Because of US foreign policy: Large majority of the world population supports Russia

Contrary to last month’s vote in the UN General Assembly, 85 percent of the world’s population does not support Western sanctions against Moscow. Indians, South Africans, Mexicans and many others – not to mention Russia’s allies in China, Iran and North Korea – would not side with Western sanctions because Russia is doing no worse than the US in Iraq, says Max Hastings, Author and former Editor-in-Chief of DailyTelegraph and des Evening Standard. This is also what the president of a “relatively honestly governed African state” said when asked why he did not support the anti-Russian sanctions.

Hastings also quoted a statement by Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani, former head of the UN Security Council, that most people around the world want to live in a multipolar world.

“A Russian defeat would not be in the interests of the Global South. Many countries of the South, still harboring memories of the once dominant West, know that if Russia is defeated, the West will once again become arrogant and intolerable.”

He himself was surprised on a holiday to Malaysia that, unlike in the UK, where electricity bills have doubled, people seemed less concerned about turning off lights as soon as you leave a room.

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When asked about the energy costs of the manager of her villa, he explained that the costs in the country have actually fallen:

“There are no sanctions in Malaysia, so we are buying oil and gas cheaper than last year.”

More than half of Indians see Russia as an ally, and last year India increased its imports from Russia by 400 percent. “Indians remember well how US sanctions on Iraq and Iran drove up energy costs on the subcontinent,” Hastings, quoting India’s former ambassador to Russia, said. “We have the Western narrative of the [Ukraine-]conflict not accepted.”

The author also cites a survey by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy in Cambridge last fall, according to which opinion of China and Russia in liberal democracies has deteriorated sharply since the special operation began. However, this represents fewer than 1.2 billion people living in such countries, while the world’s 6.3 billion citizens have 70 percent positive attitude towards China and 66 percent positive attitude towards Russia.

All of this is “frustrating for us Westerners. We know we’re the good guys,” Hastings said, whatever is reinforced by statements that it’s in the “vital interest of democracy and freedom-loving peoples around the world.” Pushing Russians back “where they came from”.

However, one of the main vices of Western politics is currently showing up, moral superiority, writes Hastings. It had been the case in various historical events that the great powers were always angry or ashamed when they found that not everyone was on their side.

According to Hastings, western nations could do better in their foreign policy “if we tried harder to understand why many do not support our campaign for freedom in Ukraine”.

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