Who is for Putin? Mapping global reactions to the Russia vote [Carte mise à jour à 18h00 Paris]

Author Le Grand Continent Date March 18, 2024 Add Article added Download PDF Share

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Tuesday March 19 at 6:00 p.m. Paris, according to our calculations, the governments which have expressed their congratulations to the Kremlin cover a population of 4.1 billion people (51% of the world population) compared to only 1.3 billion for the countries which have condemned the electoral process — the position of their governments does not of course necessarily represent the position of their inhabitants.

The ratio, however, is reversed regarding the respective wealth of the two groups, with the total GDP of the countries which praised Putin reaching 27,862 billion dollars (around 27% of global GDP), compared to 62,127 billion for his critics (59%).

Who supports Vladimir Putin’s re-election?

So far, 43 heads of state and government have sent their congratulations to Vladimir Putin on his re-election.

They can be grouped into three categories:

• All Central Asian republics;
• Small or medium-sized allies of Moscow who have consistently supported Russia since the invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations: Belarus, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, Nicaragua, the United Arab Emirates…
• Several major geopolitical powers: Iran, China and India.

It will be noted that all the member states of the Shanghai Organization converge, congratulating Putin.

The Indian case

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election: “We look forward to working together to strengthen the special and privileged strategic partnership between India and Russia, which has proven itself over the years. come “.

Modi is one of the few democratically elected leaders to explicitly support Putin’s re-election, which further weakens a presupposition of the Biden Doctrine which has made the struggle between democracies and autocracies the cornerstone of his foreign policy – while The third Summit for Democracy opens in South Korea.

Since February 24, 2022, India has maintained a position of strategic neutrality, refusing to condemn Moscow’s military aggression or join the West in isolating Russia.

Three elements can explain this positioning:

• An internal political dynamic: polls show that a good portion of Indians have a very positive opinion of Russia (57%) and “trust” President Putin (59%). The liberal opposition did not fail to note that the style of leadership of Modi was reminiscent of that of Putin.
• Economic dynamics: since the start of the war in Ukraine, trade between India and Russia has increased substantially. Maintaining access to Russia’s oil and gas reserves is thus widely perceived as more important than firmness towards Russia on Ukraine.
• A geopolitical dynamic: India’s multipolar positioning presupposes a strong Russia which, before the Ukrainian war, was its primary arms supplier. During his last trip to Moscow, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said that ties between India and Russia were “very strong”. As Isabelle Saint-Mézard has shown, “India fears that Russia will become more and more dependent on China”, one of India’s main enemies.

The Chinese case

Chinese President Xi personally congratulated Putin on his victory. According to the Xinhua news agency, he told her: “Your re-election is a definitive demonstration of the Russian people’s support for you. »

The already very close ties between Xi and Putin — who have now met more than forty times — have been strengthened since February 24, 2022, although China has repeatedly played a role of strategic ambiguity in the war in Ukraine, for example by recognizing Russian aggression in a vote at the United Nations on April 26, 2023.

• On February 4, a few days before the invasion, Putin visited Xi Jinping on the occasion of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The two countries declared a “limitless” partnership.
• The monthly amount of trade between China and Russia has clearly increased.
• The year 2024 also marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and Russia. According to the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, several meetings between Putin and Xi Jinping are expected this year.

The Iranian case

• The apparent discretion of these congratulations might be explained by the fact that the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran do not wish to overemphasize the resemblance of the Iranian and Russian electoral systems, following the Iranian legislative elections of March 1, who experienced, despite the manipulation of electoral figures, the lowest participation rate in the history of the Islamic Republic, due in particular to the disqualification of any moderate candidate.

• If some in Iran, like Hassan Abbasi – nicknamed the “Persian Kissinger” – are calling for an anti-Western alliance between China, Russia and Iran, the leaders in power do not seem to wish to highlight the proximity of political systems having gradually abandoned all democratic pretensions.

Against Putin: the West remains united

Anticipating the fabrication of an electoral triumph, this Friday, March 15, 56 countries joined Ukraine in condemning “with the greatest firmness the illegitimate attempts of the Russian Federation to organize a presidential election in temporarily occupied areas on the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine.

