps the course in sustained contact with current debates in the field.

Structure

Week 1 — Why has energy become central to Russian foreign policy?

Russia’s relationship with its energy resources is inseparable from its understanding of itself as a great power. The Soviet Union was the world’s largest oil and gas producer, and energy exports financed military capacity, subsidised allied states, and sustained the political economy of late socialism. The collapse of 1991 was also, in significant measure, an energy story: falling oil prices in the 1980s eroded the fiscal foundations of the Soviet state, and the chaotic privatisation of the 1990s converted strategic energy assets into instruments of oligarchic accumulation. The Putin era reversed this trajectory, re-establishing state control over hydrocarbons and rebuilding energy as the central pillar of Russian great power politics. This week establishes the foundational analytical vocabulary of the course: energy statecraft, resource nationalism, the petrostate model, and the contested question of whether energy is a durable source of Russian international power or a structural vulnerability masquerading as strength.

Key Themes

• Energy and Russian state power: historical foundations from the Soviet period to the present
• The post-Soviet transformation of Russian energy assets: privatisation, oligarchy, and renationalisation
• Resource nationalism and the consolidation of state control under Putin
• Theoretical frameworks: petrostate models, rentier state theory, and energy statecraft

Case Studies

• Soviet energy legacies and their significance for post-Soviet Russian foreign policy
• The renationalisation of Yukos and the political economy of Kremlin energy control

Seminar Exercise

• Mapping Russian energy influence: students construct a diagram of Russia’s principal energy export relationships, financial flows, and infrastructure dependencies, identifying where energy translates directly into geopolitical leverage and where that translation is contested or fails.

Analytical Focus

• Situating Russian energy strategy within international relations theory and political economy; introducing petrostate and rentier state frameworks; establishing the analytical relationship between domestic energy governance and external foreign policy behaviour

Week 2 — Can energy sustain Russia’s great power status?

Hydrocarbons have underwritten Russian great power pretensions since the oil price recovery of the early 2000s. Rising revenues from oil and gas exports funded military modernisation, financed diplomatic outreach across the Global South, sustained domestic political stability through social spending, and gave Russian foreign policy a degree of assertiveness that the impoverished 1990s state could not afford. Yet the relationship between hydrocarbon wealth and durable great power status is more contested than it appears. Resource dependency creates vulnerabilities as well as capabilities: price cycles beyond Moscow’s control determine the fiscal space available to the state; the failure to diversify the economy has deepened structural fragility; and the technological demands of sustaining production in mature fields and developing new ones have exposed the limits of Russian capacity in the absence of Western equipment and expertise. This week examines the political economy of Russian energy power, asking what hydrocarbons have genuinely delivered for Russian foreign policy ambition and where their structural limits lie.

Key Themes

• Hydrocarbons and geopolitical influence: revenues, capacity, and the limits of resource power
• Oil and gas rents and their distribution: fiscal policy, military spending, and political stability
• State capitalism and the political economy of Gazprom and Rosneft
• Resource dependency as strategic vulnerability: price volatility, technological limits, and economic diversification failures

Case Studies

• Russian oil and gas export revenues and their translation into foreign policy capacity, 2000 to 2024
• The political economy of Gazprom: strategic asset, rent distribution mechanism, and foreign policy instrument

Seminar Exercise

• Strategic vulnerability assessment: students analyse the relationship between oil price cycles and Russian foreign policy assertiveness across specific historical periods, assessing whether the correlation supports a petrostate model or requires more nuanced theoretical explanation.

Analytical Focus

• Applying rentier state and petrostate frameworks to the Russian case; evaluating the relationship between energy revenues and foreign policy capacity; distinguishing resource power from durable strategic capability

Week 3 — Are energy infrastructures instruments of geopolitical architecture?

