Not Everyone in the World Is against Putin: How Ukraine Works with the Global South

“Ukraine must 'rewrite' the Russian narrative in the countries of the Global South.” “At the G20 summit, India will focus on the problems of the Global South.” “Japan is making additional efforts in the field of diplomacy in order not to 'lose' the Global South to China. This is the exact or nearly exact wording of headlines of many analytical articles devoted to modern geopolitics and the G7 and G20 summits that will be held in Southeast Asia this year. Ukraine will take center stage at these summits, and it is important for us to understand how to articulate our position in a context that is slightly unusual for us.

The concept of the Global South, which suddenly began to be mentioned on any occasion, is one of the elements of geopolitical analysis that, like a fig leaf, covers the part of it that everyone guesses about but does not know how to name it directly. It is so blurred that it is difficult to pinpoint who was its author and when it was first voiced. According to some reports, the concept is more than 70 years old, but even now nearly every politician using this term means something different. The Global South can comprise post-colonial, developing or non-aligned countries, numbering either 77 or 130.

China seems to belong to them, but Beijing denies this. Russia definitely does not belong to the group, but aspires to lead a kind of a “global majority,” which is almost the same as the Global South, only bigger. India openly claims leadership among the countries of the Global South, hoping to occupy the niche of the center of gravity for states that refuse to choose between the United States and China. Given the vagueness of the term and the omnivorous application of this concept, the global nature of the South could be ignored if it were not for its centrality in the confrontation unfolding between the geopolitical blocs “USA+” and “China+,” each of which seeks to increase this very “+”.

Paradoxically, as one Japanese journalist pointed out, when looking at this issue from the standpoint of post-colonialism and the state of a developing economy, Ukraine can also be counted among the states of this sameGlobal South. It is just that the group does not traditionally include European countries. In a strange way, Russia managed to convince most of the states in Africa, Asia and Latin America that it had not waged colonial wars; on the contrary, it seemingly contributed to the liberation of the oppressed. In this case, it is interesting how to evaluate the actual occupation of Ukraine in the 17th century, the seizure of the Crimean Khanate in 1783, the conquest of the Caucasus, wars of aggression against the states of Central Asia and the “forever” inclusion of Poland and Finland? It is difficult to list all the cases of Russia’s support for terrorist groups around the world, the amount of weapons supplied and the genocide of civilians, but it is not talked about south of the Sahara. Indeed, in Africa and Asia, lands were seized by other empires, but the essence of colonialism remained unchanged, be it Algeria, Angola, Poland or Ukraine.

Why is this important to us? Because not the whole world is against Putin. Based on voting in the UN (which is not only General Assembly, but also other important bodies), persistent attempts to help Russia circumvent sanctions and calls for peace in exchange for compromise with the aggressor, it is easy to track the number of states which believe that the so-called West is bad and non-West is good. It is undeniable that the former empires wreaked much havoc on the colonies, although there are differing opinions on the matter. Countries in Africa and the Middle East rightly criticize developed countries for ignoring conflicts that have taken place and are still smoldering far from Europe. In a dialogue with representatives of the academic circles of the countries of the South, the examples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya inevitably come up. The liberated Kuwait is not mentioned, but the “Palestinian issue” is definitely discussed.

Russia has traditionally carried out extremely powerful propaganda in the post-colonial and poorest countries, not shying away from direct bribery of the local elite, arms smuggling, exports and imports of resources and, now, the Wagner Group. Concurrently with spec ops, Russian political pundits worked on ideas that were delusional for specialists but comforting for the ego of many representatives of the Global South, such as the creation of a new international bank, where the currency reserves of countries that do not trust the West would be kept. According to the Moscow-based authors of the idea, the new international Bank of the Global South and, in the future, the entire world, founded, for example, on the basis of the BRICS Development Bank or the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank with the possible participation of the rest of the financial organizations willing to join, will issue its own bonds. They will be sold to all countries, but most importantly, to member states (mostly developing countries, especially those whose assets have been or may be frozen). Such countries will be able to store their currency reserves in these bonds. The proceeds from the sale of these bonds will be invested by the Bank not only in securities of BRICS and other countries of the Global South, but also in traditional financial instruments for storing currency reserves, such as US and EU treasury bills and bonds denominated in dollars and euros. The most important thing about this idea is that the US and the EU will not risk freezing the Bank's assets, as this would mean a conflict with all BRICS countries and the Global South at the same time.

The authors are confident that for the US and the EU this option is not only acceptable, but even desirable: the new Bank will transfer the current direct investments of developing countries in Western financial instruments to investments via an intermediary, whose role will be played by the Bank. Otherwise, the process of transferring international currency reserves into yuan-denominated financial instruments and gold will cause a significant drop in the prices of American and European assets, which, according to the authors of the idea, threatens a financial crisis. And then, together with a new international organization, whose members will undertake to refrain from unilateral sanctions, the Bank will be able to start building a new world economic order that will contribute to the development of the countries of the Global South and their transformation into developed ones. This is the Russian-proposed plan for building a new world, where BRICS and the countries of the Global South will play a central role. They say it will be seriously discussed at the upcoming BRICS summit in South Africa.

