US President Joe Biden is known for saying that the Ukraine war is a conflict between Western democracy and eastern despotism. His narrative makes sense, but it does not tell the full story.

The Russian attack on Ukraine is unacceptable. Everything President Vladimir Putin has been saying in recent days shows that his mindset is narrowly nationalistic – and paranoid.

Desmond Tutu, the South African archbishop who passed away in December, was both a great faith leader and a great human-rights campaigner. One of his famous statements was: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Tutu also knew that brutal repression may be forgiven, but must never be forgotten.

Western business papers have a stubborn, but misleading tendency of portraying India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a liberal reformer who unfortunately happens to have some authoritarian tendencies. It is actually the other way round. He is an authoritarian leader who has never shown much interest in market dynamics, but does have a tendency of pandering to powerful corporate interests.