Pygmy Putin is the pariah who came in from the cold

After being globally isolated just a few years ago, the Russian president is back making alliances

- Owen Matthews

Invading Ukraine was meant to make Vladimir Putin an international pariah, shunned by the civilised world, economically isolated and living in fear of a war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Back in March 2022, Kaja Kallas, then prime minister of Estonia, told European leaders in London that “our goal is the complete isolation of Putin”. Except, instead of isolation, Putin finds himself feted by Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, and cosying up to India's prime minister Narendra Modi. Even as Russian rockets continue to rain down on Ukraine's cities, hardly a week seems to pass without a red carpet being rolled out for Putin.

"How in the hell did Trump so alienate Modi that he's now attending a summit with autocrats Xi and Putin?" asks an exasperated Michael McFaul, who served as Barack Obama's ambassador to Moscow. "Just last year, China and India were at war with each other!"

McFaul's answer to his own question is that "Trump and team are just bad at diplomacy".

And indeed, the White House's embrace of sweeping tariffs as an instrument of foreign policy, in defiance of decades of US economic policy, does indeed seem to be driving an ever-closer alliance between China, Russia, Brazil and India.

But another, more compelling explanation is that Putin is a master of the darker arts of international statesmanship. Putin is unfettered by considerations of high principle. He is free from the necessity of having to justify to voters the economic damage he is wreaking on his own country or to defend himself against any opposition.