It is no coincidence that on the eve of the G7 summit, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Egypt, Ghana, Kenya and Mozambique. This is the first such tour by the head of the Japanese government since 2014. Kenya’s trade with China rose by 27% last year, Mozambique launched a joint liquefied natural gas plant with China in November 2022 and Ghana’s finance minister visited Beijing in March to negotiate debt restructuring after defaulting in December. In order to intensify the dialogue with the countries of the Global South, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan will visit Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Paraguay, as well as Peru and Chile –participants of the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement, where China and Ukraine are aspiring members. Japan, which has a much better reputation in post-colonial countries than the rest of the G7, is trying to catch up. In addition to Ukraine, India, Brazil, Australia, South Korea, Indonesia, the Cook Islands and the Comoros Islands have been invited to dialogue with the most advanced countries in Hiroshima. The priorities are obvious.

Then, when Xi Jinping hosted Brazilian President Lula da Silva in Beijing, India's foreign minister visited Uganda, Ethiopia and Mozambique, and earlier this year, Delhi initiated the first-of-its-kind Voice of the Global South online summit. One of the goals is to solve the debt problem. At the same time, it is true that the fact that these debts – due to Chinese loans, as well as the default of Sri Lanka, Ghana and Zambia, food problems caused by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine – are Moscow's fault, while the contribution of Brazil, India and China is to a large extent visible in climate change, which also worries the Global South. It seems that such “details” are simply lost in the chorus of voices of the Global South: the white and rich North is to blame for all the troubles.

India is preparing to announce its leadership role. At the same time, Delhi does not consider Russia’s war against Ukraine as a system-forming factor in world politics. Its discourse is about peace and harmony. Prime Minister Modi’s slogan is “One Earth, One Family, One Future.” It is not war and confrontation that are the gravest challenges for humanity, but climate change, terrorism and pandemics. According to many reputable Indian experts, the West may be right about the assessment of the war in Ukraine, but this position is hypocritical, since the West itself is to blame for the start of many conflicts in Asia, from Vietnam to Iraq. Therefore, India is not interested in isolating Russia — Delhi seeks to conduct a dialogue with everyone in order to strive for peace and harmony all over the world.

In publications of Japanese experts (Japan has historically had very robust ties with India), Delhi tries and seeks to speak on behalf of the Global South. The message is this: developing economies need access to technology and capital, a stable supply of food and medicine and measures to prevent global climate change. Wars destroy their hopes, and therefore they must be stopped as soon as possible and at any cost. Sanctions lead to higher prices and supply difficulties. For the countries of the South, Russia’s blockage of grain supplies from Ukraine poses a difficulty. For them, the result itself is important – the absence of grain, and this is the position that India intends to voice at the G20 summit in September.

When India is criticized for its ties to Russia, it says: doesn’t the West have business with dictatorial regimes when it needs to? India is 60% dependent on the supply of weapons from Russia and is taking full advantage of the opportunity to buy oil at unprecedentedly low prices. Delhi seeks to maintain dialogue with Moscow in order to prevent Russia from finally becoming a vassal of autocratic Beijing; India is a democracy, after all. India continued and developed cooperation with the US, although it was against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, India cooperates with China, although armed conflicts constantly arise on the border with the PRC. For that reason, India also cooperates with Russia, although it understands that the war against Ukraine violates international law. This reflects the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, who said, “We are not pro-Russian or pro-American, we are pro-Indian.” Thus, India is simultaneously a member of BRICS, SCO and QUAD, actively cooperates with the US (the world’s largest buyer of Indian goods and services) in the field of security and technology development, but refuses the role of a “balancing mechanism” in the confrontation between Washington and Beijing. Delhi cooperates with Taiwan, but refrains from any steps that could provoke a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

It is important to understand that India actually reflects the position of states that do not wish to choose a side in the US-China+Russia confrontation. Truly serious solutions are needed if democratic countries are to change this position. Perhaps it is necessary to give the developing countries a fishing rod instead of a fish, open markets for them and help them develop their economy, as it once happened in East Asia. It seems quite obvious that the policy of “soft” influence on the vision of the Global South should become less orthodox and rely more on the solution of practical issues for each individual country or group of countries than on the observance of human rights and the democratization of power. Of the 23 world leaders who have been in power for more than 20 years, 20 represent the states of the Global South.

It takes a truly Augean effort to counter propaganda since Russia spared neither time nor money, using any suitable tool to advance its position. At the end of March, Russia hosted 40 delegations from African countries at the second inter-parliamentary conference, and in July, the Russia-Africa summit will be held in St. Petersburg. And yet, over the past two years, a lot has been done both by Ukraine itself and in cooperation with our partners to present our point of view in Africa. Any suitable platform should be used to articulate our position. The experience of interaction with former European sympathizers of Russia has shown that we know how to achieve results. Success in the southern direction will be an important component of our overall victory.

Read this article in russian and Ukrainian.