South Africa confirmed on Thursday, June 29, that the upcoming BRICS summit will be held as proposed on August 22-24 in Johannesburg, putting to rest the uncertainty which arose after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
South Africa, being a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC, is duty bound to execute the arrest warrant against Putin if he lands in the country.
The ICC had issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March over allegations of illegal deportation of children from Ukraine, as well as other war crimes committed there. Putin has denied these allegations.
Reuters quoted South Africa’s Minister of International Relations Naledi Pandor as saying that Putin has not yet confirmed whether he will attend the summit in person, and he may join in virtual mode.
South Africa has been pressured by the United States and other Western countries to abandon its stance of neutrality with respect to the war in Ukraine and abide by the sanctions imposed by them on Russia. The United States had also accused South Africa of supplying weapons to Russia.
South Africa has denied the U.S. allegations and refused to take sides in the war, maintaining that economic and political relations with both the West and Russia are significant for the African nation.
In June, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa led an African delegation to both Ukraine and Russia to push for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.
South Africa joined BRICS in 2011 as its fifth member. The grouping also includes Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The upcoming gathering would be the 15th summit of BRICS countries, which have vowed to create a more equitable and multipolar world system and counter Western economic and political hegemony.
More than a dozen countries have applied for BRICS membership recently, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Argentina, indicating the growing popularity of the grouping as an alternative to West-dominated international forums.
Ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan with Russian President Vladimir Putin / credit: Twitter / Kremlin
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Multipolarista.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has accused a top U.S. diplomat of threatening his government as part of a “foreign conspiracy” to overthrow him.
This March, opposition politicians in Pakistan tried to push a no-confidence motion through the National Assembly, seeking to remove Khan from office.
Khan, who was democratically elected in 2018, said the U.S. government was supporting these opposition lawmakers in their attempt to oust him.
“I’m taking the name of U.S., the conspiracy has been hatched with the help of America to remove me,” the Pakistani prime minister said, in Urdu-language comments translated by the media.
In a meeting with leaders of his political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Khan singled out Donald Lu, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs.
According to the prime minister, Lu threatened Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Asad Majeed, warning that there would be serious “implications” if Khan was not ousted.
Washington allegedly told Majeed that U.S.-Pakistani relations could not improve if Khan remained in power.
Khan accused the U.S. embassy of organizing Pakistani opposition lawmakers to vote for the no-confidence motion in the National Assembly.
In previous comments, Khan had also said that Washington sent a letter threatening him for rejecting its attempts to create U.S. military bases in Pakistan.
Khan hinted that the soft-coup attempt was aimed at reversing his independent foreign policy. Under Khan, Pakistan has deepened its alliance with China, greatly improved relations with Russia, and maintained staunch support for Palestine.
Washington has rejected these allegations. However, Khan’s comments are bolstered by testimony that Lu himself gave in a March 2 hearing of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Near East, South East, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
A video clip of Assistant Secretary of State Lu in the hearing, which went viral on Twitter, shows him admitting that the U.S. government had pressured Pakistan to condemn Russia for its military intervention in Ukraine.
Lu’s video testimony confirms that Washington is angry because of Islamabad’s growing relations with Moscow.
Imran Khan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Beijing Olympics. The Pakistani leader subsequently took a trip to Moscow on February 24, the beginning of the military campaign in Ukraine.
After his visit, Khan announced that Pakistan would be expanding its economic ties with Russia, importing its wheat and gas, while ignoring Western sanctions.
Although the country is a close ally of China, Pakistan has for decades had a difficult relationship with Russia. Under Khan, Islamabad’s tensions with Moscow have significantly softened.
Pakistani scholar Junaid S. Ahmad published an article in Multipolarista analyzing the numerous reasons why Washington would want to remove Imran Khan from power, including his growing alliance with China and Russia, his refusal to normalize relations with Israel, and his gradual move away from Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan’s opposition is trying to overthrow Prime Minister Imran Khan with a no-confidence motion.
Khan says he has proof of foreign funding for a regime-change op to reverse his independent foreign policy – especially his alliance with China and Russiahttps://t.co/wdIqWDlqss
The deputy speaker of Pakistan’s National Assembly, Qasim Suri, suspended the opposition’s no-confidence motion, arguing that it was unconstitutional because it was part of a “conspiracy” supported by “foreign powers.”
This means that Khan has 90 days to hold snap elections.
There are worries in Pakistan, however, that the soft-coup attempt against Khan could escalate into an old-fashioned military coup.
Pakistan’s army is very powerful, and notorious for overthrowing civilian leaders. An elected Pakistani prime minister has never completed a full term.
Pakistan’s military is also closely linked to the United States, and frequently acts to promote its interests.
