All Russia’s hopes for its alleged partners’ support are frankly fruitless

Ivan Sichen

My previous article told about the significant achievements for Ukraine of this year’s summits of the European Union and NATO. The closest allies of Ukraine are those states that are members of these organizations. They help deter Russian aggression.

Quite different processes are observed in those international organizations that were created at Russia’s initiative in order to strengthen its position in the world and, in particular, to counteract the West. I mean the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS group, where the Russians act as partners. However, in many cases, the interests of the members of these organizations do not coincide with the interests of Moscow and sometimes even contradict each other. Therefore, all Russia’s hopes for its alleged partners’ support are frankly fruitless. Moreover, at present, the overwhelming majority of the Russian Federation’s “friends” prefer to distance from its sphere of influence, and to cooperate with more respected states.

As you know, in June-July 2023, there were summits of the leaders of the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance, which are important for the entire Western world and Ukraine. The results of the EU and NATO summits are already known, but let’s remind them again. At least to consider the main aspects that relate to this topic.

In particular, during those summits, a number of decisions were made to improve the efficiency of the European economy, counteract threats from Russia and terrorism, and the prospect of Ukraine’s membership in the EU and NATO was agreed. The content of the next packages of financial and military assistance for our state has also been determined.

In general, the summits of the EU and NATO showed the unanimity of the positions of the members of these organizations. A sort of exception is Hungary, which essentially “plays along” with Russia. However, its “opposition” does not significantly affect the position of Ukraine’s Western partners.

The situation is quite different in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Russia, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Iran) and the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), which were created at Russia’s initiative to strengthen its positions in the world and its capabilities to counter the West. Thus, the members of these organizations only demonstrate partnership relations with Russia, but in fact are concerned exclusively with their own interests, which are quite well-known and include:

• China — expanding access to Russia’s natural resources and markets; its inclusion in the sphere of the PRC’s political and economic influence; support for Chinese positions in the UN and other international organizations;
• India — an increase in imports of Russian oil at low prices; development of trade and economic relations in other spheres (including military-technical sphere); deepening cooperation in resolving certain political issues at the world and regional levels;
• Belarus — maintaining Russian support for the Belarusian authorities, which rely only on Moscow and its financial and economic assistance;
• Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan — strengthening military and military-technical cooperation with Russia, which is becoming especially important for these countries in the face of growing Islamic extremism from Afghanistan; joint implementation of mutually beneficial trade and economic projects;
• Iran — combining the parties’ efforts to counteract the United States in the regions of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East as a whole; development of Iranian-Russian trade;
• Brazil and South Africa — intensification of trade and economic cooperation with Russia, China and India; joint promotion of their positions in the world.

After all, the nature of the differences among members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is more serious. First of all, the following aspects can be pointed out here:

• most SCO members do not directly support Russia’s attack on Ukraine. The exceptions are Belarus and Iran, which agreed with Moscow’s statement about the “forced nature of its actions against Ukraine due to the threat to Russian security from the United States and NATO”. China does not condemn Russia either. According to these positions: Belarus provided its territory for Russia’s military invasion in Ukraine, transferred to the Russian Armed Forces part of its weapons from the stocks of the former USSR; Iran supplies the Russian Federation with strike drones; China provides explosives. Other SCO member states, even Moscow’s CSTO allies, refuse to do so;
• India, China and Pakistan, as well as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, have mutual territorial claims, which sometimes escalate into direct clashes. In some cases, the parties reach certain compromises, but territorial disputes remain unresolved;
• Russia and China are rivals for influence in the Central Asian region. At this, Beijing is actually taking over the initiative from Moscow in the economic, and as a result, in the military-political spheres. At the same time, China and India are rivals in Southeast Asia;
• members of the SCO, which border on or are located close to Afghanistan, have different perceptions of the Taliban regime ruling there. Thus, Russia sees it as a partner in deterring the United States and, to a certain extent, NATO and EU countries in Central and South Asia. China — as a market for its goods. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan — as a source of threats to their security and a factor of destabilization of the situation in the region;
• none of the members of the SCO (except Iran) and the BRICS group want to complicate their relations with the United States and Europe, since they are more important to them than Russia.

These differences manifested themselves in one form or another during the online summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which took place in early July 2023 under India’s chairmanship. As a result of the summit, a concrete conclusion can be drawn: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization not only did not become a counterweight to the West, which Moscow hoped for, it failed to strengthen Russia’s position in the world and unite SCO members around some common goals or constructive ideas.

Thus, in connection with Indian Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the United States, the SCO summit was postponed to a later time. That is, relations with the United States are a higher priority for India than cooperation within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Besides, it was at India’s initiative that the SCO summit was held online, and not in the format of a face-to-face meeting of the leaders of the member states. According to some opinions, the reason for New Delhi’s decision was its reluctance to host V. Putin, who has become “toxic” for almost the whole world.

At the same time, India has openly demonstrated its dissatisfaction with China’s policy of implementing its “Belt and Road” initiative, which provides for the creation of a single trade, economic and infrastructure space from the Asia-Pacific region to Europe. Because such initiatives of the PRC weaken India’s position. New Delhi also reacts negatively to Beijing’s participation in the development of the Pakistani provinces of Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, which India considers to be its own.

The plans of the SCO to adopt the Organization’s economic development strategy for the period until 2030 became a failure. India refused to sign the document because it contains references to China’s political initiatives. In turn, members of the SCO did not support India’s proposal for English as the third official language in the Organization, along with Russian and Chinese.

Against this background, the leaders of Central Asian countries raised the most sensitive for them economic problems. In particular, they pointed out the actual lack of progress in the development of the trade and economic component of the SCO. In 20 years, not a single major project in this sphere has been implemented.

The reason for the disagreements between the SCO member states was the issue of the spread of Islamic extremism from Afghanistan. In this context, President of the PRC Xi Jinping has offered to provide economic assistance to the Taliban, which should keep it from extremist activities. However, his proposal had no support. In the opinion of most summit participants, the threat of Islamic extremism, the source of which is Afghanistan, can be avoided only by creating a powerful “security belt” around it.

Russian President V. Putin, who had to participate in the SCO summit almost immediately after Ye. Prigozhin’s coup, got into the worst situation. Therefore, instead of focusing on strengthening Russia’s position in the SCO as well as its role and importance in the world, he was forced in his speech to focus on justifying “Russia’s unity” and its “resilience in the struggle against external and internal enemies”.

But such attempts of the Kremlin leader were leveled by another “mutiny” in the Russian Armed Forces. Now from the side of the Commander of the 58^th Army of the Southern Military District, Major General I. Popov. In mid-July 2023, he publicly stated that the Russian troops had serious problems on the front line. After that, he was dismissed from the post of Army Commander and appointed to another position.

Similar consequences should also be expected from the BRICS summit, scheduled for September 2023. Moreover, there is a problem with V. Putin’s participation in it, which is connected with the warrant for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court.

In general, all these processes testify to Russia’s inability to create a powerful international coalition to counter the collective West. Moreover, it cannot really rally around itself even those countries that have their own contradictions with the United States and Europe. Consequently, Russia’s intentions to involve its partners in conducting a common policy towards Ukraine, including within the framework of pressure on it to force it to concessions and negotiations on Russian terms, will also fail.