Pipelines do not merely transport gas and oil: they inscribe geopolitical relationships into physical geography, create dependencies that outlast the political calculations that produced them, and constitute infrastructure that states and non-state actors can threaten, disrupt, or destroy. Russian pipeline strategy has been one of the most studied and most contested dimensions of post-Soviet geopolitics. The Nord Stream projects encapsulated a decade of European debate about the relationship between energy commercialism and strategic risk; TurkStream reoriented Southern European supply geography after the collapse of South Stream; the Druzhba pipeline network created an oil dependency across Central and Eastern Europe that persists decades after the Soviet collapse. The destruction of Nord Stream 1 and 2 in September 2022 demonstrated that even the most strategically significant infrastructure could be removed from the equation by a single covert operation, raising fundamental questions about the durability of pipeline-based leverage as a foreign policy instrument. This week examines Russian energy infrastructure strategy as a form of geopolitical architecture, asking how it was built, how it functions, and what its destruction and potential replacement reveal about the future of Russian energy statecraft.

Key Themes

• Pipeline geopolitics: strategic design, transit politics, and the coercive use of infrastructure
• The Nord Stream projects: construction, political controversy, and their destruction
• TurkStream and the reorientation of Southern European gas supply
• The Druzhba pipeline and Russian oil infrastructure in Central and Eastern Europe
• Arctic LNG infrastructure and the maritime energy dimension

Case Studies

• Nord Stream 1 and 2: the political economy of their construction and the consequences of their destruction
• TurkStream: Turkish-Russian energy diplomacy and the leveraging of transit geography
• Russian Arctic LNG infrastructure: Yamal LNG, Arctic LNG 2, and the sanctions-induced disruption of their development

Seminar Exercise

• Infrastructure strategy workshop: students map the Russian pipeline and LNG infrastructure network, assess the leverage each system creates and its current condition following sanctions and physical disruption, then evaluate the strategic options available to Russia for rebuilding or replacing those instruments of influence.

Analytical Focus

• Infrastructure analysis as geopolitical method; connecting physical energy systems to patterns of dependency, leverage, and strategic risk; evaluating how infrastructure destruction and replacement alter the foreign policy options available to energy-exporting states

Week 4 — How have energy crises and coercion shaped Russia’s relations with Europe?

Russia’s energy relationship with Europe is the central case study in the study of energy coercion. For three decades after the Soviet collapse, European states imported Russian gas in quantities that created structural dependency, even as successive episodes of supply disruption — the 2006 and 2009 Ukraine gas crises, the 2014 annexation of Crimea and its energy consequences, the 2021 to 2022 supply manipulation — made the political risks of that dependency increasingly legible. The full decoupling that followed the 2022 invasion was the most rapid and costly energy transition in European history, and it imposed substantial costs on both sides. For Russia, the loss of the European market removed the largest and most lucrative destination for its gas exports and stripped away the infrastructural leverage that had been the centrepiece of its European foreign policy for a generation. This week examines energy coercion as a foreign policy instrument through the Russia-Europe case, asking when it worked, when it failed, and what its ultimate exhaustion reveals about the limits of energy as a geopolitical weapon.

Key Themes

• Energy dependence and coercion: theoretical frameworks and the European case
• The 2006 and 2009 Russia-Ukraine gas crises: causes, dynamics, and European consequences
• The 2021 to 2022 supply manipulation and the energy weapon in the context of war
• European decoupling: speed, costs, and strategic implications for Russian foreign policy

Case Studies

• The January 2009 gas crisis: complete supply cutoff, European emergency, and its institutional aftermath
• Russia’s reduction of gas flows to Europe in 2021 to 2022: coercion, market manipulation, or strategic miscalculation?
• The rapid post-2022 European energy pivot and the evaporation of Russian pipeline leverage over the continent

Seminar Exercise

• Coercion analysis: students evaluate a specified episode of Russian energy coercion against a European target, assessing the strategic objectives pursued, the instruments deployed, the response of the target state, the role of European institutions, and the ultimate effectiveness of the coercive strategy.

Analytical Focus

• Energy coercion as a foreign policy instrument: conditions for success and failure; evaluating the Russia-Europe relationship as the paradigmatic case; assessing the long-term strategic consequences of the exhaustion of the European energy weapon for Russian foreign policy

Week 5 — Can Russia pivot east through energy diplomacy?

