The adviser to the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President Mykhailo Podolyak first explained two days ago that India and China “have low intellectual potential"—and then, yesterday, just when it could not get worse, he succeeded in making it worse.
Podolyak explained that India, China, and Türkiye were “profiting” from the war by maintaining trade with Russia. “Technically, it is in their national interests,” but, for example, “China should be interested in Russia disappearing, because it is an archaic nation that drags China into unnecessary conflicts. It would be in their interest now to distance themselves from Russia as far as possible, take all the resources it has, and take part of the Russian territory under their legal control.” That evidently is how China would act if its intellectual potential were sufficient. And assumedly India and Türkiye had advantages in destroying Russia that they were seeing.
However, the “problem with these countries is that they do not analyze the consequences of their own moves. These countries, unfortunately, have low intellectual potential.” He admitted that India had a lunar exploration program—evidently without noticing that China has that and more—but added that it “does not mean that this nation understands what the modern world precisely is.”
Then, yesterday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman urged Podolyak to clarify his remarks, when asked about them during a media briefing. Sure enough, Podolyak clarified away. First he explained on Twitter/X that it was Russia’s fault that China and India didn’t understand his comments: “Classic Russian propaganda: take it out of context, distort the meaning, scale it up to separate target audiences with conflict provocation.” While issuing no retraction of his claim about the “low intellectual potential” of India and China, he dug a bit deeper:
“Türkiye, India, China and other regional powers are increasingly and clearly justified in claiming global roles in the modern world.” However, “the global world is much broader than even the most thoughtful regional national interests. The global world is based on stability and predictability, on rationality and strategy, on international law and clear rules of the game.” These are exactly the elements that Russia is trying to undermine. “One way or another, it is irrational to ignore this due to situational and regional economic interests, as it has long-term consequences.”
So, India and China and other countries “have low intellectual potential” only in the sense that they are just too narrow in their view. And that leaves them irrational in the face of global realities. Only victims of Russian propaganda would take offense, or perhaps those with insufficient intellectual potential.
One might ask, what is the rational way someone of proper intellect would deal with the global realities? Podolyak answers: “The sooner Russia loses, the more chances the world has to return to stability and the rules of the game. The task of the great powers is to accelerate this moment.”
