Since the war in Ukraine began, the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become one of the few windows that has Vladimir Putin outside his stronghold in Moscow to show off alliances and mingle with colleagues who have refused to condemn the invasion in UN resolutions. This time, the added incentive was that it was Putin’s first appearance on the international stage since the Wagner group mutiny put his power in check. An opportunity for the Russian leader to show that he continues to have the control and that his country is not as isolated as the West has claimed since the attack on Ukraine.
“The Russian people are united like never before,” Putin said via video link from the Kremlin. “Russian political circles and the whole society clearly demonstrated solidarity and responsibility for the fate of the motherland by standing as a united front against the attempted armed rebellion,” he continued.
The Russian leader would surely have liked, as happened last year, to have been able to pose with the rest of the leaders in a group photo, with the strength for the outside gallery that has such an image in the current context. But Indiawhose turn it was to host this time, decided at the last minute that it would be a virtual summitdepriving Putin of the long-awaited snapshot next to such relevant figures in the current geopolitical terrain such as Chinese President Xi Jinping or the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In New Delhi it has been speculated that Modi did not want to receive at his home, before the electoral campaign for the 2024 elections begins, the leaders of China and Pakistan, with whom he shares borders and many territorial conflicts. With Putin, on the other hand, Modi maintains a close relationship. But, just after returning from a state visit to Washington to strengthen ties in turn with the president Joe Bidenperhaps the Indian leader considered that it was not the best time to pose next to his Russian counterpart either.
With no group photo for Putin, the SCO meeting, often defined by Western think tanks as a regional security grouping founded by Russia and China to counter Western alliances in Asia, took place on Tuesday via video conference. The group includes India, Pakistan and the four asian nations Central (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). The great novelty of this year’s summit was that the group has admitted Iran as a new member. will soon join too Belarus.