Embedding liberal democracy in post-war Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that his country has intercepted plans by Russian secret services to destroy Moldova, AP reports.

Speaking to European Union leaders in Brussels, Zelenskyy said he recently told Moldovan President Maia Sandu about the alleged scheme. Documents showed “who, when and how” the plan would “break the democracy of Moldova and establish control over Moldova,” he added. 

The failure of such large democracies as India, Indonesia, and South Africa, as well as numerous other countries in Africa to back the West over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows that today, unlike in the Cold War, there is no bipolar order, argues Shivshankar Menon, Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.

For all the talk of autocracies and democracies facing off against each other, economic interdependence between China and the United States and the reality of a globalized economy mean that the world does not have a clear two-part division offering opportunities for traditional balancing. Instead, it is a world in which great-power rivalry is not between two superpowers but among multiple players, he writes for Foreign Affairs.