Hostname: page-component-669899f699-b58lm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T16:07:58.746Z Has data issue: true hasContentIssue false

The Invasion of Ukraine, the Quest for a Multipolar World, and Russia's Civilizational Appeal to the Global South

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2024

Choi Chatterjee
Affiliation:
Department of History, California State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States Email: cchatte@calstatela.edu
Karen Petrone
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Kentucky, Lexington, United States petrone@uky.edu

Abstract

Scholars in this forum analyze how major nations in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America have reacted to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why have China, South Africa, Turkey, India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and even Saudi Arabia among others failed to condemn the brutal Russian invasion and have continued to trade with Russia? Are these initiatives simply a replay of the Non-Aligned Movement of the Cold War Era or do they mark a substantial new reorientation in world politics? This forum appears in a hybrid format; two essays by Thomas Loyd and Katherine Stoner appear here in print. In addition, there is an online forum at https://aseees.org/slavicreview/discussion/ukraine-war-global-south/ featuring short contributions from David Engerman and Sandeep Bhardwaj on India, Chia Yin Hsu on China, Mark Katz on the Middle East, and, Daniela Secches on Brazil.

Type
Critical Forum: Russia’s War Against Ukraine from the Perspective of the Global South
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 Stewart Patrick and Alexander Huggins, “The Term Global South is Surging. It Should be Retired,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, last modified August 15, 2023 at https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2023/08/the-term-global-south-is-surging-it-should-be-retired?lang=en (accessed April 23, 2024); and Jorge Heine, “The Global South is on the rise-but what exactly in the Global South?” The Conversation, last modified July 3, 2023 at https://theconversation.com/the-global-south-is-on-the-rise-but-what-exactly-is-the-global-south-207959#:~:text=The%20Global%20South%20refers%20to,Africa%2C%20Asia%20and%20Latin%20America (accessed March 25, 2024).

2 Chatterjee, Choi, Marks, Steven G., Neuberger, Mary and Sabol, Steven, eds, The Global Impacts of Russia’s Great War and Revolution, Book 2, Parts 1 and 2: The Wider Arc of Revolution (Bloomington, 2019)Google Scholar.

3 Paul Mozur, Aaron Krolik, and Adam Satariano, “Chinese Traders and Moroccan Ports: How Russia Flouts Global Tech Bans,” The New York Times, last modified December 19, 2023 at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/technology/russia-flouts-global-tech-bans.html (accessed March 25, 2024).

4 Mulder, Nicholas, “Asia’s Economic Heft Sustains Russia’s Economy,” East Asia Forum Quarterly 15, no. 2 (April–June 2023): 35Google Scholar; Victor Jack, Gabriel Gavin, and Giovanna Coi, “‘Cockroach Strategy’: How Europe Failed to Sap Russia’s Energy Profits,” PoliticoPro, last modified December 10, 2023 at https://www.politico.eu/article/bulgaria-millions-fake-paperwork-cockroach-strategy-how-europe-fail-sap-russia-energy-profit-lukoil/ (accessed December 16, 2023); and Alan Cullison and Georgi Kantchev, “The West Attacked Russia’s Economy. The Result Is Another Stalemate,” The Wall Street Journal, last modified August 2, 2023 at https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-west-attacked-russias-economy-the-result-is-another-stalemate-99ec913b (accessed March 25, 2024).

5 Toru Takahashi, “How India’s Modi Helped Save the West by Buying Russian Oil,” Nikkei Asia, last modified June 19, 2023 at https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/How-India-s-Modi-helped-save-the-West-by-buying-Russian-oil (accessed March 25, 2024).

6 Jason Li, “Ukraine at One Year: Has China supported Russia?,” Stimson Center, last modified February 13, 2023 at https://www.stimson.org/2023/ukraine-at-one-year-has-china-supported-russia/ (accessed March 25, 2024); and Elizabeth Wishnick, “A ‘Superior Relationship’: How the Invasion of Ukraine Has Deepened the Sino-Russian Partnership,” China Leadership Monitor, no. 76 (Summer 2023): 1–15.

7 Michael Kugelman, “Russian Oil Shipment Arrives in Pakistan,” Foreign Policy, last modified June 14, 2023 at https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/14/pakistan-russia-crude-oil-shipment-india-ukraine-global-south/ (accessed April 23, 2024).

