Some excerpts from the blog of retired Indian ambassador MK Bhadrakumar:

The world community is aghast over the acute tensions between the United States and its NATO allies on one side and Russia on the other, which is poised critically on the brink of a military confrontation, the like of which the world didn’t see in the entire Cold War era.

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The shocking part is that it has become a no-holds barred struggle that is being fought with tooth and claw, as hidden racial and religious prejudices lying just below the surface have welled to the surface in the Western world.

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Not a single Muslim country has voiced support for Washington in its confrontation with Russia. Although they are stakeholders in a Third World War, they prefer not to think about it. The heart of the matter is that they think this is another crusade of the Christian countries — cloaked as values and ‘rules-based order’ — which they’ve experienced so often. They see that the Western countries are back to their bestial wars endemic to European history through centuries.

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If reports are to be believed, Saudi Arabia point blank refused to pay heed to the Biden Administration’s entreaties to break up its energy alliance with Russia known as OPEC+ which fine tunes the supply position in the world oil market. Saudi Arabia’s rival Iran and Syria have openly supported Russia.Turkey offered mediation between Russia and Ukraine and indeed had a hand in arranging the talks in Belarus.

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However, it is Israel that made the most memorable overture to Russia of a historical nature suffused with great poignancy. Israel prevented the US from transferring to Ukraine its Dome missile defence system which would have been a game changer in the present conflict on the plea that it did not want to act against Russia!

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Both Washington and Tel Aviv hushed up this spat until its disclosure recently by the media. Then came the request from the Biden Administration seeking support from Israel to co-sponsor its resolution in the Security Council regarding Ukraine. Israel refused! The US made its displeasure known.

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To be sure, Israel must be well aware of the situation. Ukraine is not like any other country for Israel. It was the country where the horrific massacres took place in late September 1941 when the invading Nazi army, SS and German police units and their auxiliaries perpetrated one of the largest massacres of World War II.

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It took place at a ravine called Babyn Yar (Babi Yar) just outside the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev. According to the Holocaust Encyclopaedia, “Germans continued to perpetrate mass murders at this killing site until just before the Soviets re-took control of Kyiv in 1943. During this period, Germans shot Jews, as well as Roma, Ukrainian civilians and Soviet POWs. In the decades after the war, Babyn Yar symbolized the struggle over the memory of World War II and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union.”

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Israel finds itself in a delicate situation. The US is Israel’s close ally...

On the other hand, Israel has a very special relationship with Russia in terms of the fact that it also had suffered greatly at the hands of the marauding Nazi invaders. After all, over 20 million Soviet citizens perished during World War II.

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Equally, Israel is acutely conscious that Russia is deeply committed to the campaign against fascism at a time when the western world has turned its back on it and has decided to not only move on but also acquiesce with the recrudescence of Nazi ideology in the European societies lately.

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The UAE, a staunch ally of the US in the West Asian region, abstained twice in the recent days over the US-sponsored resolutions condemning Russia at the UN Security Council.