An international conference on peace in Ukraine will take place in Switzerland on June 15 and 16. Already announcing itself as a failure, the conference must bring together around a hundred countries, but several, and not the least, such as Russia, China, Brazil, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia and Egypt, will be absent. The Ukrainian government wants to revive solidarity around its cause, and that is quite normal. At the same time, it is still struggling to rally the countries of the Global South, of which there will not be many in Switzerland.
Indeed, if Agence France-Presse recently rejoiced at the pariah status weighing on Russia with its exclusion from the 80e anniversary of the Normandy landings, Vladimir Putin received at the same time representatives of 128 countries and territories, mainly from the Global South, at the Saint Petersburg Economic Forum. Additionally, Russia will soon host sports teams from 100 countries at the BRICS Games. We have already seen a more isolated pariah.
A failure at the UN
If Ukrainian diplomacy focuses on the conference in Switzerland and other meetings with limited participation, it is to forget its difficulties in mobilizing the United Nations (UN) around its cause over the last few years. month. Thus, a few weeks ago, as the second anniversary of Russian aggression against Ukraine approached, a columnist for the newspaper The world revealed that kyiv’s allies at the UN had advised it not to introduce a resolution condemning Russia. They feared that it would not even obtain 110 votes out of 193 member countries. The resolution voted on in 2023 nevertheless gathered 141 votes.
At the same time, kyiv abandoned its draft resolution on the creation of a tribunal to try Russian leaders for the crime of aggression.
I contacted Richard Gowan, director of the International Crisis Group in New York, and a good observer of UN diplomacy for twenty years to find out his assessment. Personally, he thinks that the resolution, if it had been presented this year, would not have received 100 votes. He thinks the situation is not suitable for this.
There is fatigue with the conflict in Ukraine, and it does not only affect the countries of the South. Furthermore, the war in Gaza revealed to the whole world the true face of Western countries, so quick to denounce the war in Ukraine, so timid to raise their voices against their ally, Israel. This “double standard” no longer applies.
The expanding multi-alignment
I will add another dimension that is increasingly apparent in international relations when states express themselves on their foreign policy orientations: the rise of multi-alignment. According to the theory, for a country it is a question of not aligning itself with any other, especially not with a great power, of being master of its geopolitical choices and of analyzing the problems of the world in their entirety without hierarchical order in their solution.
India represents the quintessence of this new political philosophy. In 2020, the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, summed up the reactions of the Global South to Ukraine with this formula: “Somewhere, Europe must put out of its head the idea that the problems of Europe are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems. » Today, India is the privileged and courted partner of Russia, China, the United States, France, Israel, etc.
France was hit hard by this paradigm shift. Several West African countries have distanced themselves from the former colonizer while welcoming ties with the United States, China, Russia and other countries. They are looking for multiple partnerships able to offer security and investments without conditionalities.
Russians are not necessarily welcomed with open arms. Russian Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has just completed a tour of Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea and Chad, was able to see this. Chad is a “sovereign state that establishes relations with whoever it wants, we are no one’s hostage!” » warned, to thunderous applause, the Chadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abderaman Koulamallah, alongside his Russian counterpart.
Return to the UN
The reluctance of Ukrainian diplomacy to present to the UN the annual resolution condemning Russia is a sign that the message peddled by Moscow, but also by Beijing, New Delhi, the other members of BRICS and others, is bearing fruit . These countries act as defenders of national independence and oppose Western values, some of which deeply offend the social and cultural sensitivities of the countries of the South. Ukraine cannot fight this effectively.
The fact remains that the Ukrainian government must return to the UN. Some will see it as a weakness, I see it as a strength. The UN is the universal organization par excellence. Its decisions confer exceptional legitimacy to a cause. Cuba and the Palestinians have understood this well. Each year, resolutions condemning the American embargo against Cuba or the treatment reserved for the Palestinians obtain scores approaching 185 votes in favor out of 193 member countries.
These resolutions, even those that are not respected, constitute the case against a State not respecting international rules. They serve as evidence before international authorities and courts of law. As difficult as it may be, Ukrainians have to go through this.