In concerning comments made in the middle of this controversy, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa praised the United States and Europe. Breaking with the elected prime minister, he criticized Russia over its war in Ukraine.
These remarks suggest that Khan may have lost the support of top military leaders.
General Bajwa: ‘We share a long history of excellent relationship with the United States which remains our largest export market; UK/EU vital to our national interests; Russian aggression on Ukraine is very unfortunate, this is a huge tragedy.’
Editor’s Note: This is based on a presentation the author gave during a February 6 webinar, “U.S./NATO Aggression at the Russian Border. No War with Russia.”The event was a conversation between Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. activists the United National Antiwar Coalition had organized.
We have serious concerns that the accelerated drive to militarization and war by the United States and its allies dramatically unfolding with the crisis in Ukraine might very easily escalate to the point that it could threaten global humanity.
In their mad drive to advance their geostrategic interests to the detriment of everyone else—the Democratic Party version of “America First”—the Biden administration willfully violates all of the core principles of international relations and law. The respect for national sovereignty, the prohibition against threatening other members of the United Nations with military actions, non-intervention and adherence to international law are not recognized by the United States, which sees itself as an exception to the rule of law.
The manufactured crisis in Ukraine is just the latest episode of the reckless and delusional drama that the United States is involved in to attempt to maintain hegemony in conditions that have fundamentally changed. That is why contextualizing Ukraine as another example of why a global anti-war and anti-imperialist movement is so vitally important.
As long as the commitment to “Full Spectrum Dominance” remains bipartisan policy, today, it’s Ukraine. But tomorrow, it is certain to be another nation, another issue that will require a response from the peoples of the world.
As stated in the final declaration of the Fourth Canada-United States-Mexico Trilateral Peace Conference in Moca, Dominican Republic, held in September 2018, there must be a firm and principled commitment on the part of peace and anti-imperialist organizations that “peace must be based on the principles of non-intervention and full respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, self-determination and independence of all states, as stipulated in the United Nations Charter and covenants of international law enacted since the end of the second imperialist war known as World War II.”
Yet, the web of global U.S. command structures—with over eight hundred military bases—NATO as the largest military alliance in the world; illegal, draconian sanctions; and political subversion through coups makes national sovereignty impossible. The illegal and unilateral actions by the United States and its allies represents a constant threat to international peace and perpetuates a lawless, international Hobbesian state of nature.
So, while it is quite clear how we got to this moment with the situation in Ukraine, the challenge for the anti-war, pro-peace movement—and more specifically for the anti-imperialist organizations and movements in the United States and Europe—is to ground our understanding of the driving force and objective interests responsible for where the international community is at this moment.
For the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) the common enemy is the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination. We argue that we must center our analysis within the context of the global class struggle—a struggle sharpened by the ongoing and irreconcilable contradictions of the global colonial-capitalist system.
That is important because if we do not identify the real, concrete material forces, we can find ourselves struggling against shadows, instead of against the corporeal reality of an alliance of states dedicated to advancing their interests to the detriment of everyone else.
It is imperialism, led by the United States, that is the culprit. Its parasitic imperialist domination would be impossible without its core instrument of enforcement and control: State violence. That is why we are discussing Ukraine today.
Imperialism: That is framework. Today, it is Ukraine. Tomorrow, it might be China. Why? Because with the seemingly sudden and spontaneous crisis that emerged with Ukraine, the steady, violent, oppressive and repressive relations of power between the United States and Western capital and the rest of humanity continues. Objective reality bears this out. While we are focused on Ukraine as the most immediate danger, the people of Afghanistan are starving, bombs are still dropping in Yemen, coups are unfolding in Africa, the United States is still pivoting to Asia, and the peoples and nations of Latin America and the Caribbean are still suffocating from the predatory weight of the U.S. hegemon.
When we remind ourselves that the doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance animates U.S. foreign policies, we can disabuse ourselves of any illusions on what our historic task must be.
The drive for dominance has always been fueled by one objective: To position U.S. capitalist interests to be able to more effectively plunder the labor and resources of the peoples and nations of the world.
Is that not what is in play in eastern Europe? Is it not capitalist competition and its geostrategic implications that is driving events? Can we understand Ukraine, the role of NATO and the United States, without understanding the economic interests involved with Nord Stream 2 and the Eurasian Economic Union and even the Belt and Road Initiative? Was it a surprise that after being pushed out of Afghanistan, a crisis would emerge in Kazakhstan as the United States desperately tries to re-position itself in central Asia? That is why nothing short of the defeat of imperialism must be seen as our task.
