Russia under Putin are now on a constant war footing and have numerous exercises called at short notice throughout the year to test combat readiness and effectiveness.
There is always the potential for the Kremlin to use their propaganda apparatus through RT, Sputnik, official social media channels from the GRU, FSB or embassies or the use of troll controlled websites and trolling campaigns as part of their 21st century Cold War 2.0 / The Great Game 2.0 to achieve any geopolitical aims outside of Russia and their state controlled TV channels within.
Both Russia and especially China are putting money, loans and resources into soft power, capturing hearts, minds, allies, natural resources, intellectual property & strategic industries. Both are targeting Asia, Africa, South America and Western countries. Russia and China work as allies where it is a common aim but of the two China through economic clout and population size is by far the most dangerous and will in the next 30 years become a superpower and will attempt to overturn the current Western global rules based system for their own Communist absolute citizen monitoring and control. They are winning this global control geopolitics as the West are not trying to counter them, with the exception of Australia.
Australia has over the last 12 months woken up to not only the considerable strategic threat China is on their door step but are taking measures to regain control of their biggest port group, which is Chinese owned and have stopped them from taking over any mining companies. The war of works between both sets of political leaders is continuing to hot up.
Longer term the other Pacific superpower will be India due to their large population and continued industrialization and Indonesia will be a major player.
All the global big growth areas are outside of moribund no growth EU Europe and if we want to continue to improve out standards of living that's where our FTAs and other deals lie, which is why the May/Johnson vassalage WA is economic madness.