Tag Archives: BRICS

Blinken hopes to derail India’s relationship with Russia following Scholz’s failure

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The West mounts pressure on India to sever its ties with Russia.

Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher

With Russia’s military operation in Ukraine evidently destroying NATO’s ambitions, Washington is becoming increasingly frustrated that Moscow has not been isolated. Russia did not economically collapse, as was predicted in the West, partly because of the robust and longstanding relationship it has with India. It is unsurprising that in only a matter of days, Germany and the US have pressured India to capitulate their sovereignty and serve Western interests instead of their own.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz sought assurances from India on February 25 that it would not only refuse to block, but also support efforts to isolate Russia. Following his talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the chancellor refused to reveal what exactly they discussed in relation to Ukraine.

Although the contents of the discussion were cited as being confidential in nature, it is likely that Scholz did not want to humiliatingly admit that India refused to step back from its tried and tested relationship with Russia. Scholz did reveal though that he and Modi had discussed the war in Ukraine “very extensively and very intensely.”

It is noted that this trip was Scholz’s first official visit to India but his fourth meeting with Modi since taking office in 2021. Although they also discussed ways to boost economic cooperation, including through a free trade agreement between the European Union and India, it cannot be overlooked that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in New Delhi only days after Scholz.

Days before arriving in the Indian capital, Blinken said that countries like India, which have not joined the West in denouncing Russia’s military operation, were on a supposed trajectory away from alignment with Moscow. He stressed that the process would not occur “in one fell swoop.”

“There are countries that have long-standing, decades-long relationships with Russia, with the Soviet Union before, that are challenging to break off in one fell swoop. It’s not flipping a light switch, it’s moving an aircraft carrier,” Blinken said in an interview with The Atlantic on February 24.

However, for all of Blinken’s claims that India is moving away from Moscow, there is no actual suggestion that this is occurring. The US and India cooperate through the QUAD format, a naval bloc aimed against China, but this has not meant India’s submission to Washington, as the Americans evidently anticipated.

Although India has faced sustained and continued pressure from the West to distance itself from Moscow, New Delhi has thus far resisted, citing its longstanding ties with Russia and its economic and oil interests. It cannot be overlooked that Russia has been India’s largest weapons supplier since the Cold War-era, particularly since the US traditionally favoured Pakistan.

However, Washington in recent years has looked to turn New Delhi away from its main military supplier (but without wanting to adjust its policy to Pakistan).

“India for decades had Russia at the core of providing military equipment to it and its defences, but what we’ve seen over the last few years is a trajectory away from relying on Russia and moving into partnership with us and other countries,” Blinken said, without mentioning the fact that India is moving towards home-grown production, something that Russia is playing a key role in.

None-the-less, it is expected that Blinken, in the same way as Scholz, will try and convince India to change course regarding its ties with Russia.

As Bloomberg reported, citing Kpler’s lead crude analyst, Viktor Katona, “India purchased almost no Russian oil a year ago, but has become a crucial market after the US and European Union imposed sanctions on Moscow. The Asian country imported around 1.85 million barrels a day from Russia in February, close to its potential maximum of about 2 million barrels a day.”

The cold hard facts are that Moscow and New Delhi have a longstanding relationship that India will not break just for the sake of serving Western interests. Beyond the time-tested security ties, Russia offers energy hungry India the best deal for oil, something that will not be sacrificed because of a far-off war in Eastern Europe.

According to QUARTZ, India has in less than a year saved an estimated $3.6 billion by increasing Russian oil imports. This is a significant amount for a country that depends on imports to meet 85% of its petroleum needs.

It is recalled that in November 2022, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said “Russia has been a steady and time-tested partner. Any objective evaluation of our relationship over many decades would confirm that it has actually served both our countries very, very well.”

With this statement, he effectively confirmed a continuance of the current policy despite sustained pressure – a pressure that Scholz and Blinken are the latest to apply. They are however also the latest that were unable to convince New Delhi to change its policy regarding Russia.

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2022: birth year of the multipolar world

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This is a subject we talk about a lot on this website. The power structure of the world is being “reset” by the WEF and all of their cronies and it’s moving from the US and EU nations to Russia, China and India. All you need to do is look at what’s happened to the industrial base of the West since the end of WW2. The world has taken notice and are now telling the West to buzz off, we don’t have to listen to you anymore.

