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Ukraine war: How Vladimir Putin divides the world

2022-06-19T14:29:10.713Z


Global support for Ukraine in the fight against Russia is an illusion: many countries in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East support the Kremlin ruler. They share contempt for America.


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Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofyev / SPUTNIK / REUTERS

I recently spoke to a senior Ukrainian diplomat who represents his country in one of the most important international organizations.

My interlocutor was very depressed.

He said that the unequivocal international support for Ukraine is an illusion.

The lively political gestures of European leaders, especially in the early months of the war, gave the impression that the whole world was rallying around Ukraine and condemning Russian aggression.

However, diplomats are clear that this is by no means the case.

On the contrary: the war in Ukraine has made the division of the world even clearer.

Indeed, a new Cold War has begun - and it is by no means the war that Russian propagandists are talking about.

It is a new division of the world into two camps, one of which is anti-American, anti-Western and anti-liberal.

Literally in the first days of the war, the UN Security Council voted on Russian aggression.

Not surprisingly, Russia itself vetoed the resolution.

Interestingly, China, India and the United Arab Emirates abstained from the vote.

Even more interesting, however, is the list of countries that have not joined the sanctions against Russia: Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Indonesia and many other Asian and Latin American countries.

Each of these countries has its own history of relations with Russia — and a unique history of anti-American populism increasingly influencing politicians.

For example, consider Brazil.

Current President Bolsonaro has said from the start that he will take an exclusively neutral stance on Russia's war with Ukraine, even citing pragmatic considerations: Russia is a major fertilizer supplier to Brazil, and Bolsonaro has no intention of selling his own harming agriculture.

"Fertilizer is sacred to us," he said.

According to opinion polls, Bolsonaro will not be president for much longer;

former head of state Lula da Silva is running again and has a large lead in the polls.

However, both Lula and Bolsonaro are surprisingly unanimous in their assessment of Putin and the situation in Ukraine.

Both say that Ukraine provoked the war, they blame NATO and believe in "Ukrainian Nazis," and they also often speak of Western "propaganda" funded by George Soros.

This is almost literally the rhetoric of Russian TV channels.

In a recent interview, Lula explicitly said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was as much to blame for the war as Putin.

And it's not just that Russia is a symbolic successor to the Soviet Union for the Latin American left.

More importantly, for Latin Americans, Putin is a symbolic opponent of the United States.

The Brazilian left, led by Lula, is a constant fighter against American-initiated wars, criticizing all military campaigns organized by Washington and all human rights abuses committed by the White House.

What is striking, however, is that Putin, America's main critic, is outside of this criticism.

A theory widely circulated among Latin American political scientists is that the continent's left-wing parties refuse to believe that the Berlin Wall has fallen and that the struggle between the two camps is a thing of the past.

They have lazily given Putin all sorts of trappings as the leader of the anti-American camp – Putin himself has readily pretended to be the quintessential symbol of the anti-American world in recent years.

After the deaths of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, he remains the only surviving symbol of anti-Americanism.

Other Latin American countries have a similar but less explicit stance.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the governing tandem in Argentina – President Alberto Fernández and Vice President Christina Kirchner – also belong to the left-wing populist anti-Americans.

Lopez Obrador has publicly stated that he will not impose sanctions on Russia, and he has also said that NATO is behaving immorally by supplying arms to Ukraine.

For him, this war is a confrontation between Russia and the West, and he tends to identify more with Russia.

And Cristina Kirchner, the Vice President of Argentina (who was President herself, visited Moscow and had very good relations with Putin), directly compared the situation in Ukraine to the Falkland Islands.

To put it roughly: It is very bad when western countries wage wars of conquest.

But when their opponents do the same because they want to restore historical justice, that's a different matter.

Putin has dared to do what many Argentine voters have long dreamed of - reclaiming territories that once belonged to their country.

And the politicians approve of that too.

At the end of this week, an international economic forum was held in St. Petersburg, which in recent years has hosted Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping.

This year the international crowd is not as large, but there are more representatives from Latin America: the Prime Minister of Cuba, the Vice President of Venezuela and the Minister of Finance of Nicaragua attended.

Only the Kazakh President was present in person at the plenary session with Putin, while Xi Jinping and Egyptian President El-Sisi spoke via video link.

