The 77th U.N. General Assembly general debate starts Tuesday, and it promises to be among the more heated in recent memory as (nearly) every country’s delegates gather for the highest-profile event of the diplomatic circuit. The Ukraine war is expected to take center stage, with the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, promising to “isolate and condemn Russia until this unconscionable war comes to an end.”
What we are watching: How will states that have so far tried to stay out of the crossfire handle confrontation between Russia and the West at the conference?
The discovery of yet another mass burial site including at least one mass grave left behind by retreating Russian forces in Izium only tilts the moral balance of the conflict further in Ukraine’s favor, with even Pope Francis II announcing it was morally acceptable to ship arms to Kyiv and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi assailing the war during a public meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin is pushing hard to prevent Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from speaking at the General Assembly by blocking special permission to address the body remotely, perhaps hoping to blunt a powerful rhetorical impact. We will be interested in whether any countries that have so far tended to abstain on Russia-related U.N. votes change tack because of the continued Russian atrocities — or perhaps more cynically, because Ukraine’s counteroffensive east of Kharkiv makes Moscow look suddenly weak almost seven months into its invasion.
Europe is aggressively moving to mitigate what promises to be a hard winter, with Brussels proposing a windfall tax on non-gas energy profits to offset the pain of surging prices.
What we are watching: Will European governments pay the price at the ballot box regardless of their best efforts? Consumer confidence in Europe’s largest economies has continued to plummet all year, with sentiment in Germany and the United Kingdom nearly half as strong as it was in September 2021. And they are right to worry, writes Morning Consult economic analyst Jesse Wheeler, as high inflation, weak growth outlooks and key lending rate cuts mean a recession is a realistic fear.
The temptation to skirt sanctions on Russia for a little relief in the polls may become quite strong among certain E.U. countries, but Brussels is already heaping the pressure on the most likely spoiler: Hungary and its pro-Russian leader Viktor Orban. The European Parliament voted to label Hungary an “electoral autocracy” last week and the European Commission is expected to announce cuts to funds for Budapest today because of failures of rule of law.
Democratic backsliding has been a problem for Hungary for nearly a decade, but Budapest’s intransigence on attempts to sanction Russia seem to have made it more politic for other E.U. member states to try to do something about it. We will be watching for signs that Brussels might crack down harder if Hungary strays out of line.
Two sets of former Soviet countries are in the middle of heightened tensions with fighting breaking out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh region and between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan along their complex shared border.
What we are watching: Are these states taking advantage of Russia’s bloody entanglement in Ukraine to press their own agendas? Armenia has relied on Russia and the NATO-esque alliance known as the Collective Security Treaty Organization to protect it from Azerbaijan since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but its calls for aid have led to non-committal statements from the Kremlin and admonishments to exercise restraint.
Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan does not seem confident he will receive backing from his traditional patron amid its struggles in Ukraine, and even told parliament he would be willing to make territorial concessions to secure a lasting peace with Azerbaijan.
The Central Asian conflict has the added wrinkle of both sides being members of the CSTO, making them nominal allies both of each other and of Russia. What’s more, Putin was right next door in Uzbekistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, underlining his inability to stage manage his visit to the region even among countries that rely heavily on Russia. We will be watching for signs of Moscow attempting to intervene, and what the Russian response reveals about its power projection capabilities.
