A Gang-Up in Bishkek: The Ceasefire Pressure, the Bloc That Flinched, and the Alliance That Held

Something that closely approximated a gang-up against Putin happened at Bishkek, and the leader was Narendra Modi. Over the course of the meeting Modi said outright that there has to be peace — all the world wants peace between Russia and Ukraine; India is the country of Mahatma Gandhi and of the Buddha and always stands for peace; hostilities should end as soon as possible. From the footage Mercouris read Putin as furious — extremely angry to be lectured by Modi in that way. Erdogan was talking in much the same way, and Tokayev, the president of Kazakhstan, supposedly an ally, apparently said the same things. Putin's complaint at his press conference: when the Russians took the action in the Black Sea, the Ukrainians went to all their friends and allies — the Arab states, India, Turkey — begging those countries to get Russia to stop. Asked whether Russia came under special pressure in Bishkek, he said no — they merely listened to their respected friends' contributions — which, when Putin talks like that, means they did have a problem with it. The outcome: Putin conceded nothing, refused a ceasefire, had the backing of Xi — and the final statement did not refer to Ukraine at all: a diplomatic victory, but the pressure from erstwhile friends was considerable.

It is US pressure — and what particularly angered Putin about Modi's comments was the packaging: trotting out the Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi to claim India is a country that always stands for peace, when India is perfectly prepared to use force to defend its interests — it was in a conflict with Pakistan just a year ago — and is not a country that turns the other cheek. The mechanism, as learned in Moscow: the Russians have concluded that some BRICS leaders and officials are afraid of sanctions — not just sanctions against their countries, but against them personally — and there are others in these governments nervous about American sanctions or secondary sanctions. None of them care about Ukraine, or about phone calls from Zelensky, whom none of them like; it is the Americans who have been calling them and telling them to put pressure on Putin. What it costs Russia: having to listen to this sort of thing, and to make rhetorical concessions — talking about the possibility of negotiations with the Ukrainians — in order to keep BRICS and the SCO together, when Putin's own press conference makes it absolutely clear he no longer believes in it.

After the BRICS conference in Kazan in October 2024, when all the arrangements were made to set up the various BRICS payment systems — BRICS Pay and all of that — basically nothing happened, because first the Brazilians and then others showed extreme nervousness about moving forward, all of them scared of the US — leaving the Russians both scornful and deeply frustrated, and BRICS looking collectively weak. The axis that absolutely matters within BRICS is China-Russia — and China's behavior at Bishkek was completely different. The Chinese readout of Xi Jinping's meeting with Putin, extraordinarily long as always, did not once mention Ukraine: the sense is that the Chinese have put the topic totally to one side and are forging forward with the relationship — with a lot of talk that the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline discussions are now resolved and an announcement could come very soon. Mercouris has no doubt it was China that ensured Ukraine was kept out of the SCO summit declaration's final statement: Modi, Tokayev and Erdogan would undoubtedly have wanted some reference to Ukraine, if only to keep the Americans happy, and the Russians by themselves might not have had enough authority to prevent it — China and Russia together ensured Ukraine was not mentioned at all.