Lucas Leiroz, researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

2022 was full of geopolitically important events. Despite being a year marked by conflicts, escalation of tensions and high risks, at the same time it was the mark of an extremely significant multipolar turn.

The year began amid rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine, which continued to deteriorate and evolve into an open conflict. In late 2021, increasingly adhering to Western anti-Russian paranoia, Kiev began a new campaign of excessive militarization, bringing substantial risks to Russian national security. The Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime also promoted an escalation in the civil war and, according to several intelligence reports released by the Russian government, would be planning a “final solution” to the civil war in the east, with the absolute extermination of the Donbass’ resistance.

To stop this violence and neutralize the risks to its own security, on February 24, Moscow launched a special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine. With that, Moscow finally intervened in the eight-year conflict between ethnic Russians and Ukrainian neo-Nazi forces, bringing hope to the people of Donbass.

At first, NATO refused to participate actively in the conflict, sending only financial and humanitarian aid. But the situation began to change in April, when the first arms packages were sent to Kiev. Moscow ignored the move in order to avoid escalation, and then the Atlantic alliance began a wave of systematic arms shipments, starting to participate actively in the conflict – which is now nothing more than a NATO proxy war against Russia.

Russia is obviously superior militarily, with Ukraine having no chance of victory. But the Western insistence on sending arms, instead of mediating peace, makes it possible for the Ukrainians to prolong the conflict, even without making military progress. Furthermore, it is estimated that one-third of the soldiers currently in combat on the Ukrainian side are foreign mercenaries, including retired NATO soldiers – which shows that the West is indeed at war with Russia.

In this policy of anti-Russian aggression, US allies obey Washington’s orders even without benefiting in any way. The year ends with winter arriving in Europe and generating an unprecedented energy crisis, as the EU decided to adhere to the policy of economic sanctions, which has been encouraged by the US against Russia since the beginning of the operation in Ukraine. The US, UK and EU promote all sorts of boycotts against Moscow, while, on the other hand, the emerging world rejects this anti-strategic policy and builds an order more and more based on pragmatism and solidarity.

The plan to boycott the Russian economy with coercion went absolutely wrong, as the sanctions forced even greater integration between Russia, China and India – and consequently between these countries and all other emerging partners that maintain close ties with them. Furthermore, the current situation has accelerated the de-dollarization process, with Russia currently trading energy and oil in rubles.

With no chance of victory in Ukraine, the West resorts to attacks on its enemies in other parts of the world. In August, US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, violating Chinese sovereignty over the island, as Beijing had formally prohibited the visit. The case generated an unprecedented security crisis, with China responding to American provocation through military dissuasion exercises in the Taiwan Strait. Indeed, there is danger of escalation in the near future, and, very irresponsibly, the US promises to support Taiwan militarily if China intervenes on the island, which puts the world at serious risk.

At the same time, the US is trying at all costs to foment social chaos in China in other ways. Protests against the Chinese health policy are encouraged, for example. The aim is to destabilize the country in every possible way. Something similar happens in Iran, where an attempt of color revolution was started in October, with violent protests taking place, even with the use of firearms and terrorist methods by the “demonstrators”.

Also, as a domino-effect, other security crises have been worsening recently. For example, Azerbaijani terrorists began roadblocks and generated a humanitarian crisis in the Artsakh region, as well as started several provocations against Russian peacekeepers. Another point of constant friction has been Kosovo, where armed groups have attacked Serbian forces and disrespected existing peace conventions.

In all cases, what we can see is a simple process of attempt by pro-Western forces to foment chaos in as many regions as possible to try to obtain victories in places other than Ukraine, where the Russians maintain control over the military situation. Most of these destabilization and boycott attempts have been neutralized, but the risks of escalation and the emergence of new conflicts are real.

In fact, the world situation will only stabilize when the US realizes that the unipolar world order can no longer be maintained. 2022 was the birth year of multipolarity, as emerging countries came together to say “no” to Western sanctions and continue trading freely with Russia and China. Obviously, the BRICS are a key player in this world transition, as we can see with the growing interest on the part of new countries to join the group.

In 2023, the situation will certainly continue in the same direction. Geopolitical changes tend to be positive for countries in favor of multipolarity, but the process of consolidating these changes will be done with a lot of struggle and conflict, as the West will resist as much as possible, with all its means. At some point, however, the West will have to admit its defeat and negotiate with the emerging countries a peaceful reformulation of the global order.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

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