From interacting with a lot of non-Westerners and international news sources - mainstream and otherwise. Also from looking at the results of the UN resolution, with the understanding that the West applied a great deal of pressure to get smaller nations to agree with them, as well as understanding that some nations (like India and China) have their own internal issues that will colour any vote that pertains to separatists or notions of independence.
I also said that most of the world sympathises with their position - not that they're on the Russians' side completely. Obviously, no one can come out and cheer for the Russians' killing of Ukrainians, but pretty much everyone recognises NATO for what it is. And, as I said, only once the actual killing and tsunami of predominantly Western propaganda has passed will we really start to see honesty floating to the surface.
Look at India, the world's largest democracy, one of tomorrow's most important and powerful countries, and home to 1.4 billion people. The ruling, nationalist party refused to condemn Russia, and from the sidelines, the communists condemned NATO expansion. Speak to actual Indians, and half of them have long seen Putin as some sort of hero (they also loved Trump, for what it's worth).
China's being cautious, but do you really doubt that the Chinese sympathise with Russia's position? Either at the party or street level? That's another 1.4 billion people.
Here in Africa, most countries were pressured into condemning Russia, but you're crazy if you don't think that a lot of actual Africans see Putin as standing up against the colonial Western powers on behalf of the world. That's another 2 billion people split on the subject.
So, for example, look at this
Nigerian article on the issue. Note, Nigeria voted against Russia and this article actually takes a somewhat pro-Ukraine position, but it still spends much of its word count condemning the Western powers and speaking very highly of Russia:
That's a mainstream Nigerian outlet, openly speaking about the potential for war with a Western power. Nigeria's a leading producers of oil and the strongest country on the continent. Mine is the second strongest, and we abstained from condemning Russia - with on-the-ground opinions predominantly appearing to sympathise more with the Russian perspective.
I know I complain about it a lot, but the Western perspective has wrapped itself in headlines from news sources that have proven themselves to be untrustworthy - and yet, in the midst of a war, Westerners somehow think that the purveyors of those headlines would choose right now to start being honest.
I'm not saying that the non-Western world is gearing up for a conflict or that everyone outside of the West is united in some wall of defiance against the West. Nothing as wild-eyed as that. But, in the West, you guys seem completely blind to what's going on in the majority of the world, and you tend to take very short-term perspectives on things. There was already a widespread and pre-existing distrust of the West and affection for Russia before this all popped off. Some people flat-out condemn Russia and some people praise them - but most are somewhere in the middle, sympathising with Russia's perspective, but regretting that blood is being shed. But, when the blood is no longer being shed, many will have to deal with the reality that they still have to trade, Russia is an important trading partner, and the West has tried to make it impossible to trade with Russia. They may also be reminded how much absolutely everyone hates the Western style of economic war and how much more of a threat it is to most countries' national sovereignty than the potential of Russian invasion.
As long as the fight is about Ukraine vs Russia, Russia looks bad - but the more people become aware that it's about Russia's national interests vs the West's globalist interests, the more they sympathise with Russia. Given how many people already sympathise with Russia, that doesn't bode well for the West.
I assume that that is why the West is trying to drag out the fight and pile up Ukrainian bodies - because, in truth, none are more cynical geopolitical players than the Western powers, and the more the bodies stack up, the better this war achieves the only real objective they appear to be trying to achieve: a PR win over Russia.
"Technology transfer" is a very vague concept on its own, and this is a very short-sighted perspective. Russia's technological capacity is underestimated in the West and they're aligned to one of the most powerful economies and manufacturing bases in the world. Considering the technological gaps both countries have closed (and overtaken, in a few areas) in a pretty short space of time, I think it's a mistake to assume that they won't further close the gap, eliminating their current reliance on the West. More likely, China will benefit from Russian technology as Russia becomes more reliant on the Chinese economy.
What the Western side has done in Ukraine is essentially armed and trained insurgents (as well as giving guns to swathes of civilians) to slow the Russian invasion of a country that the Russians would prefer not to completely flatten - Russia's "outdated tactics" are the tactics of not completely demolishing a country in the attempt to submit it, that's obviously going to be tougher than the Western tactic of annihilating the infrastructure and leaving the country in ruins.
The Western media's also done a good job of trying to focus everyone's attention on Kiev, when the important fighting has always been going on in the East.
Foreign investment is going to be a big problem. But, again, we'll see. As I say, my feeling is that Russia's long-established international relations will help it, as will their centrality to the Eurasian integration project - something that promises to benefit almost the entirety of the developing world, and so is far too important to sacrifice over bad PR and a kerfuffle in Europe. Russia is pretty self-sufficient, and they've long had to deal with meh foreign market opportunities outside of energy.
This has been a long and ongoing project. But the West doesn't appear to really recognise it.
The anti-Western bloc forming behind Russia is not anti-Western, it's pro-Eurasian and pro-having an alternative economic order to the one built, maintained, and sometimes weaponsied by the "collective West". It will become anti-Western if the West does not control its impulse to destroy this potential rival. It's probably too late to prevent this rising power bloc, so it's a good time for the West to stop behaving as though only its interests matter.
Because, setting aside who's lining up behind who with the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the West likely cannot win any form of confrontation with this rising power.
