Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s shuttle diplomacy to marginalise Moscow is a necessary step to convince nations with longstanding Russian relationships that there are superior deals on offer. The moral case against Russia is unambiguous. Vladimir Putin has blood on his hands. This argument is better coming from President Zelenskiy than his backers in the west, whose actions from Vietnam to Iraq reveal a spotty record on matters of morality in foreign policy. His pitch will be that Ukraine will be on the right side of history: as a victim of imperialism but an eventual victor against aggression.
It would be unthinkable for western leaders to endorse the Arab League’s shameful decision to welcome Syria’s tyrant Bashar al-Assad back into its fold. Mr Zelenskiy is attending the Jeddah meeting despite Moscow’s backing of Mr Assad’s brutal suppression of a pro-democracy uprising. The Ukrainian president is not seeking the Syrian president’s approval. He has made a pragmatic decision: to win over other leaders who have remained largely neutral on Russia’s invasion, he will need to accept their norms rather than condemn them. This leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. But the bigger prize would be tangible support beyond the west for Kyiv ahead of its military counteroffensive.
History has often been enlisted in the service of politics. At the G7 meeting of industrialised countries, Joe Biden became the second sitting US president to visit Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial, built on what remains of the only building to survive the first US atomic bombing in 1945. To this day, controversy has raged about whether dropping this weapon on Japan was necessary to end the second world war quickly. But it will be the Ukrainian president’s arrival that will be steeped in symbolism after Mr Putin last year raised the threat of a nuclear response to anyone who tried to “stand in” Russia’s way.
To avoid a direct confrontation between Nato and Russia, the Biden administration initially limited military aid to Ukraine to “defensive weapons”. However, Russia’s gains on the battlefield have led to cruise missiles and tanks being delivered. New sanctions to starve Russia’s war machine will help too. Chinese bellicosity in the Indo-Pacific will also be under discussion at the G7. The importance of the global south in containing the partnership between Moscow and Beijing means some of the world’s biggest non-aligned powers – Brazil, India and Indonesia – have been invited to Hiroshima along with Mr Zelenskiy. These nations have continued or even increased trading with Russia.
The growing divide between Beijing, Moscow and the G7 has provided such countries with an opportunity to negotiate sweeter deals from the west. Their gamble appears to be paying off. This week the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said that Europe “can’t take for granted” that Latin America, Africa and the Indo-Pacific are on its side, and must demonstrate support for their development needs. But roughly half the economic heft in the G7 comes from the US and there have been few carrots on offer from Washington. The former Indian diplomat Shivshankar Menon argued earlier this year that “alienated and resentful, many developing countries see the war in Ukraine and the west’s rivalry with China as distracting from urgent issues such as debt, climate change, and the effects of the pandemic”. The west’s pre-eminence is at risk if it cannot set a compelling agenda that others are willing to follow.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