There are significant points of resistance emerging from popular struggles that are moving us toward that task of building powerful international peoples’ movements:
Prohibition against nuclear weapons. January represented the one-year anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The TPNW came out of UN General Assembly resolution in July 2017. It represents the first legally binding agreement that comprehensively prohibits nuclear weapons with ultimate goal of total elimination. The treaty came into force January 22, 2021, after reaching the goal of fifty instruments of ratification or accessions. The Black Alliance for Peace was one of the first organizations to take up the work of publicizing the treaty as soon as it emerged from UN General Assembly in July of 2017.
We must work to abolish NATO. In a 1997 essay published by the New York Times, Kennan said, “Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era… Such a decision may be expected… to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.” But our concerns on NATO extend beyond the contradictions that NATO poses in Europe. For African peoples and other colonized peoples, NATO is correctly seen as an instrument of U.S. and European military domination. BAP actively campaigns to dismantle NATO and considers it an integral part of the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination. The international campaign to close U.S. and NATO bases and shut down the U.S. global command structures represents much needed international cooperation and coordination to bring attention to and build opposition to the global U.S. and NATO network of military bases and structures
Support movements for Zones of Peace. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) declared the Caribbean and Latin America to be a “Zone of Peace.” BAP is leading an effort to revive the civil society element of this state-centered declaration by popularizing the declaration and building popular support across the region.
Campaign against sanctions. There is a growing awareness of the devastating consequences of economic sanctions on the general population in those more than 30 nations that are under the illegal sanction regime of the United States and Europe. Coalitions like Sanctions Kill have been organizing to bring attention to this issue in the United States and globally.
The white supremacist, colonial-capitalist, patriarchal ruling classes of the United States and Europe are clear—even if we are not—that war and repression will be used with maximum efficiency to maintain their hegemony. Therefore, we can have no illusions: We must fight back, and we must win!
Every mobilization against illegal sanctions; subversion in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba; the global U.S. command structures and bases; mass incarceration in the United States; police killings; the murder of Palestinians; and the continued capitalist assault on Mother Earth have to be seen as part of our efforts to defeat the colonial-capitalist order—to fight imperialism, and the way we do that is to turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism!
Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president of the United States on the Green Party ticket. Baraka is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and was awarded the U.S. Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shirm award for uncompromised integrity in journalism.
Residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic set off fireworks and waved Russian flags on February 21 after Russia recognized the independence of the breakaway republic as well as that of the Lugansk People’s Republic / credit: Tasnim News
Editor’s Note: The following represents the writer’s analysis.
With Russia recognizing on February 21 two breakaway republics in Ukraine’s Donbass region, war between Russia and U.S.-backed Ukraine appears closer than ever. However, such an escalation means Europe is bound to face an energy crisis, as sources of oil and gas remain too small or unreliable to meet its needs.
The United States and the European Union are expected to impose severe sanctions on the Russian Federation. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, announced it will impose sanctions on Russian banks. The United States could eventually pressure all European countries to stop purchasing Russian energy, one way or another. U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order immediately after Russia recognized the two republics. The order bans business that would develop the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic. Although the order states medical supplies and other basic needs would not be barred, U.S. sanctions have been found to shrink economies and kill people by denying materials to produce medicines. Moreover, Biden announced today the “first tranche,” which includes restrictions on Russia’s sovereign debt.
“That means we’ve cut off Russia’s government from Western financing,” Biden said.
On September 10, the sections of the second Nord Stream 2 pipeline laid from the German shore and Danish waters was connected in a so-called above water tie-in. The opposing pipe strings were lifted from the seabed by the lay barge Fortuna and the pipe ends were cut and fitted together. The welding to connect the two lines took place on a platform located above the water on the side of the vessel. Then the connected pipeline was lowered to the seabed as one continuous string / credit: Nord Stream 2 / Axel Schmidt
Europe’s Energy Conundrum
With the march toward war, Germany halted approval for Nord Stream 2, an undersea pipeline that would have doubled the amount of natural gas flowing from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, bypassing the U.S.-backed Ukraine.
About 43 percent of natural gas consumed in the EU comes from Russia. Moreover, Russia is the main supplier of crude oil to the EU, making the alliance of European states heavily dependent on Russian energy. If the EU completely cuts energy ties with Moscow, power outages could become the norm, especially given European gas storages are already half-empty. Even if the United States pressures other producers to increase energy supplies to Europe, it remains uncertain what can replace Russian oil, gas and coal in the interim.
Europe is not the only place that will suffer from what seems to be an inevitable war between Russia and Ukraine. The two countries are the world’s fourth and seventh largest producers of cereals, respectively. That means West Asian countries, significant importers of the Russian and Ukrainian foodstock, are expected to experience food shortages if Ukrainian sea ports are blocked due to a war or if Russia is cut off from the global financial system.
