Myanmar, explained.
Vladimir Putin and Min Aung Hlaing on their way for a formal breakfast at the Kremlin, Moscow (Kremlin.ru)
Myanmar’s junta finds a second patron in Moscow
Russia is now Naypyidaw’s business partner as well as its arms dealer.
Myanmar, explained.
Vladimir Putin and Min Aung Hlaing on their way for a formal breakfast at the Kremlin, Moscow (Kremlin.ru)
Russia is now Naypyidaw’s business partner as well as its arms dealer.
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Myanmar’s junta finds a second patron in MoscowMyanmar’s junta finds a second patron in Moscow
When Myanmar’s military coup leader and now “civilian” president Min Aung Hlaing met Russia’s Vladimir Putin (Opens in new window) in Moscow on 18 August, the two leaders signed a joint statement against Western sanctions along with other instruments (Opens in new window) coveringa variety of areas including energy, space, digital technology and nuclear power.
Min Aung Hlaing has visited (Opens in new window) Russia more than a dozen times. Putin has never made the return journey, which indicates the asymmetry in the relationship. Nevertheless, while Russia has been Myanmar’s arms dealer (Opens in new window)for much of the last two decades, it is now becoming much more central to the Myanmar state.
The clearest example occurred a few days before the Moscow visit. The NGO Justice for Myanmar (Opens in new window)reported that on 12 August the regime contracted Astra Group – a Russian software firm with documented links to Russian military and intelligence agencies, and sanctioned by the US and Canada – to build Myanmar’s National Single Window, the online portal through which every import and export document in the country would pass.
This integration into Myanmar’s state administration is a very different type of engagement than from supplying military hardware. If Myanmar’s system was then connected to the ASEAN Single Window (Opens in new window), as it is designed to be, a Russian company would gain an insider view into regional trade flows.
The military relationship between the two authoritarian states has also crossed a new threshold. In July, Russian and Myanmar troops held Tiger-2026 (Opens in new window) in Naypyidaw, the first joint army exercise the two countries have conducted. Previous cooperation was naval and largely ceremonial, including Marumex drills (Opens in new window) in the Andaman Sea and port calls at Thilawa.
Tiger-2026 marked a new style of engagement. Over 12 days the two armies worked through drone reconnaissance (Opens in new window) and FPV strikes, sniper employment, jungle warfare and combat engineering, with an explicit exchange of “battlefield experience”. For Myanmar, this is not preparation for a war between states. It is counter-insurgency training for a military that bombs its own population.
Tiger-2026 is best understood as an export of the Ukraine war. The tactics employed – massed FPV strikes, drone-cued targeting, assault infantry pushed forward in waves – are those Russia has refined in Donbas.
Troops as part of the Myanmar-Russia Joint Exercise Tiger-2026, 17 July 2026, with an armed drone vehicle behind (cincds.gov.mm)
Materiel flows the other way, too. Myanmar’s state arms factories are reported (Opens in new window) to have shipped 120-millimetre mortar rounds and other munitions to Russia, which is consistent with a pattern now well established in other parts of Asia.
North Korea’s (Opens in new window) arrangement with Moscow – shells and soldiers for the war against Ukraine, in exchange for cash, technology and a treaty – has been the war’s most consequential realignment for this region, and a plausible template for any isolated authoritarian regime. Myanmar is following the same sequence, with Russia’s Secretary of the Security Council and former defence minister Sergei Shoigu signing a five-year defence agreement (Opens in new window) in Naypyidaw in February.
Unlike North Korea, Naypyidaw has neither a military nuclear program nor a ballistic missile program to bargain with.
For Myanmar, this is not preparation for a war between states. It is counter-insurgency training for a military that bombs its own population.
Min Aung Hlaing pays partly in rhetoric and diplomatic support, endorsing the invasion of Ukraine in person on successive visits.
The Dawei Special Economic Zone in eastern Myanmar illustrates this burgeoning relationship on the ground. Russia and the junta signed an investment memorandum (Opens in new window) in February 2025 for a deep-water port and oil refinery in Tanintharyi Region. In June the junta-controlled Launglon Economic Development Company signed a further agreement with Inter RAO (Opens in new window), the Russian state energy holding, for a 660-megawatt coal-fired power plant. The EU sanctioned (Opens in new window) Inter RAO the following month.
Last month the NGO Fortify Rights (Opens in new window) released an investigation of what happened when the military moved to secure the site. Troops swept into Yebyu Township and three humanitarian workers from The Ants Humanitarian Aid Team were detained at a checkpoint on 9 July and found in a palm oil plantation 11 days later with their throats cut.
These newer engagements sit alongside Russia’s pre-existing linkages to Myanmar. Russia (Opens in new window) supplies the Su-30s, MiG-29s and Mi-35s that fly the air campaigns and bomb civilians, and in 2025 it opened (Opens in new window) a joint satellite imagery centre in Naypyidaw – a potentially significant increase in the military’s lethal capacity. Rosatom holds an agreement for a small modular reactor (Opens in new window), with payments increasingly in roubles, beyond Western monitoring and sanctions.
Yet China remains the most consequential of Myanmar’s partners. Its geography and history ensure that Beijing dominates Myanmar’s trade and investment, and it holds leverage (Opens in new window) over ethnic armed organisations that Moscow lacks. China can open and close the northern border and turn armed groups on and off. Russia has more limited influence. But it is another powerful partner with a veto on the Security Council.
The difficulty for democratic governments around the world is that this deepening authoritarian engagement has accelerated as democracy is downgraded in Washington. In July 2025 the Trump administration delisted (Opens in new window) four Myanmar businessmen and four military-linked companies from its sanctions regime, even as the EU extended (Opens in new window) its measures to 2027. With a US indifferent to autocracy, the prospects for challenging this authoritarian axis are ever more limited.
About the author
Adam Simpson
Dr Adam Simpson is Senior Lecturer in International Studies in the School of Society and Culture, Adelaide University.
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