But who are Russia's allies? Belarus is a sockpuppet, North Korea is a communist rebel state. These countries have nothing to lose and they will support any Russia's move. China and India are not allies but business partners at best.
Agreed. At this point, Russia has only a handful of allies, including DPRK, Iran, Belarus, Venezuela and Nicaragua (and a few breakaway regions such as Abkhazia and Transnistria). China and India are wary of the growing US influence and therefore they want Russia to act as a buffer. But at the same time, business comes first for them. At this point, both the countries are benefitting from the supply of cheap Russian hydrocarbons. But in case the Americans implement secondary sanctions, then I don't think that these two countries will have any option other than to stop their imports from Russia.
Secondary sanctions against countries as huge in size and GDP as China and India, in my opinion, are absolutely meaningless.
In fact, this means imposing sanctions on half of the planet.....
After all, China and India in this situation are defending only their pragmatic interests.
It is precisely with this, in my opinion, that the recently announced plan of China to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is connected (as they try to diplomatically call the ongoing events). China needs confidence in the supply of energy, food and chemicals.
China is accustomed to planning its financial and economic activities for 5 years in advance and is not interested in increasing confrontation in the modern world.
This is exactly what Putin needed to declare war on internationally supported Ukraine. No one enters a regional war without supporters. And China is ignorant if it loses this opportunity to get its enemies involved in a long-term war (years at least) and benefit from weakening them to support its economy. China only cares about its economy.