-Analysis-
BOGOTÁ — I spent three years living in London, where I met the most unexpected and fascinating people. One was a (Jewish) Ukrainian who moved to London after the Russian invasion in 2022. We often met for coffee or a beer, and a chat, and he would regularly ask me how Latin American governments could possibly back Russia, which was in the process of trying to destroy his country.
I responded at first that President Vladimir Putin had cleverly managed the narrative around his invasion using two elements: Soviet heritage and Russian nationalism.
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But first I made sure to point out that most Latin Americans did not support Russia’s actions in Ukraine, as so many of us had lived through the horrors of civil conflict or violence linked to drug trafficking, and suffered the consequences of a tyrannical relationship imposed on our countries by the United States and its interests.
Yet this particular war, I noted, seemed far enough away to account for our emotional distance, especially after two years.
There were, however, other elements that could help clarify the Moscow-friendly position. Socialists have regained power in several countries in the region, including ours in Colombia — and the Latin American Left is, broadly speaking, anti-imperialist.
That means a standing critique aimed at U.S. foreign policy mainly, with intermittent lesser jabs at European powers like France and Britain or multilateral agencies that sustain “Northern” supremacy over the “South.” So logically, these governments will not side with any country backed by the United States, which they see as the chief culprit for the world’s underdevelopment.
The Soviet successor
These anti-imperialists used to admire the Soviet Union and now, with its dissolution, view Russia as its natural heir and the successor state to the socialist fatherland that backed communist and socialist forces and guerrilla movements fighting capitalistic, conservative and military regimes in the 20th century.
Latin American governments have equal antipathy toward the United States and the use of violence.
Today, governments openly opposed to the United States, like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, have backed Russia without compunction, while others with working ties, like Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Argentina (before recent elections), have kept quiet.
I was talking, but my friend looked unconvinced. Why, he asked, were they backing a “fascist government that silences the opposition, is friends with nationalists in France and Hungary, and finances separatist groups in the eastern part of my country?”
I repeated my last observation that Latin American governments were simply keeping quiet, given their equal antipathy toward the United States and the use of violence.
Nevertheless, his question led me later to browse through the mass of online propaganda from Russian sources like RT and Sputnik, which is widely broadcast and viewed on Leftist media like Venezuela’s Telesur. They serve to convey a clever — or cynical? — narrative that mixes pseudo-communism and nationalism.
Communism and nationalism
It’s an eclectic discourse. To be clear, Putin has revived the Soviet heritage in terms of power and geopolitical influence —Soviet imperialism, in other words — but not communist ideology. He wants Russia to exercise the same influence over the Global South as the Soviet Union did.
The Putin presidency is promoting the “trending” vision of a new, multipolar order.
This time around, it is not about accessing the South’s resources to finance a worldwide revolution or as part of a massive redistribution of wealth, but to boost Russia’s position as successor to that political, economic and military superpower. The Soviet Union was the United States’ only rival for a while, and that is the pedestal Putin seeks today.
To this end, the Putin presidency is promoting the “trending” vision we see across our social media platforms of a new, multipolar order. Southern nations would supposedly have more of a say there, though always under the patronage of its new big powers, Russia, China or India.
Different story in the Middle East
The nationalist component in this narrative seeks a return to the heartland of peoples viewed as ethnic kinsmen or Russia’s “little brothers,” namely Ukrainians, Belarusians or Georgians. A role has been given to the Orthodox Church, regardless of its oppression under the Soviets.
The resolve to combine clashing world views — religion and conservative values, populistic nationalism and the socialist challenge to the capitalist West — shows the importance of the narratives embedded in geopolitical rivalries.
Putin wants his sympathizers in Latin America to swallow this mish-mash of a script, and doubling down now, with the West distracted again in the Middle East. The stakes of course are the usual, crass, strategic interests, quite unrelated to ideology. As to why leaders like Colombia’s Gustavo Petro or Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador are coy over one brazen aggression, yet outraged by the actions of Israel in the other… well, let’s say, my friend still doesn’t quite understand.
