Toomas Alatalu ⟩ The Kremlin's ranks of allies are thinning

Photo: -/AFP

• India is no longer an ally of Moscow.
• Russia places its hopes on BRICS countries.
• The Global South is not aligning itself with Russia.

The war in Ukraine has led several of the Kremlin's traditional allies to reassess their partnerships with Moscow, foreign affairs commentator Toomas Alatalu writes.

The Kremlin, which has launched a new redivision of the world, did so with the help of propaganda that skillfully washes the brains of both their own people and useful idiots among other nations. It is worth acknowledging in retrospect the smoothness with which, during the Kremlin's latest «our-victory» triennium (2013–2015), the vilification of German Nazis morphed into the vilification of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists. A peak moment in this can be considered the «parade» held by the separatist regime in Donetsk on August 24, 2014, where captured Ukrainian soldiers were treated with the same brutality and vocabulary as the German prisoners of war forced to march through the streets of Moscow in 1944.

Although the Kremlin maintained a certain restraint in its rhetoric with other countries in the years that followed, since 2022 all limits have been cast aside in order to ensure that lies prevail in justifying its actions. To some extent, they have been successful in this, as Russia is a major power – one that, alongside other great powers, indeed helped defeat a major villain and later supported the independence of colonial peoples in other empires. Unfortunately, those other powers did not demand freedom for the peoples of the Russian empire and for years just looked on as Moscow was engaging in military rampages in the so-called socialist bloc. It was convenient that way, as they were hoping that the horrors of the two large wars would turn everyone – including Russia – into believers in peace, and that matters of contention would no longer be resolved by force.

This was a premature assumption in a situation where democracy had only partially taken root in the world, authoritarian regimes persisted, and the air was thick with demands for reparations. It is therefore no surprise that the aggressor was not isolated, and business and communication with it continued. While democratic countries at least imposed sanctions on the aggressor, non-democratic states merely waited for the war to end. Naturally, Russia tried to interpret this diversity of attitudes as justification for its actions by others and began to assert, using broad categories, that it was backed by all major civilizations and alliances of states, especially BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

While democratic countries at least imposed sanctions on the aggressor, non-democratic states merely waited for the war to end.

As is well known, both were set up at the initiative of Moscow and Beijing, but BRICS also had India among its founding members (they joined the SCO later). When you add up the populations of Russia, China and India, their share of the world economy and trade, in recent years the respective figures for BRICS have clearly exceeded those of the G7 (US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan). The latter, however, has so far been seen as the engine of global development. Hence the Kremlin's bold assertions: Eurasia, or the Global South, has become the center of the world, instead of the Euro-Atlantic region, and we are developing faster because all our policies are right!

The weakest link in this construct is India, the world's largest democracy, where regular and competitive elections take place. In terms of foreign policy, India was under Moscow's influence for a long time, and one of the Kremlin's great ambitions has been a trilateral alliance between Moscow, Beijing, and New Delhi, which even functioned from 2002 to 2018. It is no coincidence that on May 28, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed hope at a Eurasia security meeting in Perm that the trilateral alliance would resume its activity. However, he referred to a recent India-China border dispute, which was a notable blunder, as this time the conflict is actually between Pakistan and India. The point is that Lavrov had announced a visit to Russia by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March, which was substituted just by a Putin-Modi phone call on May 4, with a reference to the latest border dispute. Previously, Modi had arranged his work schedule in Samarkand in September 2022 in such a way that there was no opportunity for a meeting between him, Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In October 2024, Modi and Xi met in Kazan, but no trilateral meeting took place then either.

At the recent Victory Day parade in Moscow, units from 13 foreign countries marched, including from China, but not from India, which had participated in 2015 and 2020. Narendra Modi had already become prime minister of India in 2014, yet at the pivotal May 9, 2015 parade – where wartime allies who declined to attend were replaced on the grandstand by a colorful array of leaders from Asia, Africa, and Latin America – India was represented by its «second man», the president. In 2020 and again in 2025, it was the defense minister who attended. That is, Modi has clearly kept his distance from one of Putin's main propaganda events. The main point, however, is that already on February 13, 2025, Modi was at the White House, meeting with Donald Trump, and Vice President J. D. Vance, whose wife is of Indian descent, made a four-day visit to India in March. The cherry on top of all this is the knowledge that Modi will participate by invitation in the G7 summit starting this Sunday in Kananaskis, Canada. The leaders of Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia will also do so; the first two were in Moscow on May 9, where Indonesia was represented by its defense minister. This means it can be concluded that some of the leaders of the major powers who were present at the Red Square have turned their backs on the aggressor, are turning away, or at least are distancing themselves from it.

At the recent Victory Day parade in Moscow, units from 13 foreign countries marched, including from China, but not from India, which had participated in 2015 and 2020.

If we proceed from the premise that we are living in extraordinary times – amid multiple major wars, essentially a world war – where switching sides can as well be an inevitable reality, then it is nevertheless symbolic that major powers of the aforementioned Global South shifting from one notional bloc to another within a short time appears as a move to the right side of history. It's also worth noting that the meeting to take place in Kananaskis is the second such meeting there: the G7 – known as the G8 at the time – also convened in the same location in 2002, with Vladimir Putin present as the representative of Russia.

As we know, Russia was excluded from the G7 in 2014. And it is worth remembering that Putin himself feared this would happen back in 2008 (his interview with Le Monde). Since G7 meetings rotate from country to country and hosts typically aim to showcase something new to their guests, it cannot be ruled out that the return to Kananaskis – and the invitation of specific guests – was also meant to inevitably convey a message to Putin. Namely: sit there alone.