Even such a turnout reflects a tacit endorsement of Putin.

For Egypt, as for other Arab countries, grain exports from Russia are of great importance.

Opinion of voters in the Middle East is irrelevant, but there is no doubt that sentiment on the Arab street is unequivocally pro-Russian and pro-Putin.

Anti-American conspiracy theories are more common in the Arab world than anywhere else.

In the Middle East, every situation is viewed through the prism of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict;

several generations have grown up hating America as the main culprit in this conflict.

The destruction of Syria by Russian forces and in the Middle East is perceived as a demonstration of Putin's strength and willingness to challenge the US.

more on the subject

  • Dispute with the West: Erdoğan's dangerous game with NATO by Maximilian Popp and Anna-Sophie Schneider

  • Turkish blockade against NATO expansion: Erdoğan behaves like a double agentA comment by Maximilian Popp

Turkey is trying to mediate between Russia and Ukraine - but it is clearly a mediator sympathetic to Moscow.

Turkish President Erdoğan has too much in common with Putin - both have copied each other's neo-imperial rhetoric and the way they deal with the opposition for years.

Incidentally, recent talks between Turkey and Russia on opening up Ukrainian ports and creating a "grain corridor" took place without Ukraine's participation.

Unlike in many other Asian countries, public opinion is very important in India - and here it is also on the side of Russia.

The most popular hashtags on the Indian internet are #IStandWithPutin and #istandwithrussia.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also a populist who has always been extremely respectful of Putin.

As for China, my sources close to the Kremlin repeat a rumor circulating in February that Xi Jinping knew in advance of Putin's plans to start a war - they discussed it at the opening of the Beijing Olympics - but asked for it first to take military action after the Games.

That has been fulfilled.

Economically, Russia is being held captive by China - the departure of Western companies means Chinese companies will comfortably take their place.

So Xi Jinping doesn't need to come to the forum in person, he just needs to turn on zoom.

China's support for the Russian economy could be very important in the coming years, even if it is not long-term.

Criticism of the West and "neoliberalism" as well as the "turning to the East" were the main topics of the Petersburg forum.

And while this turn was only declaratory for many years, it became visible to the naked eye in three months of war: the Chinese payment system Union Pay has already replaced Visa and Master Card in Russia, and there are long queues for Union Pay cards in Moscow banks.

However, for another Asian state, Indonesia, the issue of Russia's isolation is the most important and complicated.

Another G20 summit is scheduled to take place on the island of Bali in November this year.

And for President Koko Widodo, this is already a huge problem, because under no circumstances does he want to withdraw Russia's invitation and turn the G20 summit into a G19 summit.

And what other option he has is still unclear.

In 2014, after Russia occupied Crimea, Russia was expelled from the G8 and kept in the G20.

The G20 summit took place in Brisbane, Australia.

Australia, the host of the summit, discussed with the participants the cancellation of Putin's invitation, but no consensus was reached: finally, although Putin did arrive, he stood on the edge of the general photo and - what was even more humiliating - sat during the general lunch alone at the table, none of the heads of state or government dared to sit down with him.

But after that, Ukraine fell into oblivion, and at subsequent summits, Putin acted as if nothing had happened.

more on the subject

  • Speculations about Putin's health: Because they are helpless, they dream of his deathA column by Mikhail Zygar

  • 100 Days of Suffering in Ukraine:Another of Putin's Endless Wars That Are ForgottenA column by Mikhail Zygar

In April, at the G20 finance ministers' meeting, representatives of the US, UK and Canada left the room when the Russian representative began to speak.

Whether they will demand that the Russian representative not attend the summit is an open question that the Indonesian president is still desperately hoping to settle.

In any case, there is no doubt that the world situation is far from isolating Russia.

Russia is not in danger of turning into North Korea;

many countries will continue to cooperate and trade with the country.

But that's not all of the problems.

Putin is very popular around the world as a symbol of anti-Americanism, which means his example could be contagious to a large number of populist leaders.

Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, international commentators have been talking about Taiwan, although China may not need such petty adventures.

In addition, there are quite a number of countries in the world whose leaders have been pondering for years why Americans are allowed to attack other countries and they are not.

Now they see that it's not just Americans who can do it.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-06-19

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