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Iman Muttaqin Yusof

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim visited Russia’s Kazan with a message about Asean centrality and a more urgent national problem behind it: keeping fuel supplies secure as global energy uncertainties linger.
The two-day Asean-Russia Commemorative Summit has turned into a small but telling test of Washington’s influence in Southeast Asia, according to analysts, with Anwar and other regional leaders meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin even as Western governments seek to increase pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
The gathering in Kazan, the capital of Russia’s Tatarstan republic, from Wednesday to Thursday marked 35 years of ties between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Russia. It also showed that Russia still has diplomatic reach beyond China, India and the usual anti-Western forums.
For Southeast Asian leaders, the draw was more immediate: energy, fertiliser, technology and room to manoeuvre amid doubts about Washington’s commitment to Asean.
Speaking at the Russia-Asean Business Forum, Anwar said the presence of Asean leaders in Kazan proved the bloc’s willingness to engage Russia despite geopolitical pressure.
“We are meeting today too in a situation beset by geopolitical tensions,” Anwar told the audience on Wednesday. “The fact that my colleagues, the Asean leaders here, [are] willing to meet and engage Vladimir Putin is a good sign of our centrality and our preparedness to overcome these inherent prejudices and to focus on the development of our region and the international community.”
While Anwar did not name Washington or Europe, analysts said his remarks pointed to the widening gap between Western efforts to keep Russia diplomatically isolated and Asean’s preference for keeping doors open to Moscow, especially where energy security was at stake.

Energy hedge
Anwar met Putin on the sidelines of the summit to discuss energy security, long-term oil supply cooperation, emerging technologies, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, agriculture and pharmaceuticals.
The talks also covered visa liberalisation and ways to expand trade and investment using local currencies, including the ringgit and the rouble. Anwar thanked Putin for Russia’s support for energy cooperation, particularly involving Malaysia’s state oil company Petronas.
“You have given fantastic support. Thank you very much,” Anwar told Putin, according to Malaysia’s state news agency Bernama.
Putin, in turn, described Malaysia as a long-standing partner and said the two countries were well placed to deepen ties.
“Last year, your country chaired Asean and we welcome that Malaysia maintains and supports the development of the first strategic partnership between Russia and Asean,” he said.
Malaysia did not join Western sanctions on Russia following Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and has repeatedly framed its diplomacy as non-aligned, transactional and rooted in national interest.
Among Asean members, Singapore is the only country to have imposed sanctions and export controls against Russia over the war. The city state’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong also attended the summit and met Putin.

Anwar has separately reassured Malaysians that petrol and diesel supplies remain secure after months of anxiety over the Middle East conflict and pressure on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Ian Storey, principal fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and author of Putin’s Russia and Southeast Asia, said the summit was about Russia burnishing its Global South ties while offering energy expertise to countries worried about supply.
“In Putin’s bilateral meetings with most Asean leaders, oil, gas and nuclear power will be at the top of the agenda,” Storey said.
Russia’s economic footprint in Southeast Asia remains small – less than 1 per cent of Asean’s total external trade – but Moscow has grown more relevant because of energy disruption and the region’s search for alternative suppliers.
“Most Southeast Asian states have already moved on from the Russia-Ukraine war and want to go back to a business-as-usual approach to relations with Moscow,” Storey said.
Washington’s limits
The Kazan summit came as G7 leaders pledged to increase pressure on Russia’s war economy, including sanctions targeting its oil and gas sectors. That made the sight of Southeast Asian leaders sitting with Putin more politically charged, even if their agenda was framed around trade and development.
The Philippines, a US treaty ally and this year’s Asean chair, sent President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr to co-chair the summit with Putin. Marcos thanked his Russia counterpart for hosting the meeting and invited him to attend the Asean summit in Manila in November.

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Le Minh Hung used the business forum to call for energy to become a key pillar of Asean-Russia cooperation, while Laos and Russia signed an agreement on cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the Kazan gathering showed Southeast Asian states were increasingly willing to act on their own when they found US policy unreliable.
“It says they are so frustrated with the US and fearful of losing the US security umbrella that they are now acting on their own and ignoring the US, as Europe has already begun to do,” Kurlantzick said.
The “inherent prejudices” Anwar referred to were “the views of the US and to some extent Europe”, he added.
Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute public policy think tank, said US President Donald Trump was unlikely to object to increased cooperation between Asean and Russia, given his own efforts to engage Putin directly. But others in Washington might see the summit differently.
“This does show the limits of US influence, particularly in the aftermath of the Iran war,” Cooper said. “American leaders and their European counterparts will have a difficult time convincing some in Southeast Asia and beyond that Russia must continue to be isolated.”

Small trade, big signal
Trade between Asean and Russia remains modest. As Anwar has acknowledged, the two sides are “not yet principal economic partners” and have not tapped the “enormous potential” in the relationship.
While Asean’s total goods trade reached US$3.84 trillion in 2024, its trade with Russia amounted to just US$18.1 billion, according to the bloc’s figures.
Ben Cahill, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the energy shock had forced oil importers to look beyond their usual suppliers and consider Russia as a source.
“Russia produces several crude grades, but Urals blend is a decent substitute for lost medium sour barrels from the Middle East,” Cahill said.
Crude quality still mattered, however, as refiners typically bought grades suited to their facility configurations, he said, adding that substitutions could be made “in a pinch”, but they often created inefficiencies.
Oil prices eased on Thursday after the US and Iran signed an interim peace agreement aimed at ending the Iran war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, with Brent crude falling to US$78.66 a barrel, according to Reuters.
The deal came after more than 100 days of disruption around Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries a large proportion of global oil and gas shipments.


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Russian President Vladimir Putin, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (centre) and his wife Loo Tze Lui pose for a photo on the sidelines of the Russia-Asean summit in Kazan, Russia, on Wednesday. Photo: Mikhail Metzel/Pool Sputnik Kremlin/AP

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At the Asean-Russia summit in Kazan, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim signalled the bloc’s willingness to engage with Moscow on trade


At the Asean-Russia summit in Kazan, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim signalled the bloc’s willingness to engage with Moscow on trade.


Malaysia and Asean tap Russia for energy security, defying Western ‘prejudices’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}At the Asean-Russia summit in Kazan, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim signalled the bloc’s willingness to engage with Moscow on trade

At the Asean-Russia summit in Kazan, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim signalled the bloc’s willingness to engage with Moscow on trade