The Biden administration and its European allies have called Russian President Vladimir V. Putin a tyrant and a war criminal. But he enjoys being constantly invited into Brazil's halls of power.
Brazil's president said both Ukraine and Russia were responsible for the war that started with the Russian invasion. And Russia's energy and fertilizer purchases have skyrocketed, pumping billions of dollars into the Russian economy.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's views sum up the global bind the United States and Ukraine find themselves in as the war enters its third year.
When Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Biden administration launched a diplomatic offensive as important as a scramble to send arms to the Ukrainian military. The United States, which used economic sanctions and called for collective defense of the international order, sought to punish Russia with economic pain and political ostracism. The aim was to force companies and states to sever ties with Moscow.
But two years later, Mr. Putin is not as isolated as U.S. officials had hoped. Russia's inherent strength, rooted in its vast supplies of oil and natural gas, has strengthened its financial and political resilience, which threatens to overcome Western opposition. In parts of Asia, Africa, and South America, his influence is stronger than ever or even growing. And his grip on power at home appears to be as strong as ever.
This war undoubtedly harmed Russia and destroyed its standing with many European countries. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin. The United Nations has repeatedly condemned the invasion.
And to hear from Biden administration officials, Russia has suffered a major strategic failure.
“Today, Russia is more isolated than ever on the world stage,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken declared in June. Putin's wars have “reduced Russia's influence on every continent,” he added.
There is evidence to the contrary outside of North America and Europe.
China, India and Brazil are buying record amounts of Russian crude, taking advantage of the deep discounts President Vladimir Putin is offering to countries hoping to replace lost European customers. These growing economic ties have also led to strong diplomatic ties, including some close partners of the United States. Putin visited Beijing in October and hosted India's foreign minister in Moscow in late December. A few weeks ago, Mr. Putin received a warm welcome in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where he was greeted with a 21-gun salute and a fighter jet with a plume of red, white and blue Russian flags waving above his head. Ta.
Russian influence is also growing in Africa, according to a new report from the London-based security research organization Royal United Services Institute. When the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Evgeny V. Prigozhin, died last summer, Russian military intelligence took over Wagner's extensive operations in Africa and threatened to interfere with governments that depended on the group for their security. I went further.
“Russia is by no means boxed in,” said Michael Kimmage, a Cold War historian at the Catholic University of America who served in the State Department during the Obama administration. “We are disorganized economically and diplomatically, and we are delivering a message about war.”
For some Russia experts, American and European leaders have not sufficiently taken this reality into account.
In November, Eugene Loomer and Andrew S. Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said, “What Western leaders aren't making clear: is in agreement with the public about the persistent nature of the threat posed by a bold and revisionist Russia.” The Wall Street Journal accused the West of “magical thinking” about Putin's plight.
A prime example of the disappointment is Putin's welcome mat in Brazil, Latin America's largest and globally most influential country.
Mr. Lula will not allow Putin to attend the 20-nation and regional summit in Brazil in November, even though the country is a member state of the International Criminal Court and is obligated to enforce the court's arrest warrant against the Russian leader. I invited Mr. (In December, Mr. Lula sidestepped a question about whether Mr. Putin would be arrested if he turned himself in, saying it was a “judicial decision.”)
Brazil's consistently neutral position on Russia's war in Ukraine was highlighted in a meeting between Mr. Lula and Mr. Blinken in the capital Brasilia on Wednesday. Lula has called for peace talks, a stance criticized by Ukraine, which said the United States was fomenting war by sending arms to Kiev. Mr. Blinken told Mr. Lula that he did not think the United States was currently in a good situation for diplomacy.
Later that day, Blinken arrived in Rio de Janeiro to attend a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 20 countries and heard comments from Brazil's top diplomat Mauro Vieira. Power. “
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov also attended. While Mr. Blinken and several allied officials condemned Russia's war, others followed Brazil's foreign minister and expressed neutral sentiments or remained silent on the conflict.
Blinken claimed at a Thursday press conference that he heard criticism from Lavrov during the meeting, saying there was a “very strong chorus” of talk about “the urgency of ending Russian aggression.”
