Ukraine Triggers Deeper Divide

Hundreds of Italians showed up in Rome last month in support of Russian President Vladimir Putin and against Ukraine in September. They wanted their government to stop aiding Ukraine under President Volodymyr Zelensky. It was an event that reiterated how Putin has managed to withstand the sharp edge of a series of expansive sanctions clamped on his country at the initiative of the United States after the outbreak of the Ukraine war in February 2022. Subsequent events have clearly underscored a gradual polarisation in global political landscape. Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping accept what they see as a multipolar global system in which the United States does not dominate.