The loss of the European market has made the eastern pivot not merely a strategic aspiration but a structural necessity for Russian energy exports. Russia has been developing energy relationships with China, India, and other Asian markets for decades, but the pace and scale of that development accelerated sharply after 2022 as European demand collapsed and Russian producers sought alternative buyers. The Power of Siberia pipeline, operational since 2019, represents the most significant physical infrastructure of the Russia-China energy relationship, but its capacity is modest relative to the volumes previously exported to Europe. The deepening of the Russia-India energy relationship, driven above all by discounted oil exports following Western sanctions, illustrates a different pattern: price-sensitive commercial engagement without the long-term infrastructure dependency that characterised Russia’s European model. This week examines the eastern pivot as a strategic project, asking how far it can compensate for the loss of European markets, what political dependencies it creates, and whether China’s growing leverage over a sanctions-weakened Russia constitutes a strategic problem that Russian policymakers acknowledge but cannot easily address.

Key Themes

• Russia-China energy relations: gas, oil, and the infrastructure of the eastern pivot
• The Power of Siberia pipeline and its successors: capacity, politics, and strategic implications
• Russia-India energy relations: discounted oil, sanctions evasion, and the limits of the relationship
• Asian energy markets and Russian export diversification: Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia

Case Studies

• Power of Siberia 1 and the negotiations for Power of Siberia 2: what the terms reveal about the China-Russia energy relationship
• Indian imports of discounted Russian crude after 2022: scale, mechanism, and strategic significance
• Russian LNG exports to Asia and the disruption caused by Western technology sanctions on Arctic projects

Seminar Exercise

• Strategic partnership analysis: students assess the Russia-China energy relationship from both sides, identifying the interests, dependencies, and leverage points of each party, then evaluate how far the eastern pivot constitutes a genuine strategic reorientation or a structurally unequal accommodation to Chinese terms.

Analytical Focus

• Strategic partnership analysis; applying asymmetric interdependence frameworks to the Russia-China energy relationship; evaluating the eastern pivot as a foreign policy strategy under conditions of sanctions pressure and market constraint

Week 6 — Is nuclear energy a geopolitical instrument?

Rosatom is one of the most consequential and least discussed instruments of Russian foreign policy. As the world’s largest exporter of nuclear reactor technology, it operates in over thirty countries, building and financing nuclear power plants that create infrastructure dependencies lasting sixty years or more. The financial model — turnkey construction, long-term fuel supply contracts, spent fuel management — locks client states into a sustained relationship with the Russian state corporation that transcends any individual government’s preferences and persists through periods of political tension. Rosatom has continued operating in markets where other Russian state entities face sanctions, precisely because the long-term nature of its commitments makes unilateral exit enormously costly for client states. This week examines nuclear energy diplomacy as a distinct instrument of Russian geopolitical influence, asking how the Rosatom model works, where it has been most effective, where it has encountered limits, and how Western and Chinese competition for the same markets is reshaping the nuclear export landscape.

Key Themes

• Rosatom as a foreign policy instrument: the business model and its geopolitical logic
• Long-term infrastructure dependency through nuclear technology exports
• The geography of Rosatom engagement: Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa
• Competition in the nuclear export market: Western suppliers, Chinese state corporations, and the South Korean model

Case Studies

• Rosatom in Hungary: the Paks II project and its persistence despite EU political pressure
• Rosatom in Turkey: Akkuyu and the deepening of Russian-Turkish energy interdependence
• Rosatom in Africa: engagement with Egypt, South Africa, and Ghana as instruments of influence in the Global South

Seminar Exercise

• Technology and diplomacy assessment: students evaluate a specified Rosatom engagement in a third country, assessing the strategic interests of both parties, the dependencies created, the domestic political dynamics in the client state, and the implications for Western or Chinese competitors seeking to displace Russian influence.

Analytical Focus

• Nuclear diplomacy as a long-horizon foreign policy instrument; connecting technology exports to structural dependency; evaluating the conditions under which Rosatom engagement constitutes durable geopolitical influence and where its leverage is more limited

Policy Analysis Report due at the end of this week.

Week 7 — How does Russia use energy in the post-Soviet space?

