How Kyiv Is Wooing the Global South

In recent weeks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been on a spate of diplomatic missions: He’s joining the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, which follows a visit to Saudi Arabia to attend the Arab League summit, which was preceded by appearances in London, Rome, Paris, and Berlin. At each stop, Zelensky has been winning promises for more arms and economic aid for his country.

But while most of Zelensky’s meetings have been with leaders of rich industrialized nations, primarily in the West, he has also directed his diplomats to step up engagement in the global south. As Foreign Policy has chronicled, a majority of the world’s population lives in parts of the world that have refused to join U.S.-led sanctions against Russia.

One Ukrainian diplomat who has focused her energies on Asia is Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova. We first spoke at the Doha Forum in Qatar in March 2022, just weeks after the start of Russia’s invasion. Dzhaparova has since worked to put Kyiv’s case in front of leaders in the global south, correcting misperceptions and positioning Ukraine’s plight as a situation that could happen to other countries, too. Most recently, in April, she visited New Delhi, where she gave a speech titled “Russia’s War in Ukraine: Why the World Should Care.”

The answer to that question might be simple on paper. But the real question is whether any countries will change their policies. Dzhaparova joined me on FP Live from Kyiv. FP subscribers can watch our full discussion on video in the box atop this page. What follows is an edited and condensed transcript, exclusive to FP Insiders.

Ravi Agrawal: I’ll start with what I asked you the last time we met: How are you doing?

Emine Dzhaparova: We finally have spring here. The weather was quite harsh before, and we didn’t see the sun. But now our mood and spirit is much higher, even after the most recent bombardments and the fire show Moscow surprised us with. Of course, this is the reality, and the risk exists for many other countries as well—not only Ukraine’s neighboring countries—if the aggression is not stopped. If evil is not stopped, it becomes bigger. Our mission is to stop this evil.

RA: I mentioned the speech you gave in New Delhi. Before we get into the contents of that speech, why is India important for Ukraine?

ED: India is a huge country, the arbiter of the world, and its presidency of the G-20 is yet another important factor that defines its global impact. It has the biggest population in the world. India plays a huge role not only in the region but also globally.

Our president has instructed us to prioritize the global south for diplomacy, and that’s why we are trying to intensify our dialogue with India.

RA: Before the war began, India got 0.2 percent of its total crude supplies from Russia. Today, it’s north of 25 percent. That’s a dramatic increase. And this is cheap, discounted oil and part of the reason the West negotiated an oil price cap. India has been on the fence on this war; it hasn’t sanctioned Russia, and it has ramped up oil purchases. What exactly did you say to your audience in New Delhi that argued against the merits of cold, hard cash?

ED: It was a very important visit, both professionally and personally. Professionally, because I had a chance to speak up and vocalize what we are living as a reality, from the Ukrainian perspective, and not the Russian narrative, which is quite dominant in India.

The trip gave me a very strong sense of how Indian experts and officials perceive Ukraine and its reality. The main purpose of my visit was to break the ice, because it was the first high-ranking official visit after Russia invaded us. This is only the beginning of a dialogue that we believe has huge potential.

Many Indian people, as well as experts, think that Ukrainians and Russians are one people, one nation. One Indian expert told me that we Ukrainians know Russians better than anyone. So, he asked, “Why don’t you just sit at a table, negotiate, and resolve the war and end it?” I said that we are not one nation anymore. Saying that would be comparable to saying that India and Pakistan are one nation, so why don’t they just sit and negotiate and solve all their problems?

We also went through our history. We were part of the Soviet Union, but it’s a heritage that we are not willing to keep anymore, and the choice that we made as a nation, as a country—and we had the sovereign right to make this choice—to be a part of the European Union and European civilization, where the core of this civilization is freedom. Not fear, not blackmail, not the 19th-century, perverted way of thinking of spheres of influence, when one leader questions the existence of another country and then attacks it. Ukraine is now strong and mature enough to tell its own story and shape its own destiny.

Lastly, I had a strong feeling that Indian people and Indian society, as well as the expert community, perceives this as a provoked war. There is this feeling that Russian President Vladimir Putin was provoked to start the war and aggression because of NATO enlargement. I tried to end this narrative by saying that the war did not start on Feb. 24, 2022. It started in February 2014 with the invasion of Crimea. And when this happened, we didn’t have NATO enlargement, nor did we have discourse about native membership.

Read More

Ukraine’s Next Big Diplomatic Offensive Is in the Global South

More ambassadors, more embassies, and, the hope is, more countering Russia.

Report

|

Jack Detsch, Robbie Gramer

How to Understand Brazil’s Ukraine Policy

Like it or not, Lula’s stance reflects legitimate misgivings about the global order.

Analysis

|

Oliver Stuenkel

China’s ‘Peace Plan’ for Ukraine Isn’t About Peace

Beijing’s diplomatic overture has three ulterior motives.

