Michael Kimmage and Hanna Notte
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was an event of global magnitude. The scale of the invasion, commensurate with its goal of eliminating Ukrainian statehood, was massive. Millions of refugees fled Ukraine into the rest of Europe. Fuel and fertilizer prices shot up, stimulating inflation worldwide. The war disrupted the production and distribution of grain, generating concerns about supply far afield from Russia and Ukraine. And as the conflict stretched into its second and third years, its international repercussions have expanded in scope.
In the war’s early stages, countries outside Europe tried mostly just to manage its effects. For those that chose not to directly back Ukraine—not to provide Kyiv with weapons or to sanction Russia—two priorities predominated. Seeing that there were deals to be made, some countries sought to benefit from Russia’s loss of European and U.S. markets for gas, oil, and other commodities. Others offered themselves as mediators in the sincere (or insincere) hope of minimizing the war’s direct and ancillary costs or even of ending it altogether. Their diplomacy was motivated in part by the prestige that comes from adjudicating a large-scale conflict.
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