Ukraine war: Putin's international friends - and his prominent opponents in Russia

Created: 08/03/2022 05:24

By: Magdalena von Zumbusch

Jair Bolsonaro and Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in February.

© Mikhail Klimentyev/dpa

Who still sticks by Vladimir Putin?

And who speaks out against him in their own country?

These are the president's loyal allies and the increasingly vocal opponents in Russia.

Moscow – With the Ukraine war, Russian President Vladimir Putin has finally turned Europe and the USA into bitter enemies.

Internationally, however, he still has a handful of loyal supporters.

Ukraine War: Putin's International Friends - Belarus' President Lukashenko

The Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko is firmly behind Putin's narrative that the invasion of Ukraine should create peace in the Ukrainian war zones: "If you want peace, prepare for war," he said about the events and secured his support for Russia to.

Lukashenko has been heavily dependent on Russia since Putin's support during the protests in Belarus in the summer of 2020.

Putin and his international supporters: Syria's ruler Bashar-Al-Assad

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in particular has shown unconditional solidarity with the Russian President. Putin seems to have found a loyal friend in him through his active support in the Syrian civil war.

"What is happening today is a correction of history and restoring balance to the world," the Syrian news agency Sana quoted the president as saying.

Vladimir Putin: Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi also sticks to the Russian President

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has also unreservedly backed Vladimir Putin.

The Iranian news agency IRNA reported that Putin's alleged security concerns in view of the eastward expansion of NATO are understandable for the Iranian President.

This support is less obvious than that of Syria;

Russian-Iranian relations are nowhere near as close as the ties between Russia and Assad.

In Iran, the pro-Russian forces are opposed by a camp that advocates rapprochement with the West and the United States.

However, past cooperation between the states seems to have strengthened the relationship to such an extent that Putin can count on Iran's diplomatic support when he invades Ukraine.

Ukraine war: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un supports Vladimir Putin

The USA itself pursues a policy of interfering in the states to which it wants to bring security and democracy, but condemns "self-defense measures that other countries take to defend their own national security," it said recently from Pyongyang.

The statement by North Korea's Foreign Ministry made it clear: North Korea's leadership sees the Russian actions as an understandable reaction to Western policy - particularly to that of the United States.

Pro-Russian camp in Venezuela: Maduro is an ally of Putin - Bolsonaro is also seeking contact

There are also pro-Russian camps in South America: the Venezuelan government has also confirmed its ties to Putin's Russia in the past few days.

The breach of the Minsk agreement "violated international law and poses a serious threat to the Russian Federation, its territorial integrity and sovereignty" - Head of State Nicolás Maduro published this statement on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Brazil's controversial President Jair Bolsonaro remains emphatically neutral.

At a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in February, the right-wing leader said Brazil was showing "solidarity" with Russia.

However, he left it open whether he was referring to the conflict with Ukraine.

After his solidarity address to Ukraine, Bolsonaro denied his deputy Hamilton Mourão the right to comment on the matter.

Russia's more reserved delight: India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, China's leader Xi Jinping

The statements of the Indian and Chinese news agencies on the events of the past few days are reluctant to criticize Russia, but to speak of friends here seems exaggerated: According to the statements of the Indian and Chinese leaders in the past few days, the understanding of Putin's actions is much more reserved .

"We should abandon the cold war mentality and give importance to the legitimate security concerns of all countries," Chinese President Xi Jinping said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying was even more cautious: "The Ukraine issue is complex in its historical background."

India is dependent on Russia for energy and arms, but on the other hand it is also trying not to jeopardize economic relations with the United States.

Accordingly, India's Prime Minister Modi has so far hardly commented on the invasion of Ukraine and has also abstained from voting by the UN Council against Russian aggression.

Putin: Decisive opponents in Russia - but (still) too few

In Russia, a long-standing circle of opponents is protesting the president's actions in Ukraine.

While the media almost exclusively focuses on the handful of prominent Russian opponents, such as Alexei Navalny or Mikhail Khodorkovsky, since Russia invaded Ukraine, circles of the Russian population, who have always been skeptical of Putin, have been active on the streets and on the Internet, sometimes at great risk .

A group of scientists, for example, has published a public letter against the invasion of Ukraine.

A group of Russian artists - including the actress Chulpan Khamatova and the writer Dmitry Bykov - has also become the focus of Western reporting with a declaration: "The war that Russia started against Ukraine is a disgrace.

This is our shame, but unfortunately the responsibility for this will still have to be borne by our children, a very young generation and Russians who are not yet born," reads an excerpt of this statement.

The author Lyudmila Ulitzkaja, who is also well-known in Germany, condemned the Ukrainian invasion just as clearly;

as "a political crime that will later be described as such in the history books".

But there is no prospect of the firm condemnation of Putin by various circles of intellectuals spreading to broader sections of the Russian population, Ulitzkaja fears: "Our society is in the deepest state of apathy, depression and fear," says the author.

The Russian power apparatus can probably continue to suppress large-scale protests against the invasion of Ukraine among its own population.

However, a well-known Russian human rights activist recently also predicted that the mood in Putin's Russia will "change".