Analysis

|

Jo Inge Bekkevold

RA: Diplomats in the global south often defend their neutrality on Russia by saying there were more casualties in Ethiopia last year than in Ukraine. Sudan is in crisis. They ask, where is the global attention for those countries? They ask, who’s talking about the plight of the Rohingya people? When you hear those comebacks, when you hear about the very clear financial constraints that these countries have—they need cheaper oil to balance their books—and they say that’s why they need Russia in the short term. How do you respond to those financial and global concerns from countries in the global south who you now seek support from?

ED: I believe that humanity should deal with those global challenges—climate change, poverty, food crises, and many more—but instead we in Ukraine have to tackle the challenges of unprovoked aggression.

This is also about the self-interest of many African, Asian, and Latin American countries to protect the very sacred concept of territorial integrity and sovereignty. If bigger countries attack smaller countries, if a country that has a veto right in the United Nations Security Council attacks another U.N. member state, it means that no one in the world can feel secure. It’s in every single country’s self-interest to protect values, to protect principles and a rules-based order. And obviously Russia violated all those norms that we all agreed to after World War II.

RA: A number of countries have now put forward plans or proposals to try to mediate an end to the conflict. India has made signals that it would like to try to mediate. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been traveling around the world talking about mediation. China has proposed a peace plan. A consortium of African states have tried to put forward another idea for negotiating between Ukraine and Russia. When you hear these plans and proposals, especially from countries that have so far sat on the fence, how do you respond? How do you take these offers for mediation?

ED: There is no country in the world more interested in having peace than Ukraine. And for very obvious reasons: We die. The war is on our soil. We suffer human losses, infrastructural damage, economic damage, loss of our people who flee to European countries. More than 8 million Ukrainians have left the country. Seven million Ukrainians have resettled in the country, becoming internally displaced persons.

When we speak about peace, it’s crucial to understand that any peace or appeasement is not the language or the goal that we have to tackle. Imagine that Putin achieves his goals in Ukraine, even though he hasn’t up until today. The initial plan of Russia was to take control of Ukraine in a matter of a week, but they failed. We proved victory is possible because Russia is not the second-largest army in the world, as they claimed before. So when we speak about peace, it’s crucial to understand that peace negotiations and the resolution should be based on justice, because otherwise, if it’s not based on justice, it will lead us to further aggression, as in the 2014 case of Crimea.

RA: What you are saying is don’t appease a bully.

ED: Yes. When 2014 happened, we as a country, along with the international community, were not able to adequately respond. And then it served as motivation for Putin, who took this as a license to attack further.

RA: So, when you hear these offers of mediation from Brazil or India or China, it sounds to me that you’re saying, “No, not right now.”

ED: No, we are not saying this. We welcome any attempt or effort that comes from any country who is really willing to resolve the war. We only say that any resolution of the war should be based on international law and on justice, because if it’s not, it might not be comprehensive. It might not last long.

President Zelensky presented his peace formula. These 10 points should be the basis for any negotiation or peace resolution. This is what President Zelensky said to Chinese President Xi Jinping during their phone conversation and to the Chinese special envoy, Li Hui, who is in Kyiv today. The same message has been delivered to the special envoy of President Lula and anyone else paying his or her visit to Ukraine. This is not a tailored message for one country or for another.

RA: I hear you when you say that you have a similar message for all of these countries that are offering to mediate. But isn’t China’s different? Xi met Putin right before the invasion. They’ve talked about a friendship without limits. In recent months, the United States has said that it has intelligence that China was planning to offer lethal aid to Russia. We don’t have proof of that, but maybe you do. China seems to me distinct from the global south in that it has a different role in this conflict. So: How are relations between Beijing and Kyiv right now?

ED: We are willing to intensify our dialogue. There is a strategic nature to this relationship. Formally, Ukraine and China are strategic partners. The conversation between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Zelensky was and is important in terms of delivering directly firsthand information, and for President Zelensky to vocalize the reality of where we are and what has been happening in Ukraine, why this war is unprovoked, why we believe that this is not a conflict but a war.

We see a very active, bilateral track between China and Russia. Indeed, we see economic benefits for Russia out of their relationship. But it’s important to be on the right side of history. The war in Ukraine doesn’t leave space for different interpretations or shades of gray. It’s black and white. For us, it’s clear that Russia is an aggressor state and Ukraine is a victim. Supporting Ukraine and helping it defeat aggression means to be on the right side of the history.

We don’t have confirmation of China offering lethal aid to Russia. Moreover, China always stresses that there are no weapons being supplied to Russia and they declare their neutral and noninterference status. We believe that China will continue to maintain this position. In terms of any peace-broker role that might be performed, there will be a clear understanding that will be synchronized with the stance of Ukraine.

There might be different peace plans out there. But the stance of Ukraine is the peace formula presented by President Zelensky. This is how we think peace might be achieved. Otherwise, it will only prolong the current situation and give more time for the aggressive regime in Moscow to prepare for another stage of the war.