The UAE defintly showed that other countries can do this.

Russia also still holds a lot of their traditional soft power in many countries, including several EU countries. They also greatly increased their softpower by helping to get far right parties into power or at least signinificant influence in several EU countries (like Orban or Germany just 2 days ago).

On the other hand Russia manouvered itself into a very weak geostrategical position lately (Ukraine and Syria). Everyone noticed that and this will likely lead to some restructuring in several regions, unlikely to be in Russias favour.

I currently find it really hard to make assumptions about Russias role in the mid-term future. That is also, why I didn’t mention Russia in my post.

My guess is China will fill the void left by the disintegration of USAID in order to boost its global standing.

China will take large chunks. But I think we will also see a decentralization as china won’t be able to take it all. Countries like Turkey, Malaysia, Brazil and so on will probably increase their regional soft powers a lot.

This process also already started years ago, but will be catalyzed by this.