August 17 marked one month since Russia withdrew from the UN-backed Black Sea Grain Initiative, which it followed with missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s ports, including its grain storage facilities.

In so doing, the Russian leadership showed it cared little if anything at all that its actions were driving up the price of grain, which affects and hurts most of all the poorest citizens of the planet, the majority of whom live in countries of the Global South.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Putin rejects Ramaphosa’s appeal to reinstate Black Sea Grain Initiative

On 5-6 August, representatives of Brazil, India and South Africa — prominent countries of the Global South that have been aligned with Russia through their membership in BRICS — participated in a meeting held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to discuss principles on achieving peace in Ukraine.

At the forum the 10-point peace plan first proposed by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky at the November 2022 G-20 summit was a focus of discussion. Ukraine’s 10-point peace plan stresses and is consistent with the UN Charter and international law.

In the wake of Russia’s actions in the past month, and the discussions in Jeddah, the governments of Brazil, India, and South Africa have an opportunity to revisit their assessment of Russia’s war against Ukraine and whether they could make a meaningful contribution toward attaining peace prior to the BRICS summit, to be held next week in South Africa.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Heavy security presence, road closures touted in countdown to 15th BRICS summit in Sandton

History forgotten or ignored

A common argument heard in the Global South and elsewhere is that Nato expansion forced or provoked Russia into taking military action against Ukraine. This view coincides with one of Russia’s justifications for launching the war. It is also outdated, viewing the war and more generally what has taken place in east-central Europe since the late 1980s through a prism of Cold War-era politics, where only two countries — Russia (before 1991 the Soviet Union) and the United States — deserve close attention.

Such an analysis ignores the historical experiences of the east-central European countries, including Ukraine, which until 1989-1991 were controlled directly or dominated by the Soviet Union. It ignores their views on how they were treated as a Warsaw-Pact country or as republics within the Soviet Union.

It also glosses over or ignores post-Soviet Russia’s efforts, including the use of force, to re-establish control over Chechnya and the newly independent post-Soviet states since 1991. Taking their views into account helps one understand why the former Warsaw Pact countries and the three Baltic states have all, without exception, flocked to join Nato. It is also the reason why Ukraine wants desperately to join this alliance.

To understand even more clearly why this movement toward a security arrangement to check Russia has been so attractive to the east-central European countries, an analysis based on the history of the region, which would take into account the expansionism of the Russian Empire in the more distant past, would also be helpful.

It would probably lead to the conclusion that post-Soviet Russia has reverted to a new version of the imperialist policies of its two predecessor states. Today, its long-term goal is to re-establishing control or influence over lost territories of its former subjugated and dependent nations.

Russia’s war against Ukraine should be understood therefore as an imperialist war of aggression and conquest, aimed at destroying the Ukrainian state to re-establish control over a key territory, people, and resources. In the longer term, the survivability of the Ukrainian nation, as such, is at stake.

To achieve its expansionist goals, Russia has trampled on treaties, international norms and obligations, ignored the UN Charter and abused its veto power on the Security Council, elevating thereby the rule of force over the rule of law, shaking the international order to the point of disintegration. Although the war is in Europe, it has had deleterious ripple effects across the globe — such as on the grain markets — creating even greater food insecurity among the poorest and less fortunate of this world.

When India’s prime minister Narendra Modi told Russia’s president Putin in September 2022 that the current era is not one for war, he also said that democracy, dialogue and diplomacy were needed. Implicit in this message is that there is more need than ever for countries to work together in a cooperative spirit to help solve the most important problems facing all of humanity today.

Global challenges to address

Aside from achieving food security, one of the greatest challenges is climate change, which is affecting all countries, but where the majority of the most vulnerable live in states of the Global South. Ending the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible on terms that are just and consistent with the UN Charter would remove a major obstacle to sorely needed international cooperation which has been placed before all countries by Russia’s war.

The upcoming BRICS Summit thus provides an opportunity for the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa to make a meaningful contribution towards attaining peace and to help turn the attention of the community of nations toward tackling climate change and other challenges confronting humanity. They are in a position to do so as Russia has been assiduously courting the countries of the Global South for support in its war against Ukraine and in its confrontational and belligerent stance with the West.

A meaningful contribution could be made if it is based on a principled approach towards ending the war based on the UN Charter and international law. But it also should be guided by a credible assessment of the nature of the war made on the basis of historical facts and trends.

It would be one that recognised the imperialist nature of this war, based on an understanding that in the past the making of empires has been associated with wars of conquest. It would be one that also understands that global history since World War 2 has been an era of de-imperialisation, the breakup of empires, the emergence of many independent, post-colonial states, and, most recently, one of facing up to and dealing with this legacy. This is the era we are still in today.

Countries of the Global South know from their own colonial pasts what it means to be victims of an imperialist state. At the BRICS Summit, the Russian leadership should be told that their dream of rebuilding an empire is actually a nightmare, and that the age of empires is over. DM

Dr Bohdan Klid is Director of Research at the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.