Since Russia launched its “military operation” against Ukraine, it has faced several rounds of economic sanctions from the West. Chinese state tabloid Global Times has stressed that 140 of the 190 UN member states have shunned the anti-Russia sanctions, adding that the reverberations of the Ukraine crisis will backfire on the US. Although the US and others are already feeling some economic aftershocks , there is no evidence that a crisis is imminent. Nevertheless, the tabloid’s narrative speaks to the ongoing diplomatic rift between US-led alliances and other states gravitating to neutrality in pursuit of their own economic or political interests. Popular media headlines today go something like: Russia and the West battle to woo China and India over Ukraine. Much has been made of India and China not joining the anti-Russia sanctions. However, Mexico and two BRICS nations – Brazil and South Africa – have also played truant, with Brasilia slamming the “indiscriminate sanctions” and Pretoria promoting its own UN resolution on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine that didn’t mention Russia at all. Against this backdrop, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hosted BRICS ambassadors at a working breakfast on March 22 to discuss the Ukraine issue. Such coherence in diplomatic manoeuvring may come as a surprise to those who had already certified the death of the grouping, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, in 2016. In today’s climate, economic aims seem to be giving way to political ones, with the US and EU shooting themselves in the foot by tightening sanctions on energy and finance, sending prices soaring at home. Similarly, BRICS has acquired a new raison d’être outside economics. Moscow and Beijing have repeatedly slammed Nato’s expansion eastward; Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping broached the point in a February 4 communique. They have also been supportive of multilateralism, advocating for BRICS to serve as a “strategic partnership” that ranks political and security goals ahead of economic ones. The BRICS monolith is not carved in stone since India has been deepening its multisectoral partnership with the US and Brazil’s relations with Washington have swung from good to bad amid waning chemistry between their leaders. But the public neglect of solidarity among key US allies (Mexico, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) is a warning signal to Washington. It is not only Russia that feels alienated from the West. China, despite its willingness to come to terms with the EU and the US over trade, has hit the same political snags as Moscow. China, too, has been hit with US and EU sanctions, with the most recent tit-for-tat exchange taking place last week. A number of leading Chinese corporations have had their business activities restricted or been threatened with delisting from the US stock exchange. Beijing’s long-awaited investment deal with the EU has been mothballed on political grounds. China has recently been sued within the World Trade Organization, with most cases also being politically motivated. Beijing is now coming under extensive pressure from the US and EU to distance itself from Russia. Last month, US President Joe Biden warned Xi of “consequences” if he backed Russia and European officials are now demanding a tougher stance from Beijing and stressing that “equidistance is not enough”. However, China has not budged from its insistence that the conflict stems from unresolved European security problems and Nato expansionism. Beijing signalled that it would act in “its own way” on Ukraine while calling on the EU to act independently of US foreign policy. Sensing its inevitable departure from the Western community, Russia has naturally turned to its Eastern flank, in a much more decisive “pivot to Asia” than its previous attempt after sanctions in 2014. How Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens its pivot to Southeast Asia The move is now likely to encompass a diversion of trade, energy and finance as well as a shift in political focus to the Asian and Arab regions, with an emphasis on Iran, India, China, Asean and some Middle East powers, which have also declined to side with Washington against Moscow. The same can be said for China, which has also gone on the diplomatic offensive recently, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi either paying unscheduled visits to South Asian neighbours or hosting a cavalcade of high-profile visitors from Russia, Central Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Unsurprisingly, Moscow and Beijing are eyeing India, which continues to disrupt Quad unity and the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy. No sooner had Wang wrapped up his clandestine trip to India , than Lavrov arrived in New Delhi. Both sought to gain an understanding from India – on border skirmishes for China and the Ukraine crisis for Russia. The US has not been idle, either, sending top officials to India ahead of Russia, to try to swing the pendulum against Moscow. Still, that foray seems to have had no effect; India – along with many other developing states of the global South – is not willing to play politics but, rather, is motivated by economic gains from trading with Russia at a discount . A recent Foreign Policy report was tellingly headlined: “The West is with Ukraine. The rest, not so much”. These conditions not only show that a redesigning of the global order is under way, but also suggest that the new order will be more fragmented, with many fulcrums of power. Biden recently said “the world has changed”, and that the US is facing increased competition from China and Russia. Why US can’t expect the world to follow its China and Russia policy Beijing endorses Russian security concerns in Europe and extrapolates them to its own home region, lambasting the US Indo-Pacific strategy. It is closely watching the global reaction to the Ukraine crisis and calculating what could happen should tensions with the West reach the point of no return. China and Russia now seem to be seeking to establish an alternative world order, with many states seeing the Ukraine crisis as a clash between global powers for leadership of the new world. Danil Bochkov is an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council