For Putin, the stakes are rising.

The UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine, held on the 5 April 2022, revealed the political position of the participating countries in relation to Putin's war with Ukraine and, more importantly, their response to the brutal war crimes perpetrated by Russian soldiers in the village of Bucha, amongst many others.

With one voice, all of the participants at the Security Council meeting condemned these brutal war crimes and called for the stepping up of humanitarian assistance to those trapped by Putin's soldiers.

Nearly all of the participants laid the blame squarly for these war crimes at the feet of Putin, except for China and India.

Even more significant, neither the representatives for India and China referred to Putin as waging a WAR in Ukraine. 

The representative for India stated that,

"Humanitarian action must always be guided by the principles of  humanitarian assistance .. humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. These measure should never be politicised. We continue to emphasise to all member states of the UN that the global order is anchored on international law, the UN Charter, and respect for territorial integrity and sovereignity of states" (UN Security Council Meeting : 5 April 2022) (my emphasis) (Full Video: DW News : YouTube : 5 April 2022)

Here it is interesting to note that India's political philosophy of 'non-alignment' i.e. "not taking any side, but sitting on the fence", does not quite square with India now refusing to identify that Putin is waging a war against Ukraine.

Indeed, by not publicly identifying that Putin is waging war against Ukraine, India, by definition, is letting Putin off the hook and, by implication, the world should only speak about crimes committed by Putin's soldiers but NOT war crimes.

If India is letting Putin off the hook of 'war crimes' China, on the other hand, is worried about sanctions being applied to Putin and his 'siloviki'.

In the words of China's representative at the Security Council meeting,

"... Every effort should be made to prevent the escalation of the localised (note: a 'localised' conflict, not a war) conflict.

...
Humanitarian issues should not be politicised ...

Sanctions are not an effective means to solve the problem but will instead accellerate the spillover of the crisis and bring new and complex problems. Today, with the deep development of globalization and the closely linked community of mankind  the implementation of all dimensional and indiscriminate sanctions is tantamount to politicising, instrumentalizing, and weaponizing the world economy trigerring serious crisis in the fields of global economy and trade, finance, energy, food, and industrial trade and supply chain, and endangering decades of development gain of the international community, and making people of all pay a hefty price."

Could this response of the Chinese representative have anything to do with the report of MSN (ABC News) that,

"In a high-stakes video call, President Joe Biden and China's President Xi Jinping spoke Friday morning for an hour and 50 minutes for the first time since November amid concerns that China will help Russian President Vladimir Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
...
"President Biden detailed our efforts to prevent and then respond to the invasion, including by imposing costs on Russia. He described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians," the White House said." (MSN (ABC News) : 18 March 2022) (my emphasis)

It is also interesting to note that before the Security Council meeting, none other than Putin's former 'President stand-in', Dmitry Medvedev, warned that,

"April 1 (Reuters) - One of President Vladimir Putin's allies warned on Friday that Russia, a major global wheat exporter, could limit supplies of agriculture products to "friendly" countries only, amid Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis." (Reuters : 1 April 2022) (my emphasis)   

Yet even in the face of this political scrambling by Putin not to especially upset those Middle Eastern countries dependent on wheat supplies from Russia, but to limit supplies to the US, GB, and the EU, nonetheless the EU has expanded its sanctions against himself and his 'siloviki'.

As reported by Francesco Guarascio (left),

"The European Commission will propose on Tuesday to EU nations sweeping new sanctions against Russia, including banning imports of coal, wood, chemicals and other products worth about 9 billion euros ($9.86 billion) a year, an EU source told Reuters.
...
The European Union is also to propose a ban on exports to Russia worth another 10 billion euros a year, including of semiconductors, computers, technology for LNG gas, and other electrical and transport equipment, the source said.
...
Russian vessels and trucks would be prevented from accessing the EU, further crippling trade, the source said, with exceptions made for energy products, food and medicines." (Reuters : 5 April 2022) (my emphasis)

Putin is now desperately scraping the barrel of 'retaliation' against sanctions, just as China's President Xi Jinping is also worried that should he help Putin to continue his war against Ukraine, the very same sanctions against Putin and his 'siloviki' could be slapped on a Chinese economy that is already slowing down.

For Putin, the stakes are rising.

(to be continued)