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Notes -
I'm not sure they're entirely relying on normal weariness on the West's part; I do wonder if they aren't subtly pushing the PRC and DPRK to start shit in the Far East to pull the West's resources away (and/or destroy chunks of those resources, if there's a nuclear exchange).
They aren't, for much the same reason that Russia has been not-so-privately lobbying Iran to not expand the current conflict with Israel: if the people currently selling Russia war material get into their own major wars, they are going to stop selling material to Russia, and if Russia is seen as part/party to these broader conflicts, then Russia's ability to try and disengage from Ukraine next year via a negotiated cease fire goes down.
There's also the point that there's no particular interest for the Chinese or North Koreans to to start a war for Russia's interest rather than their own. North Korea, for example, is presumably making bank selling munitions to the Russians.
Interesting. Would you mind giving me some further reading on the "not-so-privately lobbying Iran" point?
The Guardian has an article titled Putin reportedly calls for Iran to limit damage in any retaliation against Israel as a starting point. Rand published a think-piece earlier this year titled Why Russia Doesn't Want War Between Israel and Iran. Stimson has a piece on how Russia Benefits from Continued But Calibrated Israel-Iran Hostilities.
It's not a single article or even group of articles, and it's been a dynamic that has evolved over years, so it's less recommendations of specific readings and more on topics.
Key points are on the foundations of the current Russia-Iranian good relations (it's the sale of war material from Russia to Iran in exchange for technology / other goodies), the evolution of Russia's relations with Israel over the same period (Russia has shifted from a relative neutrality to a default alignment to Iranian positions vis-a-vis Israel, but not pro-Iran vis-a-vis other regional arab states), the various shuttle diplomacy the key actors like Shoigu to the Iranians earlier this month (a Security Council rather than diplomatic VIP indicating security-focused engagement in the context of the Israel assassination of the Hamas leader in Iran), the Russian diplomatic / information framings and implied recommendations around the time (condemning the assassinations, but various 'Anonymous Sources' allusions offering suspected motive that the assassination was to scuttle peace and draw the US into military action, i.e. to resist the assassinations Iran should not complete the scuttlign and draw the US into military action), and the under-whelming Iranian response and similar Russian leadups in not just this incident, but earlier ones (demonstrating successful lobbying in general against more powerful retaliations).
You can find some academic / think tank papers on Russia relations / interests in the Middle East as well. Rand had one in the last few years on Russia's interests given that it's preoccupied in Ukraine. There's also a general history of reading into Russia's tradition as a geopolitical spoiler in which Russia wants to be part of the negotiation for resolving any conflict, as a way to build influence / interests, but the flip side is that if Russia can't profit / can't get involved to profit, it doesn't want there to be the sort of conflicts that move things forward in ways that might leave it out.
For not-so-private lobbying in general, the Russians have a diplomatic narrative trope in that when unclear actors do something to someone else that Russia is seeking to influence, they often hypothesize a motive that just so happens to be what the Russians want the party to not do. This creates narrative structures like 'This was totally bad and done by Bad People and I'm on your side, and I'm not going to tell you to not do the thing you might want to do just because I don't want you to do it, I'm just gonna say that the people who did this to you want you to do the thing I'm not going to tell you not to do, and so if you do it you're playing into the Bad People's hands.' It's not a uniquely Russian trope, or omnipresent, but it's familiar enough in the same way that certain commentary tropes can be distinctly European or American.
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