The former Soviet republics constitute the primary arena in which Russian energy statecraft has been most directly exercised as an instrument of political control. Energy pricing, pipeline access, and supply disruption have been used to reward aligned governments, punish those pursuing independent foreign policy orientations, and sustain Russian leverage in regions where formal political authority has retreated. Belarus received heavily subsidised energy in exchange for hosting Russian military facilities and accepting deep economic integration; Ukraine faced repeated price disputes and supply cutoffs at moments of political tension between Kyiv and Moscow; Central Asian states have navigated a complex landscape in which Russian pipeline access both provided export routes and imposed dependency. The South Caucasus illustrates a different pattern, where energy infrastructure has been a dimension of frozen conflicts as well as commercial relationships. This week examines Russian energy statecraft in the post-Soviet space as a distinctive regional model, asking how it functioned, how far it has survived the post-2022 strategic rupture, and what has replaced it where Russian leverage has diminished.

Key Themes

• Energy and regional influence in the post-Soviet space: the political economy of subsidised supply and selective coercion
• Belarus and the energy-security trade: subsidised hydrocarbons and deep political dependency
• Ukraine as the central case: pipeline transit, supply disputes, and the energy dimension of the conflict
• Central Asia: pipeline competition, transit politics, and the erosion of Russian monopoly
• The South Caucasus: energy infrastructure and frozen conflict

Case Studies

• Belarus-Russia energy relations: the political economy of subsidised dependency from 2000 to the present
• Central Asian gas and the emergence of Chinese pipeline competition as an alternative to Russian transit routes
• The South Caucasus energy corridor and the interplay between commercial energy infrastructure and Russian strategic interests in Georgia and Azerbaijan

Seminar Exercise

• Regional strategy workshop: students develop an analysis of Russian energy leverage in a specified post-Soviet state, mapping the instruments deployed, the political relationships they sustain, the countermeasures available to the target state, and the degree to which that leverage has changed since 2022.

Analytical Focus

• Regional energy statecraft; applying dependency and leverage frameworks to the post-Soviet context; evaluating how Russian energy influence in the near abroad has been sustained, eroded, and adapted across three decades

Simulation role assignments and instructions distributed this week.

Week 8 — Can sanctions weaken Russian energy power?

Western sanctions on Russia constitute the most extensive application of economic coercive measures against a major energy exporter in the history of international relations. The packages imposed since 2014, and vastly expanded after February 2022, target not only individual officials and corporations but the technological supply chains, financial infrastructure, insurance markets, and shipping networks upon which Russian energy production and export depend. The G7 oil price cap represents an attempt to limit Russian energy revenues without removing Russian oil from global markets entirely, creating a complex instrument whose effectiveness depends on the degree of third-country compliance. Russia has demonstrated considerable capacity for adaptation: redirecting oil exports to price-sensitive buyers in Asia, developing alternative payment mechanisms, and accelerating import substitution programmes with mixed success. This week examines the sanctions regime on Russian energy with analytical precision, asking what it has achieved, where its effects have been most significant, and what its limits reveal about the structural constraints of energy sanctions against a major producer.

Key Themes

• Western sanctions on Russian energy: design logic, phasing, and sectoral scope
• Technology sanctions and their implications for Russian upstream production capacity
• The G7 oil price cap: mechanism, compliance, enforcement, and real-world effects
• Russian adaptation strategies: export redirection, alternative payment systems, and import substitution

Case Studies

• Sanctions on Russian LNG technology: the disruption of Arctic LNG 2 and its consequences for Russian production ambitions
• Russian oil export redirection after 2022: shadow fleet operations, price discounting, and Asian buyer engagement
• Import substitution in the Russian energy sector: achievements, failures, and long-term technological dependency

Seminar Exercise

• Sanctions impact simulation: students are assigned roles as analysts advising either a Western government designing a new sanctions measure or a Russian strategic planning body assessing adaptation options, then present their assessments to the seminar for critical evaluation.

Analytical Focus

• Sanctions analysis as a foreign policy methodology; evaluating the conditions under which energy sanctions succeed and fail; connecting sanctions effectiveness to the structural features of global energy markets and the behaviour of third-country actors

Week 9 — Is Russia an energy power beyond hydrocarbons?

Russian energy power is habitually reduced to oil and gas, but the strategic picture is considerably more complex. The Arctic contains some of the largest remaining hydrocarbon reserves on the planet and is becoming accessible as climate change reduces sea ice, but developing those reserves demands technological capabilities and financial investment that sanctions have placed beyond Russia’s reach without partners. Critical minerals — including nickel, palladium, cobalt, titanium, and rare earth elements — constitute a significant but underappreciated dimension of Russian resource power, particularly as global demand for these materials accelerates with the energy transition. The governance of state corporations, above all Gazprom, Rosneft, and Rosatom, raises structural questions about whether Russia’s energy assets are being managed in ways compatible with long-term strategic resilience or are being depleted by short-term rent extraction and politically driven misallocation. This week examines the full resource geography of Russian energy power, asking what lies beyond the conventional hydrocarbon story and what it reveals about Russia’s long-term strategic position.

