This article examines the narratives surrounding Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and beyond. Since the start of the war, Western characterizations of Russia's foreign policy as revanchist and imperialist have been overshadowed by the more successful framing by Russia that its actions were driven by the need to push back on American unipolarity and Western imperialist tendencies. This article examines how the Kremlin's narrative on the war has been embraced by leaders in core BRICS countries, shaping their position vis-à-vis Russia and the war. Drawing on theories of strategic narratives, this article highlights how leaders in China, India, Brazil, and South Africa understand the war and create conditions in which Russia can prosecute its war against a neighbor with their support or acquiescence. The paper concludes with policy recommendations and a brief discussion of why theories of strategic narratives have been underappreciated relative to more standard power-based and materialist explanations of the war's outbreak, scope, and trajectory by scholars of international relations.
The conclusion to the special section argues that the Russia-Ukraine war has led to the emergence of non-alignment 2.0 in the Global South because the Cold War era non-alignment is anachronistic in the current/emerging world order. Non-alignment 2.0 is characterised by countries exercising strategic autonomy to maximise their geo-economic, geopolitical and geostrategic interests. They are neither aligned with the West nor with non-western powers forming a strategic alliance. Consequently, they have been unwilling to choose a side in the Russia-Ukraine war. In non-alignment 2.0, states in the Global South will be critical of both the West and non-western powers including China and Russia if they are unable to provide effective solutions to their problems and will create/provide their own norms and establish their own institutions to solve the problems facing these countries. Non-alignment 2.0 lacks coherence because it is unable to provide an effective political and economic path.