Mohamed Zeeshan

Opinion | How Russia flipped the West’s narrative on the war in Ukraine to win support from developing nations

Not only is Putin far from being universally shunned, his sympathisers include those suffering most from the food and energy crisis sparked by his war

Through well-placed propaganda, he has blamed Western sanctions for rising global poverty, a claim reinforced by the West’s own neglect of struggling nations

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Mohamed Zeeshan

Published: 3:30am, 14 Jul 2022

Ever since the Ukraine war began, there has been a sharp and almost civilisational divide between the West and the rest. Previously torn apart by Donald Trump’s bombast, the war gave Nato and the broader transatlantic partnership a unifying purpose. At a widely advertised Nato summit last month, US President Joe Biden hailed his allies’ “unmistakable message” that “Nato is strong, united” against Russia.

But that sentiment has not been echoed in other parts of the world. In recent weeks and months, far from being isolated, Russian President Vladimir Putin has corresponded with – among others – Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, Sri Lanka’s recently deposed president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Senegal’s President Macky Sall, who is also chair of the African Union.

At a G20 meeting in Bali last week, the West shunned Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. But Lavrov was still caught in cordial conversation with colleagues from China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Türkiye and Argentina.

The developing world’s embrace of Russia is ironic, given that Putin’s bloody invasion and blockade of Ukrainian grains and fertilisers have triggered food and energy crises across much of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov (right) talks to his Brazilian counterpart Carlos Franca during the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Bali, Indonesia, on July 8. Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout via Reuters

In May, a joint report from Oxfam and Save the Children warned that one person was dying of hunger every 48 seconds in drought-ravaged Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. The World Food Programme believes that “a record 345 million acutely hungry people are marching to the brink of starvation”. At the start of this year, that number was 276 million – already double what it was before the pandemic.