Uniliver’s activity in Russia is called “waiting”, but Ukraine calls it “complicity in war”

Russia’s president thanked eastern allies who expressed solidarity with Moscow after last month’s brief uprising led by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his private military company, the Wagner Group.

Speaking at an online conference of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on Tuesday, Putin said he “highly appreciates” that they “came out as a united front,” Reuters reported. The SCO summit was the first appearance of the Russian president on the world stage after the attempted coup at the end of June.

Putin warned that the potential for conflicts and the risk of a global economic crisis is growing. He also noted that Moscow plans to strengthen ties with the SCO, an organization which, according to Reuters, seeks to expand its membership to include authoritarian countries in order to jointly counter Western influence in the region.

At the summit, Putin said that Russia would resist Western pressure, sanctions and “provocations” introduced by the war of aggression in Ukraine, which Moscow calls its “special military operation.”

Russia sees countries such as China, India and Iran as its key partners in confronting the United States and what the Kremlin portrays as US attempts to dictate world order.

In a virtual meeting organized by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, the leader of China also participated Xi Jinpingthe president of Iran Ebrahim Raisi and the President of Belarus Oleksandr Lukashenko.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Iran joined the summit, becoming the ninth member of the organization, Belarus signed a memorandum of commitment and plans to become a member of the organization in 2024.

The SCO Eurasian security and political group, formed in 2001 by Beijing and Moscow, also includes India, Pakistan, as well as the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

In a joint declaration, the participants of the meeting, however, emphasized that the group is not directed against any other states. The document states that SCO members are opposed to block, ideological and confrontational approaches to solving security problems and challenges.

The leaders declared the negative impact of “unilateral and unlimited expansion of global anti-missile defense systems by certain countries or groups of countries”, while not directly mentioning Ukraine.

India is between Western democracies and Eastern autocracies

All members except India have also supported China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which involves building trade and transport infrastructure that replicates the old Silk Road that connected China to countries in Asia and Europe.

As Reuters notes, the summit took place only two weeks after the Indian leader visited Washington, where he was received by US President Joe Biden at the White House. During the state visit, Modi and Biden called their two countries “one of the closest partners in the world.”

As Reuters notes, India, which presides over the SCO and G20, this year has to balance relations with Western countries and the Russian-Chinese partnership.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, which India neither supported nor condemned, and Beijing’s increasingly active presence in global geopolitics create additional difficulties for the Indian leadership.

India’s own ties with China have soured since a military clash on a disputed border in 2020. After a deadly clash on the border between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Ladakh region in mid-2020, politicians in New Delhi increasingly turned their attention to Beijing, which marked a significant change in India’s foreign policy, AP reports.

Xi and Putin want more independence from the US

In his online address, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for ensuring common security and strengthening solidarity and mutual trust.

“We must keep in mind the common and long-term interests of our region and conduct our foreign policy independently. We must be very vigilant about external attempts to ignite a new Cold War or confrontation of camps in our region,” Xi said.

Both Xi and Putin would like to convert foreign trade within the bloc to local currencies, which would help SCO countries avoid using the US dollar. This issue is particularly painful for Russia after the imposition of international sanctions on it because of its war against Ukraine, writes Reuters.

According to Voice of America, the US Treasury Secretary Janet Ellen is due to travel to China on Thursday to settle strained relations between Beijing and Washington.

A senior Treasury official told reporters on Sunday that the United States wants a healthy economic relationship with China, and that halting trade and investment “would be destabilizing for both our countries and the global economy.”

Yellen’s visit took place after the State Secretary’s visit Anthony Blinken to China last month, during which he and President Xi Jinping agreed to stabilize US-China relations and ensure that areas of disagreement do not escalate into conflict.