Key Themes

• Arctic energy development: reserves, accessibility, technological requirements, and sanctions constraints
• Critical minerals as a dimension of Russian resource power: nickel, palladium, titanium, and rare earths
• State corporate governance in the Russian energy sector: Gazprom, Rosneft, and long-term sustainability
• Infrastructure modernisation and technological dependency in the Russian energy sector

Case Studies

• The Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG 2 projects: ambition, foreign partnership, and sanctions disruption
• Russian nickel and palladium exports and their strategic significance for Western industrial supply chains
• Gazprom’s governance failures and their consequences for Russian foreign policy capacity

Seminar Exercise

• Strategic resource analysis: students evaluate the long-term sustainability of Russian energy power, assessing the assets that extend beyond conventional hydrocarbons, the technological and governance constraints that limit their development, and the implications for Russian foreign policy capacity over a twenty-year horizon.

Analytical Focus

• Resource power analysis beyond hydrocarbons; evaluating Arctic strategy under conditions of technological constraint; connecting corporate governance failures to long-term foreign policy capacity

Final essay proposal (one page) due at the end of this week.

Week 10 — Can energy diplomacy expand Russia’s global influence?

Russian energy diplomacy beyond the European and post-Soviet theatres has expanded significantly since 2014 and accelerated dramatically after 2022. In the Middle East, OPEC Plus coordination with Saudi Arabia has given Russia a sustained role in managing global oil prices that translates directly into export revenue and diplomatic standing. In India, the rapid expansion of discounted oil exports has deepened commercial ties while avoiding the political commitments that would expose New Delhi to secondary sanctions pressure. In Africa, Rosatom engagements, LNG supply discussions, and the projection of Russian soft power through the narrative of anti-colonial solidarity have created new arenas of influence, however fragile. In Latin America, the Venezuelan and Cuban energy relationships, though diminished from their Soviet-era peaks, retain symbolic importance. This week examines Russian global energy diplomacy as a strategic project, asking how far it constitutes durable influence, where it faces structural limitations, and how it intersects with the broader project of building a multipolar international order on terms favourable to Moscow.

Key Themes

• OPEC Plus and Russian influence over global oil markets: the mechanism, the relationship with Saudi Arabia, and its limits
• Russia-India energy relations in the post-2022 context: commercial pragmatism and strategic ambiguity
• Russian energy diplomacy in Africa: Rosatom engagements, LNG ambitions, and soft power narratives
• Multipolar energy diplomacy: Russia’s positioning in a fragmenting global order

Case Studies

• OPEC Plus production agreements and their management: Russia’s role, interests, and the tensions with Saudi Arabia
• Russian oil discounts and Indian import expansion after 2022: the terms, the scale, and the strategic significance
• Russian engagement with African states on nuclear and energy infrastructure: Egypt, South Africa, Ethiopia, and beyond

Seminar Exercise

• Multilateral energy diplomacy simulation (Part One): students represent assigned states and organisations — including Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, an African state, and a Western government — in a structured negotiation over a global energy governance arrangement, advancing position papers and engaging with competing interests under conditions of geopolitical pressure.

Analytical Focus

• Global energy diplomacy analysis; evaluating Russian influence-building strategies across diverse regional contexts; connecting energy partnerships to the broader project of multipolar order construction

Week 11 — Will the global energy transition weaken Russian geopolitical influence?

