One can only admire the audacity. Russia’s ambassador to Mauritius now tells the world that Moscow supports Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos Islands because it opposes colonialism and cares deeply about justice and human rights.
According to the ambassador, Britain’s presence in the archipelago is merely part of a “big strategic game”.
Quite so. It is indeed a strategic game. The only curious detail is that Moscow has suddenly decided to pretend it is not playing it.
For Russia, the logic could hardly be clearer. Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos Archipelago, hosts one of the most strategically important British and American military facilities in the world. From that remote atoll in the Indian Ocean, Western forces have projected stability across the Middle East and Asia for decades. It is a critical node in the security architecture that keeps vital sea lanes open and deters hostile powers.
Of course Russia would like that influence weakened. Of course it would prefer the West’s military posture in the Indian Ocean diluted or complicated. One need not be a grand strategist to see why Moscow would welcome anything that makes life more difficult for Britain and the United States in that region.
But to cloak that geopolitical interest in lectures about human rights and anti-colonial virtue requires a remarkable lack of self-awareness.
This is, after all, the same Russia that launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has spent years attempting to erase a sovereign nation from the map. The same Russia that annexed Crimea, occupies swathes of eastern Ukraine, and continues to wage a war that has left tens of thousands dead and millions displaced. The same Russia whose domestic critics are imprisoned, whose opposition leaders are silenced, and whose press freedom ranks among the lowest in the democratic world.
It takes a particular kind of diplomatic theatre for a representative of such a state to stand before the international community and proclaim Russia’s devotion to justice and human rights.
But the hypocrisy does not end there.
If Moscow were truly concerned about the rights of the people most closely connected to the Chagos Islands, it might begin by acknowledging the views of the Chagossians themselves. For decades the Chagossian people have made clear that they overwhelmingly wish to remain connected to Britain. Many are British citizens. Every poll shows a clear majority have repeatedly expressed a desire for the islands to remain a British territory rather than become part of Mauritius.
Yet this inconvenient reality rarely features in the speeches of those who claim to speak in the name of decolonisation.
The truth is that the Chagossians have too often been treated as an afterthought in geopolitical arguments conducted by states that claim to be acting on their behalf. Their history is tragic enough without being appropriated as a convenient talking point by governments whose own human rights records invite rather closer scrutiny.
Russia’s sudden enthusiasm for the Chagos question therefore deserves to be seen for what it is, not a principled stand for justice, but a predictable move in the great power chess game of the Indian Ocean.
Moscow would like the West to retreat from a strategically vital region. It would like Britain and the United States to lose freedom of action in a part of the world where maritime routes, security alliances and regional stability matter enormously. It would like to see Western influence diminished wherever possible.
In that sense, the ambassador’s remark about a “big strategic game” may be the most honest line in the entire statement.
But if Russia wishes to lecture others about colonialism and human rights, it might first consider the small matter of its own behaviour. It might reflect on the sovereign territory it has seized, the neighbours it has invaded, and the freedoms it has extinguished within its own borders.
Until then, Moscow’s sudden moral concern for the Chagos Islands will be received in much of the democratic world with precisely the seriousness it deserves.
None at all.
By Claire Bullivant
