THE Kremlin must have been a very busy place these past weeks.

What between working to swing elections in the two former Soviet republics of Moldova and Georgia, to hosting the Brics summit in an effort to create a global counterweight to Western power, Russian president Vladimir Putin is going the full mile to place Russia at the epicentre of shifting international alliances.

For example, earlier in the summer it seems some elderly Moldovans started receiving an unusual top-up to their monthly pensions. By all accounts the money didn’t come from the state but from a fugitive oligarch living in Moscow, via a Russian state bank and was paid to Russian-issued credit cards outlawed in Moldova.

READ MORE: Striking council staff to stage protest outside John Swinney's office

Apparently it would seem, the same oligarch’s only stipulation for pensioners receiving the cash was if they voted “No” on the referendum on EU membership that took place last Sunday along with the first round of Moldova’s presidential election.

According to the Moldovan authorities, the pension top-ups – as well as large sums of cash found on passengers arriving via connecting flights from Moscow – are just some of the many methods the Kremlin used to influence the referendum to decide whether the aim to join the EU should be enshrined in Moldova’s constitution.

In the days ahead of the referendum, the Moldovan authorities also uncovered a programme in which hundreds of Moldovan citizens were brought to Russia to undergo training to stage riots and civil unrest.

For those among you reading this who thought the 2014 Scottish independence referendum or Brexit votes were close run things, then spare a thought for those Moldovans who by the squeakiest of margins last Sunday voted “Yes” with 50.4% against 49.6% “No” to amend the constitution despite dogged Russian interference to prevent it. Up until then the polls had suggested an easy win for the “Yes” vote, but instead this turned into a nail-biting count.

The worry now is whether the losing side will accept the outcome or if unrest will follow, all of which bodes ill for Moldova’s future should a full vote come on joining the EU.

Meanwhile, this Saturday in Georgia, where there is again evidence of Russian interference, the Kremlin’s stooge, oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream party is expected to win and set in train a harsh agenda that would make EU membership all but impossible.

What both elections tell us is that the Kremlin, despite its heavy commitment in Ukraine, remains determined to pour money into vote buying and propaganda campaigns – and those individuals it’s able to manipulate – to reassert its stamp on former Soviet territories.

On a much wider level too, Russia along with China is aiming to shift international alliances as is evident at the Brics summit hosted in the Russian city of Kazan on the banks of the Volga this week.

On the agenda this year, the first full summit after the formal incorporation of Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates into the bloc alongside the original member grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and later South Africa, will be talk of creating a truly multipolar world order to challenge US and Western hegemony.

READ MORE: Argyll volunteers deliver aid to Gaza refugees in Egypt

For countries like Russia and Iran under the weight of economic sanctions, Brics offers a chance to come up with an alternative to the world dominance of the US dollar.

Though Brics in many ways is an uncomfortable alliance, its emergence and capacity to harness emerging economies of what’s been called the Global South, should not be underestimated. China for example now trades more with the Global South than the US, Japan and the EU combined.

The Global South too represents almost half the world’s population and more than 35% of world economic output, even if China is responsible for the bulk of this.

Seen from Russia’s perspective, nearly three years after its invasion of Ukraine that was condemned by countries globally, the hosting of Brics for Putin sends out a pointed signal that far from being alone, an emerging coalition of countries stands at least alongside him on certain issues.

At every turn rather than being daunted, Putin it seems is facing off against the West and taking every conceivable opportunity to bring allies alongside Russia.

Take for example the growing military-industrial ties between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

While the members of this quartet vary dramatically in terms of ideologies ranging from Islamism to hardline communism and have very different visions of the world, what unites them is shared hatred and mistrust of the American-led order.

As The Economist magazine recently highlighted, just as the West funnels arms to Ukraine, so Iran and North Korea are transferring hundreds of missiles, including more than 200 Fath-360 short-range ballistic projectiles, to Russia, having already sent millions of artillery shells and thousands of attack drones.

Meanwhile, China having not sent arms ensures that vast supplies of dual-use components are being applied directly to the Russian war machine enabling it to churn out cruise missiles and drones.

READ MORE: Calls for UK to end its 'embarrassing' involvement in the Commonwealth

Just this week there was another alarming sign that the quartet are growing ever closer with claims from the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that his country had intelligence that nearly 10,000 soldiers from North Korea were being prepared to join Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.

As the magazine Politico highlighted this week, the net result of all this is that the elections in Moldova and Georgia threw up a “sobering reality check,” for the EU as it finds itself increasingly on the back foot in its battle for influence with Putin.

Meanwhile, at the same time, the quartet of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea is already giving the West serious geopolitical headaches that only look set to intensify.

Add to this the potential economic benefits Russia stands to gain through Brics and the way this week’s summit flies in the face of Western claims of Russia’s global isolation, and Putin must be well pleased right now.

That all this comes just as the United States is about to have its most significant presidential election in modern times and you begin to understand how much is at stake here in this dramatic shifting of international alliances.

In fact, all it takes now is a win for Donald Trump on November 5 and the champagne glasses will be clinking in the Kremlin – even as the world goes to hell in a handcart.