The world is under the law of the jungle if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not condemned by the United Nations, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said earlier today. In the Security Council, Russia will veto the conviction, but Borrell hopes the General Assembly will reject the Russian military operation in the neighboring country.
Whether that actually happens, however, is highly questionable. Western countries are unanimous in their condemnation of Putin, and are supported by important Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, but beyond that the Russian president still has whole and half friends.
Syria and Belarus
Among his closest political friends are Syrian President Assad and Belarusian President Lukashenko. Putin has committed them to him in recent years by keeping their regimes afloat.
Assad, who survived the Syrian civil war thanks to military intervention by Russia, showed understanding for the attack on Ukraine in a telephone conversation with Putin. “What is happening today is a correction to history and a re-equilibrium in the world,” said the Syrian dictator, who blamed the West for the bloodshed in Ukraine.
Lukashenko’s support for Putin has gone much further in recent weeks, allowing his armed forces to conduct joint exercises with the Russian military and allowing Russia to congregate tens of thousands of troops on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. From there, the Russians started their advance towards Kiev yesterday.
As far as is known, Belarusian soldiers are not participating in the invasion of Ukraine.
Venezuela, Cuba in Nicaragua
A distant ally is Venezuela, a pariah in its own region. on Twitter President Maduro sided with Putin unaffected. According to him, it is not Putin, but NATO that has violated the Minsk agreements on a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. He called it “a serious threat to Russia and its territorial integrity and sovereignty”.
Cuba and Nicaragua also feel the same way. Cuba has been in the anti-American camp since the communist revolution of 1959 and Nicaragua since the Sandinista takeover in 1984. Both countries are now somewhat silent. They were visited by the chairman of the Russian lower house, who explained that Russia is engaged in a ‘peace operation’.
Iran in Myanmar
Iran is not an ally of Russia, but together with Putin in Syria it keeps the Assad regime afloat and has the US as a common enemy. President Raisi has therefore shown understanding for Russia’s actions in a conversation with Putin. Like Putin, he sees NATO’s eastward expansion as a threat to Russia.
Myanmar’s military junta, another outcast in the Western world, is fully supportive of Putin. Strongman Min Aung Hilang paid a ‘friendship visit’ to Putin last year. Today, the regime expressed understanding that Russia is “establishing its sovereignty” and wants to show that it is a global power.
India
India does not support the Russian invasion, but stays away from a conviction. Throughout the Cold War, India tended to cooperate with Moscow, and that attitude persists to this day. For example, a large part of the armaments of the Indian army is still of Russian origin. That determines the attitude of Prime Minister Modi.
Modi called Putin last night and called on him to stop the violence immediately, but he did not condemn the attack on Ukraine. The Indian UN representative called for “de-escalation” and “continued diplomacy”, but said nothing about Ukraine’s sovereignty and integrity.
Pakistan
India’s nemesis Pakistan, traditionally a “difficult” ally of the US, is showing surprisingly sympathetic to Putin these days. Pakistani Prime Minister Khan arrived in Moscow hours before the Russian invasion began and allowed a scheduled meeting with Putin to go ahead, making him the first world leader to meet Putin since the invasion began.
Khan did not condemn the attack, showed no sympathy for Ukrainian sovereignty, but only said he regretted “the situation between Russia and Ukraine”. He stressed that the conflict is in nobody’s interest and that developing countries are always the hardest hit economically by military conflicts.
Khan’s visit to Moscow has raised eyebrows in Washington, where President Biden has said Putin is “becoming the pariah of the world”. The US State Department says the US position on Khan’s visit “has been transferred to Pakistan”.
Pakistan’s foreign minister explained that the pros and cons of the visit have been thoroughly considered in advance, that the visit is strictly bilateral and should be seen in the context of the long-term improvement in Pakistan-US relations.
Serbia
Serbia has traditionally been an ally of Russia, which since the 19th century has always acted as protector of the small ‘Slavic brother people’. But in this conflict between two ‘brother nations’ it is difficult to choose the nationalist Prime Minister Vucic.
It took Vucic a day and a half to come up with a response. He spoke out for the first time this afternoon: he spoke out against the violation of territorial integrity, but said that Serbia, as a country that has itself been the target of sanctions, is not in favor of sanctions against Russia.
Correspondent David-Jan Godfroid doesn’t think Putin is very happy with this response:
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