Russia Blazes Ahead With India Partnership While EU Plays Games to Snub Hungary

Dr. David Oualaalou, an international geopolitical consultant, veteran, and author sat down with Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Tuesday. The show’s guest tackled issues surrounding the growing relationship between India and Russia, as well as the European Union’s (EU) attempts to sabotage a foreign affairs summit that is planned to be hosted in Hungary at the end of August.

“Well, in a nutshell, it's that the new global order which will be economically driven will not bode well for the US. And that's for a reason, because of our ill-conceived and fragmented policies that we've been embarking on for the last three or four decades,” the analyst said.

“Saudis recently, two, three days ago announced two things: one, they're not going to be sending more oil to the US, and second they threatened to throw the European bonds on the markets if the US and Europe went ahead with confiscating the Russian assets,” the show’s guest said. He added that he sees this as a sign of how changes on the global stage is “paving a way for countries” to say to the US that they’ve “had it”.

While running for office in 2020, now-US President Joe Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” following the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. But after the war between Russia and Ukraine began, and the West decided to sanction Russia, Biden was forced to go to Saudi Arabia on a bent knee.

In 2022, the president traveled to the largest country in the Arabian Peninsula, in an effort to rebuild relations in order to lower US gas prices while also isolating Russia, a New York Times article wrote at the time.

“Biden called MBS, Mohammed bin Salman a pariah and he said we will bring him to justice. Well, you can't use that kind of rhetoric when your country is depending on oil from the Saudis, even though most Americans do not know that we have far more oil here in this country than we are needing from overseas countries,” Oualaalou explained.

Biden’s decision to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline came on the heels of a 12 year delay following opposition from locals, Native American tribes, and environmentalists. The project was first proposed in 2008 as a way to bring oil from Canada’s Western tar sands to US refiners.

“But it tells you right there how corrupted and dysfunctional [the US] system is to the point that [the US] has to pay for oil instead of using [its] own oil right here. And that was the first order of business that Biden did when he came to power. What was the first thing? To shut down the Keystone pipeline,” he added.

Sputnik’s Garland Nixon then turned to another topic of conversation. Nixon reported that the relationship between Russia and India has been strengthening, and that their strengthened relationship could be “very good” for BRICS. But, he added, it appears as though the US is trying to keep Russia from forming these alliances.

“The same argument can be made about the partnership, the strong friendship between Russia and China. How did we get to this? It was because of the failure of American policy that forced the two countries to get together,” Oualaalou explained.

“Once again, can you just imagine, go back to the '70s. If [the US] had sat down with the Soviet Union and the Chinese, the three would be sitting on the same table and figuring out their differences and working out their differences and their interests and so forth. They would be in a different picture. That's what India is looking for. India is looking after its own interests and rightly so,” he said.

“Can you imagine if India wanted to sit down with the Chinese and work out their differences regarding the borders? I mean, can you imagine how much India would benefit from that economically? Yes, it has a lot of people, but a majority of the people live in poverty,” the geopolitical consultant added.

EU leaders are planning to “boycott” a key foreign affairs summit which will be hosted by Hungary in late August, RT reported on Monday citing Politico. Josep Borrell, a Spanish politician serving as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, is reportedly planning to hold a separate foreign affairs council at the same time thereby forcing some foreign ministers to have to choose which event to attend.

On Wednesday, Politico also reported that the European Parliament (EP) described Viktor Orbán’s visit to Russia as a “blatant violation of the EU’s Treaties and common foreign policy.” During a vote on Wednesday, members of the EP condemned the meeting in a passing resolution while reassuring their commitment to maintain support for Ukraine. About 495 MEPs voted in favor and 137 voted against.

“The idea that to embark on something like this, it tells you right there what the establishment wants. They don't want peace and they're gonna have it if they keep pushing the Russians way, way, way more than what they are already doing because it's now become evident that [the US] cannot defeat the Russians."

“Russia's GDP per capita is reaching almost $15,000, which wasn't there before and their military production is going full steam ahead to the point that it exposes now the weakness of NATO, let alone for us to fight Russians, that's just an illusion for those in the West who think that we can defeat the Russians.”