Since the war in Ukraine began, the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit has become one of the few windows Vladimir Putin has outside his Moscow fortress to show off alliances and mingle with colleagues who are They have refused to condemn the invasion in UN resolutions. This time, the added incentive was that it was Putin’s first appearance on the international stage since the Wagner group mutiny put his power in check. A chance for the Russian leader to show that he remains in control and that his country is not as isolated as the West has claimed since the attack on Ukraine.
“The Russian people are united like never before,” Putin said via video link from the Kremlin. “Russian political circles and the whole society clearly demonstrated solidarity and responsibility for the fate of the motherland by standing as a united front against the attempted armed rebellion,” he continued.
The Russian leader would surely have liked, as happened last year, to have been able to pose with the rest of the leaders in a group photo, with the strength for the outside gallery that has such an image in the current context. But India, whose turn it was to host this time, decided at the last minute that it would be a virtual summit, depriving Putin of the long-awaited snapshot alongside such relevant figures in the current geopolitical arena such as Chinese President Xi Jinping or the first Indian Minister Narendra Modi.
In New Delhi it has been speculated that Modi did not want to receive at his home, before the electoral campaign for the 2024 elections begins, the leaders of China and Pakistan, with whom he shares borders and many territorial conflicts. With Putin, on the other hand, Modi maintains a close relationship. But, just after returning from a state visit to Washington to strengthen ties with President Joe Biden, perhaps the Indian leader considered that it was not the best time to pose next to his Russian counterpart either.
With no group photo for Putin, the SCO meeting, often defined by Western think tanks as a regional security grouping founded by Russia and China to counter Western alliances in Asia, took place on Tuesday via video conference. The group includes India, Pakistan and the four Central Asian nations (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). The big news from this year’s summit was that the group has admitted Iran as a new member. Soon Belarus will also join.
As expected, the situation in Ukraine was not mentioned at any time during the leaders’ interventions. In his turn, Putin did speak about the rain of sanctions since he launched the invasion. “Russia counteracts all these external sanctions, pressures and provocations and continues to develop like never before,” the Russian president said. “I would like to thank my colleagues from the SCO countries who expressed their support for the actions of the Russian leadership to protect the constitutional order and the lives and safety of citizens,” he stressed.
Putin, in an attempt to mitigate the sanctions, urged the countries of the group to join in including local currencies in transactions, citing as an example that more than 80% of trade between China and Russia was being carried out in rubles and yuan.
Without mentioning anything about which currency to use in transactions, Indian Modi, who maintains his “non-alignment” position on Ukraine, called on his regional neighbors to “boost trade, connectivity and technological cooperation.” A few hours before the start of the summit, Reuters revealed that some Indian refiners had started paying yuan for Russian oil imports. The world’s new most populous nation has increased its imports of Russian crude 33 times since Putin ordered the attack on Ukraine. According to its own trade data, by 2022, Russia, taking advantage of discounts from Western sanctions, became its third largest supplier of oil, accounting for around 15% of purchases. In 2021, Moscow was ranked 17th, supplying just 1% of total imports.
“The SCO has to be an important platform for peace, prosperity and development in the entire Eurasian region,” Modi continued during his speech on Tuesday. The same line was followed by Chinese Xi Jinping, insisting on the need for the SCO countries to “strengthen strategic communication and collaboration.” Xi also called for respecting each other’s core interests.
The SCO, which is based in Beijing, was formalized in 2001 to resolve border issues left in the region by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. These years the meetings have focused on security and economic cooperation, fighting terrorism and drug trafficking, addressing climate change or facing the situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban took power in 2021.
“America’s clique-building serves the purpose of divide and rule. By being open and inclusive, and dedicated to promoting common development and shared security, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization transcends traditional bloc politics and emphasizes the partnerships instead of traditional alliances,” reads an editorial published during the summit by China Daily, one of the Beijing-controlled newspapers.
Last year, the SCO summit was held in person in Samarkand (Uzbekistan), with Putin also as the protagonist, who arrived after a military defeat on the northern front of Ukraine and, as now, a lot of saber rattling inside from his house. Amid sanctions from Western allies, the Russian leader tried to boost his Asian turn by seeking above all the support of his partner Xi Jinping. But beyond a twinning of narratives and trade agreements, with Beijing looking after its own interests, wanting to buy more Russian oil at a discount, there was no military support from China, which did provide its support last week for the ” national stability” of Russia after the interference of the Wagner paramilitary group.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project