The difficult banishment of Moscow on the international scene

Russia “more isolated than ever”? Two months following the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, the affirmation of American President Joe Biden looks like pious hope as the banishment of Moscow still comes up once morest part of the international community, reluctant to any alignment.

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“There is a very clear isolation of Russia from the Western bloc, due in particular to the series of successive sanctions which have complicated both commercial and financial exchanges” underlines Sylvie Matelly, deputy director at the Institute of international and strategic relations (Iris).

“Concerning the isolation of Russia on the international scene, the situation is on the other hand very different, with a certain number of very cautious countries, which refused to yield to the pressures of the West and which assume to position themselves in their soul and conscience “, adds the French researcher.

Triggered on February 24, the Russian military offensive aroused almost immediate indignation among Europeans and Americans who promised Moscow isolation and “unprecedented” sanctions.

In the weeks that followed, NATO and EU airspace was closed to Russian planes and the United States decreed an embargo on imports of Russian oil and gas. At the same time, some Russian banks are being excluded from the Swift international payment system.

But beyond the western bloc, the picture is different. On March 2, at the UN General Assembly, India and South Africa in particular abstained during a vote demanding a withdrawal of Russia from Ukraine.

In Latin America, Brazil and Mexico refuse to participate in the sanctions packages.

“There are a growing number of countries that are willing to assert their independence despite the fact that they yearn for closer cooperation with the West and even need Western support,” notes Chris Landsberg, professor of international relations at the University of Johannesburg, in the columns of the Washington Post.

“It is one thing to condemn the invasion of Ukraine, it is quite another to launch an economic war once morest Russia, and many countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia are not ready to take the leap,” said former Chilean ambassador to India and South Africa, Jorge Heine. “They don’t want to be pushed into a position that would go once morest their own interests.”

This is the case of Saudi Arabia or the Emirates, which have so far avoided taking a position once morest Russia. Or India.

For New Delhi, “the war was accompanied by a brutal and unwelcome choice to be made between the West and Russia, a choice which it avoided at all costs to make”, explains Shivshankar Menon, who was an adviser to former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

“The United States is an essential and indispensable partner in the context of the modernization of India, but Russia remains an important partner for geopolitical and military reasons”, he recalls in an article published at the beginning of April and entitled “The Free World Fantasy: Are the Democracies Really United Against Russia?”.

On the ground, however, the Western powers are sparing no effort to increase pressure on Moscow. At UNESCO, around forty countries have stepped up discussions in recent months in order to obtain the relocation of the meeting of the heritage committee, scheduled for June in Russia.

With a result, at this stage, in halftone: the announcement of an indefinite postponement, without assurance at this stage that Russia will not host the meeting once the military offensive is completed.

Same attempt at the G20 where the Indonesian presidency, in a hurry to exclude Moscow from the enclosure, finally refused in the name of impartiality.

The absence of short-term effects of Western economic sanctions on the ongoing conflict does not help to convince the hesitant countries either.

“Yes, the sanctions are severe”, underlines Judy Dempsey, analyst of Carnegie Europe, “but they do not dissuade Putin from prolonging its siege on Mariupol (…) nor from pounding other cities”.

“If the objective was to bend Putin so that he withdraws from Ukraine, it is clear that it did not work”, abounds Sylvie Matelly. “He has certainly lowered his ambitions, but not so much in relation to the sanctions as in relation to the determination of the Ukrainian forces on the ground”.

To measure the impact of the sanctions on the Russian economy in the medium and long term, we will have to wait a few more months.

“The situation in the Russian economy will be clearer in June-July,” notes Russian financial analyst Alexei Vedev of the Gaidar Institute. “The economy is still operating on the basis of its reserves”.

“These reservations are diminishing, but as long as they still exist, the sanctions are not fully felt,” he adds.