Actually, the world has mounds of information about Russia, Ukraine, NATO, the United States, Europe, and Russia’s war against Ukraine. Thousands of serious articles and books have been written about these actors, and scores of excellent articles and books deal with the war. All one needs to do to acquire more than a little information about the issues is to read. I’d be happy to provide Messrs. Mahbubani and Lula da Silva with bibliographies.

More importantly, Brazil’s president identifies the real reason for the Global South’s attitude toward the war, Ukraine and Russia: ignorance. And since policymakers in the Global South know too little about Russia and Ukraine to make informed judgments, they appear to rely on Cold War-era ways of thinking — according to which the West is still an overbearing imperialist and will always remain so, while Russia is the champion of the Third World.

In reality, the Russian Federation, like the Soviet Union, is an empire and Ukraine, like many other non-Russian states, was a Russian colony. The West has an imperialistic past, but in this case it is unquestionably on the side of anti-colonialism. The Global South should be on that side as well.

The age of Western imperialism is largely over. The age of Russian imperialism soon may be over. The Global South needs to recognize these facts if it wants to be on the right side of history by helping Ukraine to decolonize, resisting Russian empire-building, and thereby constructing a more just world order.

Holy fuck. This patronizing western mindset is why people are telling you to go fuck yourself