Lavrov attended a similar event in India last year. In 2023, he visited more than a dozen African countries, including South Africa, Sudan, and Kenya. He was welcomed by Lula at the presidential palace last April and was scheduled to reunite with the Brazilian president in Brasilia on Thursday.
He met with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in New York last month, a fact the Russian Foreign Ministry promoted in a news release showing the two men shaking hands.
At the United Nations, a U.S.-led resolution condemning the war has received little support from countries not closely aligned with the United States or Russia, who have shown reluctance to be drawn into the conflict.
“These countries are wary of being seen as pawns on the chessboard of great power competition,” said Alina Poliakova, director of the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington. She said: “The previous government caused great damage to relations with many of these countries. We are not seen as reliable partners.”
“Russian disinformation is working in many places,” she added. “And in many of these countries, Russia has been investing for decades.”
The Russian government has also sought to avoid responsibility for soaring food and energy prices following the invasion. A few weeks ago, Russia delivered 34,000 tons of free fertilizer to Nigeria, one of several shipments it sent to Africa.
Putin can raise such huge sums of money, not to mention his war of attrition in eastern Ukraine. Because Russia has replaced the energy customers it lost in Europe by selling far more energy on other continents. The International Energy Agency reported last month that Russia exported 7.8 million barrels of oil per day in December, the highest level in nine months and only slightly below pre-war levels.
At the same time, oil export revenue for the month was $14.4 billion, the lowest in six months. The agency said efforts by Western countries to impose price caps on Russian crude appear to be hurting overall revenues, as is the decline in world market prices for crude oil.
Analysts say Russia's position has benefited from President Biden's support for Israel's war in Gaza. Many leaders consider American condemnation of Russian attacks on civilian areas and infrastructure in Ukraine hypocritical, arguing that while Israel strives to avoid civilian casualties, Russia He is unfazed by claims that he is targeting innocent people.
Beyond that, Russia has managed to form closer ties with its close partners, what Polyakova calls “new authoritarian alliances.” Countries such as China, North Korea, and Iran have provided various forms of aid to Moscow. North Korea sends ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine, Iran continues to ship drones, and China refrains from arms exports to Russia, while equipment for civilian and military use ends up in the hands of Moscow. I am allowed to do so.
China maintains trade with Russia, filling the void left by Western companies and ensuring supplies of everything from household goods to financial services.
Mr. Putin has found a workaround when it comes to sanctions aimed at restricting access to Russian high-tech technology, especially equipment that could be used in modern weapons. Neighboring countries such as Armenia and North Atlantic Treaty Organization member Turkey are not part of the U.S. sanctions regime, and private companies there import microchips and other products for re-export to Russia.
Western sanctions and corporate boycotts do have an impact on daily life in Russia, but often through inconveniences like the loss of Apple Pay or Instagram, they fuel public anxiety or change Putin's behavior. It wasn't that much.
“Sanctions are disappointing at this point,” said Edward Fishman, a former State Department official in the Obama administration who oversaw sanctions on Russia after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014.
Fishman said the more time passes, the more damaging Western sanctions will become. Despite loopholes and black market deals, Russia will struggle to obtain critical high-tech components. And with the cancellation of contracts with Western energy companies, Russia will be deprived of the investments it needs to maintain efficient oil and gas production.
But he said Putin was preparing his country for an onslaught of sanctions and had worked out ample options to maintain the war machine and exert influence on the world stage.
“Unfortunately, Russia is now building some sort of alternative supply chain,” Fishman said.
He added that Biden could take even bolder steps to crack down on Russian energy exports and technology imports. But it will cause friction with countries that have become major buyers of Russian oil, such as India, which may reduce imports only under the threat of sanctions or other punitive measures that could risk a diplomatic crisis. would mean.
Similarly, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are home to many companies that make huge profits by acting as intermediaries for banned technology, two countries that Mr. Biden does not want to confront. be.
Perhaps most daunting is the fact that cuts to Russian oil exports are likely to increase global oil prices. This is bad news for America and for the president facing voters this fall.
“I think they're pretty nervous about doing anything that shakes up the global oil market, especially in an election year,” Fishman said.
