“[I’m] better off in saying that my favourite hero is Putin,” Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said just months into office. Declaring his “ separation ” from treaty ally America, he launched an “independent” foreign policy in favour of close strategic ties with Eastern powers such as Russia and became the first Philippine president to visit Moscow on two different occasions. In neighbouring Indonesia, Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, another right-wing populist, has even gone so far as to emulate Putin’s shirtless swagger, and also visited Moscow in pursuit of defence cooperation and arms deals. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia’s economic dynamos of Singapore and Vietnam sought closer trade and investment ties with Moscow, signing historic free-trade agreements with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. Up until recently, Southeast Asian nations viewed Russia as a largely benign power that could serve as an alternative source of armaments, Covid-19 vaccines and energy investments. Now, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has torpedoed its seemingly promising pivot to Southeast Asia. With the exception of Vietnam and Laos, almost all members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) signed up to the UN General Assembly resolution condemning Moscow’s aggression. Singapore has even imposed sweeping economic sanctions against Russia, earning it a place on Moscow’s new list of “unfriendly countries”. Throughout the 20th century, Moscow’s influence in Southeast Asia was confined to communist allies in Indochina. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was reduced to a marginal player in regional affairs, leaving the US, China and Japan to take leading roles. Asian nations worry US ‘all talk, and no action’ as it tries to court Asean Over the past decade, however, there has been a convergence of interest between Russia and Asean. On one hand, Russia proactively sought to deepen its strategic and economic ties with Asia after hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in 2012. Western sanctions following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 further reinforced Moscow’s search for alternative markets and partners in the East. Russia’s US$400 billion energy deal with China in 2014 served as the opening act for its increasingly determined pivot to the region. In Southeast Asia, a theatre of Sino-American competition, Russia found a particularly enthusiastic audience, as Asean countries sought to lessen their dependence on either the US or China. Moreover, influential regional leaders, including those of treaty allies like the Philippines (Duterte) and Thailand (Prayut Chan-o-cha), found Putin’s blend of authoritarian populism highly appealing. During the pandemic, Russia also presented itself as a source of public health assistance, offering Covid-19 vaccines to Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. Meanwhile, Asean collectively viewed Russia as a key strategic partner and, given the latter’s robust defence ties with several regional states, even a potential mediator in regional conflicts. Last year, the group held a special meeting to discuss Moscow’s potential assistance in the ongoing crisis in Myanmar, which heavily relies on Russian weapons and military training. Russia’s aggression against its European neighbour, however, could jeopardise its pivot to Southeast Asia on three levels. First, the invasion has created a diplomatic and ideological stigma around Moscow. As a collection of postcolonial nations, Asean is inherently averse to superpower military interventions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unearths the beginning of an Asean spine In an impassioned speech before the Singaporean parliament, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan described Russia’s actions as an “unprovoked military invasion of a sovereign state” and an “existential issue” for the city state. Together with Indonesia and current Asean chair Cambodia, Singapore co-sponsored the UN General Assembly resolution, which unequivocally “deplore[d] in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine”. Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who is also G20 chair, called for an immediate ceasefire. Second, the cascade of sanctions against Russia will make bilateral trade and investment with Asean increasingly prohibitive. Global shipping lines and financial institutions have boycotted Russia, making both merchandise trade and financial transactions extremely costly. Crucially, major Asian economies such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore have joined the sanctions bandwagon. As a result, even Vietnam, which has sought to maintain stable ties with Russia, is now struggling to export to the Eurasian country. This is particularly crucial, since Moscow’s Achilles' heel in the region has always been its relatively small economic footprint. The new sanctions, now targeting Russia’s central bank , will make the implementation of even existing trade agreements, including with Singapore and Vietnam, increasingly difficult. Finally, Russia could also experience reversals in its greatest area of strength, namely, its arms exports to the region. For the past two decades, Russia has been the largest external arms supplier to Southeast Asia, accounting for more than a quarter of deliveries of military hardware to the region. Will Russia’s Asia pivot and China’s help soften blow from sanctions? But the long shadow of US sanctions, specifically the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), under which countries may be punished for buying arms from Russia, has hobbled Moscow’s ambitions in the region and beyond. Earlier this year, Indonesia ditched a major arms deal with Russia in favour of alternative suppliers, partly due to fears of US sanctions. Thus, the new and more vigorous round of US sanctions targeting Russia’s defence industry in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine will further discourage key regional states, especially treaty allies such as the Philippines, from pursuing any major defence deal with Moscow. Confronting growing isolation and sweeping sanctions in the West, Russia is now struggling to fulfil its pivot to the East. Richard Heydarian is a Manila-based academic and author of “Asia’s New Battlefield: US, China and the Struggle for Western Pacific” and the forthcoming “Duterte’s Rise”