A defence industry report claiming that Russia requested a permanent base for its warplanes in Indonesia’s remote Papua region, right on Australia’s northern doorstep, sent Canberra into a tailspin. But in Indonesia, it was the frenzy whipped up in Australia’s tight election campaign that came as the real surprise.
Foreign policy and defence experts are highly sceptical about the prospect that Jakarta would ever acquiesce to such a Russian request, and besides, it is hardly new. Moscow has sought permanent basing rights for its planes at Indonesia’s Biak airfield in Papua for almost half a century – and not once has it won approval.
No foreign power has a military base in Indonesia, or permanent access to any of its domestic bases. Indonesia has enshrined in its constitution a commitment to a “free and independent” foreign policy, which is premised on non-alignment.
“The probability [of accepting a Russian request] is low or nearly zero,” said Rahman Yaacob, a defence expert at Australia’s Lowy Institute. “The main reason is because of Indonesia’s domestic foreign policy, it’s basically non-aligned.”
Gatra Priyandita, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), agreed, saying: “It goes against the principle of basically providing no military bases to any overseas external powers.”
But the prospect is tantalising. Indonesia is a vast archipelago that stretches across South-east Asia. The Papua region is an entry point into the Pacific, and the Biak airbase is just 1,300km from Darwin in northern Australia, where the US has a military base.
Russia has continued this week with economic overtures. Indonesia’s president Prabowo Subianto welcomed Russia’s first deputy prime minister, Denis Manturov, to Jakarta to discuss free trade and mark 75 years of diplomatic relations between the two nations.
Matthew Sussex, a visiting fellow at the Australia National University, said President Vladimir Putin has aspirations for Russia to become a “Euro-Pacific power”.
“From the Russian perspective, they would have a strategic toehold in South-east Asia, which would allow it to conduct intelligence gathering, mainly against the United States in terms of Guam,” he said. “But also extending down towards increasingly important US bases in the Northern Territory and then potentially out west into the Indian Ocean.”
Biak is also close to the Philippines, a close US ally in the region.
Another possible reason for Russia’s interest in Biak is that it is close to the equator, which lends itself to space operations. Indonesia has plans to build a satellite launch site there, and Russia has been trying to negotiate with Indonesia to be involved, said Lowy’s Yaacob. Its airfield is quite rudimentary, so experts say it could make more sense as a site to launch low-Earth orbit satellites and high-altitude, long endurance drones.
“But the negotiation has been slow. I understand Indonesia is trying to say no, but this is their way of saying no, to drag the negotiation on,” he said, referring to Indonesia’s cultural tendency to avoid direct rejection.
The Trump factor
It’s also a matter of timing. As Donald Trump’s administration throws the post-war world order into question, the time is ripe for Russia to grow closer to its Indonesian partners and South-east Asia as a whole.
Indonesia and Russia held their first joint naval drills last year, while President Prabowo Subianto visited Moscow last October. This February, Sergei Shoigu, secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council, visited Jakarta to discuss deepening defence ties.
Indonesia also recently joined the Brics grouping, of which Russia is a founding member. Russian-Indonesian trade has grown by 80% in the past five years, the Russian government reports, reaching $4.3bn in 2024.
But the world’s fourth-most populous nation and South-east Asia’s largest economy, is a far cry from becoming the next client state, for Russia, or any other nation
At best, some say Russia might weasel out a concession, as it did in 2017, when it was granted access to Biak for about five days. (It had at the time also sought permanent access but that request was denied).
But under pressure domestically, due to an ailing economy and controversial new military law, it would be an inopportune time for Prabowo to pull such an extraordinary move.
On the unlikely chance Prabowo granted Russia its request, it would be an unprecedented divergence.
Still, Russia’s opportunistic move raises questions about why exactly Putin is pitching for Biak now.
“I think it was an attempt to say, ‘Well, ‘let’s see how far Jakarta will go,’” said Sussex, adding that with the US in retreat: “When there’s a vacuum, it gets filled.”
Indonesia, of course, is not the only place into which Russia is seeking inroads.
Between 2004 and 2023 Russia was the largest arms supplier in terms of value in South-east Asia, with 25% of a $42bn market, although that share has since dropped. But as Russia runs a wartime economy, it may be looking for new markets if the war in Ukraine ends.
“Those [weapons] factories will not be easily switched over to making washing machines,” Sussex said, “so they will be looking to sell arms around the world, and obviously these Asian clients are cashed up and in a region where there’s a lot of tension, so willing buyers.”
In war-torn Myanmar, Russia is a key ally and arms supplier. This year, Myanmar’s junta leader travelled to Moscow to deliver a gift of six elephants, which coincided with the delivery of six Russian fighter jets to Myanmar.
The two countries also signed an agreement on developing a small-scale nuclear power plant in Myanmar. Russia has successfully locked in other countries to such long-standing partnerships, but it has struggled to replicate that success in South-east Asia.
“This is a known play from Russia,” said Sam Cranny-Evans, editor of the UK-based Calibre Defence news and consultancy. “Its power station in Turkey will be operated and owned by Russia for at least a decade, and Rosatom has signed multiple agreements with African nations for similar projects, building close relations and dependencies as it does.”
Even if Russia’s bid for Biak comes to nothing, Putin has put the idea in the minds of the US’s traditional regional allies, whose sense of security has already been disrupted.
“Putin is often regarded as a master strategist,” said the ANU’s Sussex, “I think his skills are more in tactics, in being opportunistic, and making it look like strategy.”