Some of these countries, notably from the European Union, also condemned the lack of plurality as well as the knowledge of the result ahead of the vote.

• The French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs denounced a “context of increased repression once morest civil society and any form of opposition to the regime, ever-stronger restrictions on freedom of expression and the ban on the operation of independent media.
• Germany’s Federal Foreign Office called the election a sham “neither free nor fair” whose outcome “will surprise no one.” Putin’s regime is authoritarian, relying on censorship, repression and violence. “Elections” in the occupied territories of Ukraine are null and void and constitute a further violation of international law.”
• The Italian context is more fluid. While Antonio Tajani, Minister of Foreign Affairs and also vice-president of the council and secretary of Forza Italia, had adhered to the European line by condemning “a vote marked by pressure and violence”, the Minister of Transport Matteo Salvini ( Federal Secretary of the League) however declared on the morning of Monday March 18: “Elections are always positive, whether we win or lose… when a people expresses itself, they are always right.” Tajani dissociated himself from his position by declaring that “foreign policy is defined by the Minister of Foreign Affairs”.
• Before the Foreign Affairs Council held this Monday morning in Brussels, Spanish Minister José Manuel Albares declared that the Russian electoral process was “very far, to put it diplomatically, from what we consider in the Union and in Spain as democratic elections with the necessary guarantees”. Albares notably insisted on the fact that the votes which took place in the militarily occupied Ukrainian territories are devoid of any legitimacy.

Israel-Palestine: following the Netanyahu turnthe war spreads and the front unites

Being among the 56 signatories of the declaration which condemned “in the strongest terms the illegitimate attempts of the Russian Federation to organize Russian presidential elections in the temporarily occupied areas of the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine”, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu (who in 2018 was among the first to congratulate Putin on his “re-election”) marks a break from his strategic ambiguity and fully aligns with the position of the United States and the European Union with regard to of Russia.

The Palestinian Authority, for its part, congratulated Vladimir Putin on Monday: in a press release, Mahmoud Abbas expressed his “deep gratitude” to Moscow for “its support for the rights of the Palestinian people”.

Mid-followingnoon on Tuesday, Hamas also congratulated the Russian president on his re-election according to the TASS agency.

NATO and Türkiye

• Until Monday evening, Turkey was the only NATO country that had 1) not signed the joint statement condemning the Russian presidential election or 2) that had not unilaterally criticized or condemned the vote. Now, Erdogan is the only NATO leader to have congratulated Putin over the phone on his re-election.

The space, silent, in the middle

For the moment, more than 120 heads of state and government have chosen not to take a position. This non-alignment, the nature and direction of which is the subject of intense debate, remains a fundamental trend of the interregnum.

We identify three regions at this stage:

• Most African countries have not yet communicated regarding the election – Liberia is the only African country to have signed the Ukrainian declaration on the Russian election.
• Part of Latin America – including Lula’s Brazil, a frequent supporter of Putin, and Mexico – has not yet positioned itself.
• Part of Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, has not yet positioned itself and Oceania.

BRICS

Five BRICS member countries (India, China, Iran, United Arab Emirates and Egypt) congratulated Putin on his re-election. The others (Brazil, South Africa and Ethiopia) have not yet published a press release on the subject.

OPEC+

Within OPEC+, most states have yet to react officially, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Brazil and Mexico, while seven states congratulated Vladimir Putin on his re-election. Among them, we find both states very close to Russia (Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran), anti-Western non-aligned countries (Algeria, Venezuela), and the United Arab Emirates, which have been, since the invasion of Ukraine, ambiguous support for Russia, claiming a form of neutrality in the conflict while welcoming exiled Russian oligarchs, and serving as a platform for Moscow to circumvent sanctions.

ASEAN

Among ASEAN countries, Myanmar is the only country whose Prime Minister Min Aung Hlaing formally congratulated Vladimir Putin on his re-election during an interview with the official Russian news agency TASS.

We may have missed some statements. Do not hesitate to write to us to help us update the map, by email at contact[at]legrandcontinent.eu or on our social networks.