8 It is worth noting that while many countries in the Global South received support from the Soviet Union during their wars of independence, they have far less knowledge about Russian imperialism in the Baltics, eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia. Russian imperialism has significantly shaped attitudes towards Russia in the west.

9 “Europe Has to Grow Out of Mindset That Its Problems Are World’s Problems, Says S Jaishankar,”The Economic Times, last modified June 4, 2022 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/europe-has-to-grow-out-of-mindset-that-its-problems-are-worlds-problems-says-s-jaishankar/articleshow/91988948.cms?from=mdr (accessed March 25, 2024).

10 Okonjo-Iweala, Ngozi, “Why the World Still Needs Trade: The Case for Reimagining—Not Abandoning—Globalization,” Foreign Affairs 102, no. 4 (July–August 2023): 94103Google Scholar.

11 Shevyrev, Aleksandr Pavlovich, Lapin, Vladimir Vinken΄evich, and Viacheslavovich, Sergei, eds., Оsnovy rossiskoi gosudarstvennosti: Uchebnoe posobie dlia studentov estestvenno-nauchnykh i inzhenerno-tekhnichesikh spetsialnostei (Moscow, 2023)Google Scholar.

12 Sergei Karaganov, “My nabliudaem poiavlenie novogo mira v moment ego sozdaniia,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, last modified October 26, 2023 at https://rg.ru/2022/10/26/osypavshijsia-mir-uroki-na-budushchee.html (accessed March 25, 2024); Ivan N. Timofeev, “A State as Civilization and Political Theory,” Russia in Global Affairs, last modified May 23, 2023 at https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/tag/state-civilization/ (accessed March 25, 2024); Tsygankov, Andrei, “Crafting the State-Civilization: Vladimir Putin’s Turn to Distinct Values,” Problems of Post-Communism 63, no. 3 (2016): 146–58Google Scholar; Coker, Christopher, The Rise of the Civilizational State (Cambridge, Eng., 2019)Google Scholar; Madhusudan, Harsh Gupta and Mantri, Rajeev, A New Idea of India: Individual Rights in a Civilisational State (Chennai, 2020)Google Scholar; Hale, Henry E. and Laruelle, Marlene, “A New Wave of Research on Civilizational Politics,” Nationalities Papers 49, no. 4 (2021): 597608Google Scholar; and Acharya, Amitav, “The Myth of the Civilization State: Rising Powers and the Cultural Challenge to World Order,” Ethics and International Affairs 34, no. 2 (June 2020): 139–56Google Scholar.

13 Michael Kimmage and Hannah Notte, “How Russia Globalized the War in Ukraine: The Kremlin’s Pressure-Point Strategy to Undermine the West,” Foreign Affairs, last modified September 1, 2023 at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/how-russia-globalized-war-in-ukraine (accessed March 25, 2024, full article behind paywall).

14 Moiseev, D. S., Kharin, A. N., Sigachev, M. I., and Arteev, S. P., “Conservative Values as a Bridge between Russia and the West,” Russia in Global Affairs 2, no. 3 (July-September 2023): 3860Google Scholar.

15 Gregory Afinogenov, Spies and Scholars: Chinese Secrets and Imperial Russia’s Quest for World Power (Cambridge, Mass., 2020); Katerina Clark, Eurasia without Borders: Dreams of a Leftist Literary Commons, 1917–1940 (Cambridge, Mass., 2021); Rossen Djagalov, From Internationalism to Postcolonialism: Literature and Cinema Between the Second and the Third Worlds (Montreal, 2020); David C. Engerman, The Price of Aid: The Economic Cold War in India (Cambridge, Mass., 2018); Alessandro Iandolo, Arrested Development: The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, 1955–1968 (Ithaca, 2022); Eileen Kane, Russian Hajj: Empire and Pilgrimage to Mecca (Ithaca, 2015); Masha Kisarisova, The Eastern International: Arabs, Central Asians, and Jews in the Soviet Union’s Anticolonial Empire (Oxford, 2024); Maxim Matusevich, ed., Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters (Trenton, NJ, 2007); Samuel Ramani, Russia in Africa: Resurgent Great Power or Bellicose Pretender? (New York, 2023); Tobias Rupprecht, Soviet Internationalism after Stalin: Interaction and Exchange between the USSR and Latin America during the Cold War (Cambridge, Eng., 2015); and Oscar Sanchez-Sibony, Red Globalization: The Political Economy of the Soviet Cold War from Stalin to Khrushchev (New York, 2014).