My Take | Vladimir Putin has already won, whether you like it or not
The West’s proxy war is floundering while its moral case against Russia has self-destructed over its full complicity in Israel’s actions
So much for being the international pariah that the West has made him out to be. At Kazan as host of the Brics summit, a beaming Vladimir Putin this week welcomed the heads of state and other top officials from 32 countries, including the bloc’s four new entrants – Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates – as well as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
A long list of countries – 40 if some reports can be believed – have expressed interest in joining, so much so the original Brics nations are now bickering among themselves over who and how fast they should be admitted.
Also this week, Russia joined Iran and Oman to conduct naval exercises in the Indian Ocean, with Saudi Arabia, India, Thailand, Pakistan, Qatar and Bangladesh participating as observers.
The Brics summit may not yet herald a new global order and financial system, as the Russian president has grandly proclaimed, but it’s clear he doesn’t lack friends around the world who share those same goals. Outside the West, he has many discreet allies – from India to the Arab states, from Africa to the many -stans in central Asia – perfectly willing to do business with Russia, and it’s not just for discounted oil and gas either.
China is not Putin’s only big-time partner, though Washington and Brussels may want you to think that.
The much-touted Western unity has crumbled. The next president of the United States could be, again, Donald Trump, who has vowed to end the Ukraine war quickly. He is right to think that, just like Joe Biden was right to exit Afghanistan, though it seems to be in the nature of US foreign policy to dig new holes as soon as the country pulls itself out of one.
It’s irrelevant whether the rest of the world wants to side with Moscow or sympathise with Kyiv. They just never consider the war their problem. Yes, a big European problem, and even arguably the collective West’s, but not theirs.
