Russian officials on Tuesday raised the volume on their pitch to the developing world: Moscow, they maintained, is the strongest bulwark against the “neocolonialism” and “perversions” of the West.
In a pair of speeches at an international conference outside Moscow, Russia’s defense minister and one of its top spies told a crowd of visiting military dignitaries that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had elevated Moscow’s role as a counterweight to the Washington-led world order.
The message was nothing new, and it echoed President Vladimir V. Putin’s rhetoric when he hosted African leaders in St. Petersburg for a multiday summit last month. But Tuesday’s speeches underscored the intensity of the Kremlin’s efforts to strengthen ties with non-Western countries amid the American and European campaign to isolate Russia on the world stage.
“It has so happened that history has once again assigned to Russia the role of the locomotive in promoting the interests of the majority of independent states,” Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu said in his speech, an echo of the Soviet narrative about countering Western “imperialism.”
Afterward, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, cast Russia as a defender of conservative social values — a message, oft-repeated at last month’s Africa summit, that the Kremlin appears to see as an effective one in targeting global audiences.
“Man is created in the image and likeness of God, but Westerners seek to replace him with all sorts of transgender people and biomechanoids,” Mr. Naryshkin said in his speech. “Indeed, for a physically and spiritually healthy person, it’s unpleasant and sometimes even scary to arrive in Europe, given how many different kinds of perversions have bred there.”
Mr. Naryshkin and Mr. Shoigu were speaking at an annual Moscow-area conference that is Russia’s answer to Western international gatherings of security officials, like the Munich Security Conference. Countries including Cambodia, Djibouti, Myanmar and Pakistan sent delegations, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry, along with Belarus and Russian allies in Central Asia.
The highest-profile international guest was China’s defense minister, Li Shangfu. He largely reprised China’s talking points in his speech to the conference, according to the Russian state news media, depicting Beijing as a peace-seeking government whose deepening partnership with Moscow was not directed against “third countries.”
“China always supports strengthening mutual trust, promoting common understanding and resolving common differences through dialogue on the issues of Afghanistan, Syria, the Korean Peninsula, Ukraine and Iranian nuclear projects,” Mr. Li said, according to a Russian translation of his remarks reported by Russia’s RIA Novosti state news agency.
China’s stance on the war in Ukraine is being closely watched around the world, including in Moscow. This month, China sent a representative to talks aimed at ending the war that Saudi Arabia hosted in Jeddah, a gathering at which the roughly 40 invited countries did not include Russia.
Moscow denounced those talks as pointless without its participation, characterizing them as a futile effort to rally the developing world behind Kyiv. After the gathering, in an apparent bid to reassure Russia, China’s foreign ministry said that its top diplomat had held a call with his Russian counterpart and told him that China would “uphold an independent and impartial stance” on Ukraine.
Mr. Li’s appearance on Tuesday also came weeks after China and Russia conducted naval drills near Alaska — exercises that some in Washington considered provocative but which China likened to the navigation of American naval ships in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
