Opinion | Why US won’t convince others to forgo economic interests to support its power struggle with Russia

The reluctance of many countries, including heavyweights like India, to support US sanctions on Russia points to a new, more fragmented world order in which states eschew the geopolitical aims of major global powers to pursue their own economic needs

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Published: 1:30am, 5 Apr 2022Updated: 10:35am, 12 Apr 2022

Since Russia launched its “military operation” against Ukraine, it has faced several rounds of economic sanctions from the West. Chinese state tabloid Global Times has stressed that 140 of the 190 UN member states have shunned the anti-Russia sanctions, adding that the reverberations of the Ukraine crisis will backfire on the US.

Although the US and others are already feeling some economic aftershocks, there is no evidence that a crisis is imminent.

Nevertheless, the tabloid’s narrative speaks to the ongoing diplomatic rift between US-led alliances and other states gravitating to neutrality in pursuit of their own economic or political interests. Popular media headlines today go something like: Russia and the West battle to woo China and India over Ukraine.

Much has been made of India and China not joining the anti-Russia sanctions. However, Mexico and two BRICS nations – Brazil and South Africa – have also played truant, with Brasilia slamming the “indiscriminate sanctions” and Pretoria promoting its own UN resolution on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine that didn’t mention Russia at all.

Against this backdrop, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hosted BRICS ambassadors at a working breakfast on March 22 to discuss the Ukraine issue. Such coherence in diplomatic manoeuvring may come as a surprise to those who had already certified the death of the grouping, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, in 2016.

In today’s climate, economic aims seem to be giving way to political ones, with the US and EU shooting themselves in the foot by tightening sanctions on energy and finance, sending prices soaring at home.