New Book Explores Russia’s War in Ukraine and Efforts to Reshape the Global Order

In her debut book, We Shall Outlast Them: Putin’s Global Campaign to Defeat the West (W. W. Norton & Company, 2026), Hanna Notte explores how Russia is using the war in Ukraine as part of a broader effort to reshape the global order.

Drawing on research from visits to more than a dozen countries, Notte, director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Center for Nonproliferation Studies, also examines how Moscow has adapted to Western sanctions and efforts to isolate Russia, forged new alliances, and reshaped its foreign policy around the war.

Notte spoke with us by phone from her office in Berlin, about 400 miles northeast of her hometown of Trier, Germany, to discuss her new book, which has received positive reviews in Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, and the Irish Times.

Your book offers a unique perspective on Russia and its changing place in the world. What about your research led you to take this approach?

Well, the idea came in spring 2023, about a year into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I had always been a scholar focused not so much on Russia and the countries immediately surrounding it, but more on Russia’s relationships with the broader world. It became quite apparent a year into the war that this was not going to end anytime soon, and that Russia had basically recalibrated its whole foreign policy to make it subservient to the needs of prosecuting the war. Everything Russia did in its relationships with other countries, in multilateral forums, and in the area of nuclear arms control and nonproliferation was shaped by the war and reframed to serve its interests in this confrontation. With so many books explaining what drove Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine in the first place, I felt there was still a book to be written about how Russia’s place in the world was changing as a result of the war. There was Russia’s complete estrangement from Europe, the total rupture in ties, and its turn to the east and south to mobilize political and economic support. There was also its waning influence in other parts of the world, for instance the Middle East and South Caucasus. There was just so much in motion. 

Were you surprised by Russia’s attempt at this new recalibration? 

I think what shocked me was the decision to go to war. In the months leading up to February 2022, I thought it might happen, but it was still shocking because, to many observers, it was apparent that this would be disastrous for Russia and Russian society. That Russia would then pivot and come up with all sorts of adaptations, innovations, and improvisations to muddle through and find ways to deal with Western sanctions and isolation didn’t surprise me. I think we’ve seen this kind of adaptation and resilience historically in Russian foreign policy. Moreover, some of the things Russia has done in the last four and a half years aren’t entirely new. Russia has had a solid basis from which to expand its relationships in the Global South. And in other areas, like the hybrid campaign against Europe, Russia has simply stepped up the game. 

But there have also been some genuinely new things in Russian foreign policy. I think the turn to North Korea and to Iran to mobilize that kind of support, and also become dependent on China in a new way, are quite unprecedented for Russia. So it’s been a mix of change and continuity . 

Are you surprised by how much economic hardship Russians have been willing to endure during the war? Will they reach a limit?

The first thing we need to note is that it’s really only this year, the fifth year of the war, that average Russians are feeling the economic pain–and that is because Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign is hitting Russian refineries and warehouses. Overall, though the Russian economy is slowly degrading over time, Russian citizens have been largely shielded. The adaptations in Russia’s foreign economic statecraft have helped. Russia still managed to sell oil and import almost any goods it needed through what is called the “Eurasian roundabout,” trading through countries in the South Caucasus, Turkey, and Central Asia.

Now, how are Russians reacting to the fact that the war is hitting closer to home? I think the first thing to consider is their frame of reference. People of my generation—I’m 39 years old—may be dissatisfied. But older Russians who remember the late Soviet period and the 1990s probably still enjoy a much higher standard of living than they did back then. The second question is who they are blaming. From their perspective, the West is responsible for Ukraine’s long-range strike campaign, because the West is arming Ukraine. The fact that Russia started the war and that Ukraine is defending itself is not the mental frame most Russians are in, because the Kremlin has spent years telling Russians they’re fighting a defensive war against the “collective West.” This fuels resentment toward Europe and those supporting Ukraine, rather than toward their own government.

The third question is whether dissatisfaction with the economy and the ongoing war could even translate into meaningful political pressure on Putin. The problem is that in today’s Russia, there are no meaningful channels for turning frustration into pressure on the Kremlin. The opposition has been decimated, and I have real doubts about grassroots resistance because criticism of the war has been so heavily criminalized that people are afraid. My sense is that things would have to get much worse before Russia faces a real economic crisis or meaningful resistance to the war. 

That said, could the war last a long time?

That is the crucial question. It’s very difficult to answer. I think one could lay out a good, rational case for Vladimir Putin to end the war. The Russian economy is in structural decline; Russian forces aren’t making meaningful advances on the front; and the West is not really backing down from supporting Ukraine. Notwithstanding some benefits Russia has gotten from the Trump administration—whether directly, with the recent diesel deal, more diffusely, in that the Iran war has exacerbated Ukraine’s shortage of air defense munitions—Russia cannot hope that the U.S. will deliver a deal on Ukraine, compliant with Russian demands, at the negotiating table. 

But Putin seems to calculate that he can still outlast the other side, get more in Ukraine. He might believe that Russia’s ballistic missile production, combined with Ukraine’s shortage of Patriot interceptor ammunition, will allow him to inflict a really harsh fall and winter on Ukrainians—and we are already seeing Russia step up its campaign against Ukraine’s energy, water, and other infrastructure to make Ukrainian cities unlivable. He might also think that European support for Ukraine will falter if right-wing parties skeptical of that support come to power. He’s really playing the long game, I think, and believes Russia cares more about the outcome in Ukraine than the other side does. For Putin, this war is not just about Ukraine; it is a larger game. It is about claiming a sphere of influence in Russia’s backyard and dismantling the European security architecture established after the Cold War, including NATO expansion. I see no indication that this outlook is changing. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll have a war with Russia in Europe. But the adversarial relationship will continue even after the guns fall silent in Ukraine.