Still, it remains to be seen if such severe sanctions will come as a result of the Kremlin’s recognition of the Donbass republics, or if the West will wait for major clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Why Russia Recognized Breakaway Republics
The Kremlin’s recognition of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic is only the beginning of a large-scale conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The two republics, located in the coal-rich Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, are now Moscow’s allies, which means Russia will openly support them if Kyiv does not end hostilities that erupted in 2014.
Map of Donetsk People’s Republic (lavender) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (peach) within Ukraine’s Donbass region / credit: STUmaps/Wikipedia
Ukraine has been firmly in the U.S. geopolitical orbit since violent neo-Nazi protests in Kyiv’s Maidan Square resulted in the 2014 overthrow of the allegedly pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Yet, Russia did not attempt to help the then-Ukrainian leader stay in power. As Russian President Vladimir Putin said in 2018, Washington had asked him to persuade Yanukovych not to use force against “peaceful protesters.” Putin agreed. As a result, anti-Russian forces came to power in Kyiv, leading the people of the Donbass region to vote in favor of leaving Ukraine.
“I don’t think anyone can claim that the Ukrainian regime, since the 2014 coup d’état, represents all the people living on the territory of the Ukrainian state,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on February 22.
In 2014, however, Russia recognized the results of the Ukrainian presidential election, organized by the post-Maidan authorities. Lavrov even called newly elected President Petro Poroshenko the “best chance” for Ukraine. Eight years later, the Kremlin has completely changed its rhetoric on Ukraine. Now, Lavrov openly questions the very sovereignty of Ukraine, while Putin indirectly threatens to continue the process of fragmentation of the Eastern European country. In his speech on February 21, Putin said the Soviet Ukraine is the result of the Bolsheviks’ policy and can be rightfully called “Vladimir Lenin’s Ukraine.”
“You want decommunization? Very well, this suits us just fine. But why stop halfway? We are ready to show what real decommunizations would mean for Ukraine,” Putin stressed.
Does that mean Russia plans to seek pre-Bolshevik borders with Ukraine, which would include incorporating the Crimean peninsula into the Russian Federation?
Map showing Crimea and the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugantsk / credit: Congressional Research Service
From the Russian perspective, recognition of the Donbass republics will not resolve the problem Moscow has with Washington. The United States is using Ukraine merely as an instrument against Russia. This comes as the Kremlin uses its Donbass proxies as a tool against the U.S.-backed Ukraine in an escalation of a Cold War game between the two nuclear powers that was sparked with the 2014 Maidan events and Russia’s subsequent actions in Crimea and Donbass. But the latest developments suggest Moscow intends to raise the stakes. Quite aware Ukrainian authorities will never recognize the secession of breakaway provinces and will continue to fight, the Kremlin hardly has a choice but to eventually install a Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv.
Such an operation undoubtedly means war. But war is inevitable, one way or another. Russia has deployed troops to the newly recognized Donbass republics. If Ukrainian forces do not end hostilities, the Russian Army is in the very near future expected to engage in a direct confrontation against Ukraine. Given that the Eastern European country has received at least $200 million in U.S. “lethal aid” as well as other Western-made weapons over the past two months, it is not probable Kyiv will accept a new geopolitical reality. Ukraine is not in a position to refuse to accept Western arms and Ukraine has often said it would never capitulate to Russia. Refusing arms would mean a de facto capitulation to Russia.
The Inevitability of War
Sooner or later, the Donbass conflict will escalate. Shelling has increased along the entire front line, which seems to be part of preparations for a military offensive. Ukraine aims to restore its sovereignty over the Donbass, while the Lugansk People’s Republic demands Kyiv withdraw its troops from the entire Lugansk Oblast (region). Both republics control relatively small portions of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts. Two-thirds of the regions are still controlled by Kyiv. Given that on May 12, 2014, a referendum on the status of Donetsk and Lugansk was held on the entirety of the two oblasts, it is entirely possible Moscow also sees the two republics as part of a much bigger territory than what is currently under control of the pro-Russian forces. Their final borders, however, are likely to be determined after a war.
For now, the region will remain in a state of limbo. If Ukraine breaks off diplomatic ties with Russia, something Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced, it will be a clear indication the two countries are on the brink of war.
That several Western countries have moved their embassies from Kyiv to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, and that around 10 airlines have canceled their flights to Ukraine, suggests the breakout of war is just a matter of time.
Nikola Mikovic is a Serbia-based contributor to CGTN, Global Comment, Byline Times, Informed Comment, and World Geostrategic Insights, among other publications. He is a geopolitical analyst for KJ Reports and Enquire.
