Putin\u2019s Asia diplomacy may help Russia avoid isolation. But it won\u2019t deliver his goals in Ukraine<\/p>\n
EXPERT COMMENT<\/strong><\/p>\n Moscow\u2019s recent engagement with ASEAN and Beijing shows it is not as isolated as Western countries had hoped. But it will not end the war in Ukraine in Russia\u2019s favour.<\/strong><\/p>\n As G7 leaders restated their united support for Ukraine and vowed to increase economic pressure on Russia, President Vladimir Putin was hosting leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the ASEAN-Russia Commemorative Summit in Kazan. There, Putin could point to a very different diplomatic reality: none of the leaders present had severed ties with Russia or joined the West in treating it as an international pariah.<\/p>\n This symbolic contrast is important. More than four years after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has not been isolated in the way many Western governments expected or hoped. Large parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America have continued to engage with Moscow.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is often out of strategic interest rather than sympathy: Russia remains a nuclear power, a permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, a major energy exporter and a useful partner for states that do not want the West to define their strategic choices.<\/p>\n But the more important issue is whether Putin\u2019s renewed diplomatic visibility represents a real comeback \u2013 or rather an attempt to compensate for Russia\u2019s lack of progress<\/a> in gaining international support for its position on Ukraine.<\/p>\n The Kremlin\u2019s challenge is not that Russia has no partners. Putin\u2019s visit to Beijing last month and the Kazan summit, which concluded on a commitment to deepen ASEAN-Russia cooperation,<\/a> gave Putin political platforms and opportunities to bolster his status. But these partnerships cannot deliver Putin\u2019s priority goal: a political settlement on Ukraine on Russia\u2019s terms.<\/p>\n