There are few monikers more irritating than that of the “Global South” – the fashionable term for countries making up the developing and low-income world. Nations of such disparate and often conflicting geopolitical and economic interest cannot be so easily pigeonholed.

Yet there is one thing many members do tend to have in common, which is a generally anti-Western mindset. This assumes particular meaning when it comes to Russian sanctions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin.Credit: AP

That these have self-evidently failed is largely because major parts of the “Global South” have refused to be bound by them, thereby providing ample export markets for Russian oil – which after being refined is frequently re-exported to Western markets – and abundant alternatives to the West in meeting Russian demand for manufactured goods.

Russia grew more strongly last year than any G7 advanced economy, including the US, and according to International Monetary Fund forecasts, is expected to do so again this year. Sanctions have at best only slightly weakened the Russian war machine.

To understand the roots of anti-Western feeling you have to go way back to colonial times, and the resentments that this now long-gone world incubated. But it has also grown worse in recent decades, starting with disastrous Western interventions in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and continuing with the global financial crisis, which undermined trust in Western financial markets.

Unlike China, which has showered the Global South with development money, the West has taken few steps to effectively court these economies. It then further added to the sense of grievance by initially refusing to share vaccine innovations during the pandemic with low-income countries.

Up goes the cry: “Why should we assist in a ‘white-on-white’ conflict on Europe’s fringes when you do nothing to restrain the........

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