The global energy transition poses a structural challenge to Russian foreign policy that is both straightforward and deeply uncertain. If hydrocarbon demand declines substantially over the coming decades, the revenue base, export leverage, and geopolitical standing that oil and gas have provided to Russia will diminish accordingly. The strategic exposure this creates is real. Yet the pace, depth, and distributional consequences of the transition remain contested, and Russia has options that are often underestimated in Western analysis. Critical minerals needed for the transition are present in significant quantities on Russian territory. The transition is proceeding unevenly across different world regions, and states in the Global South that will remain dependent on affordable hydrocarbon energy for decades represent potential buyers and partners. Russia’s own domestic energy transition politics are shaped by the interests of powerful state corporations whose survival depends on continued hydrocarbon production. This week examines the energy transition as a strategic challenge to Russian foreign policy, asking not only what it threatens but what adaptation options remain available, and on what timeline the transition is likely to constitute a decisive constraint.

Key Themes

• Decarbonisation and its implications for hydrocarbon-dependent states: theoretical frameworks
• The energy transition and Russian export revenues: scenarios, timelines, and strategic uncertainty
• Russian adaptation strategies: critical minerals, hydrogen, and domestic transition politics
• The geopolitics of uneven decarbonisation: differential transition rates and their implications for Russian export markets

Case Studies

• European Green Deal implications for Russian gas export revenues: modelling the scenarios
• Russian hydrogen diplomacy: ambitions, barriers, and the realism of the pivot to green exports
• Russia’s critical minerals endowment and the degree to which it constitutes a transition-era strategic asset

Seminar Exercise

• Multilateral energy diplomacy simulation (Part Two) and reflective presentation: students continue the simulation from Week 10, reaching or failing to reach negotiated outcomes in a context shaped by transition pressures, then deliver individual five-minute reflective presentations on their strategic experience and what it revealed about the adaptability of Russian energy statecraft.

Analytical Focus

• Strategic forecasting under conditions of technological and market uncertainty; evaluating Russian adaptation strategies against structural constraints; connecting the energy transition to the long-term trajectory of Russian great power politics

Week 12 — What will Russian energy diplomacy look like in 2050?

Strategic forecasting is a discipline of structured uncertainty. It cannot predict the future, but it can identify the forces most likely to shape it, map the scenarios in which different combinations of those forces produce divergent outcomes, and clarify the policy choices that make some futures more or less probable. For Russian energy foreign policy, the horizon of 2050 presents a genuinely open and analytically demanding set of possibilities. A Russia that has successfully pivoted its energy exports to Asian markets, developed its critical minerals endowment, sustained Rosatom’s global reach, and managed the transition away from European dependency could remain a significant energy power on different terms. A Russia whose Arctic ambitions remain technologically stranded by sanctions, whose critical minerals strategies fail to compensate for falling hydrocarbon revenues, and whose state corporations continue to prioritise rent extraction over investment would face a fundamentally different strategic future. Artificial intelligence is reshaping energy demand in ways that complicate every existing projection. This week uses Russian energy diplomacy as the lens through which to examine the challenge of reasoning about geopolitical futures, synthesising the analytical frameworks developed across the course.

Key Themes

• Future Russian export strategies: Asian market consolidation, LNG expansion, and the limits of the eastern pivot
• Arctic geopolitics in 2050: resource accessibility, military positioning, and great power competition in the High North
• Artificial intelligence, energy demand transformation, and the implications for Russian hydrocarbon revenues
• Long-term geopolitical scenarios for Russian energy power: adaptation, decline, and the conditions that distinguish them

Case Studies

• Arctic shipping route development and its strategic implications for Russian energy export geography and military posture
• Scenarios for Russian oil and gas revenues under different global temperature pathways and energy transition speeds
• Contrasting long-term scenarios for Russian energy foreign policy: sustained relevance versus structural marginalisation

Seminar Exercise

• Strategic futures workshop: students work in teams to construct and present two contrasting scenarios for Russian energy foreign policy in 2050, specifying the key variables, driving forces, and strategic implications of each, then subject each other’s scenarios to critical scrutiny in open seminar discussion.

Analytical Focus

• Strategic forecasting methodology; scenario construction; synthesising the theoretical, historical, and policy-oriented frameworks developed across the course and applying them to problems whose resolution genuinely depends on choices not yet made

Final Research Essay due in Week 13.

*** This course is designed to be adaptable. The weekly structure, assessment components, and reading load can be adjusted to suit the requirements of a particular higher education institution or the context of individual tutoring, and can be scaled to meet the demands of bachelor’s and master’s degree students alike. The analytical framework and intellectual ambitions of the course remain constant; the format is a starting point, not a constraint.