Soft vs. hard power impact on UN voting on Ukraine

We analyse the importance of a wide range of factors influencing the voting behaviour ofcountries in favour of Russia in the UN resolution (A/RES/ES-11/61) on March 2 2023. We groupfactors into ‘economic influence’, ‘defence cooperation’ and ‘soft power’, besides the standardcountry-level control variables, and formulate hypotheses on their expected impact according toextant theory and evidence. We include economic, political and military ties with Russia and China(as a major supporter of Russia) in a multivariate regression analysis. Our results show Russia’s hardpower at work: the probability of voting in favour of Russia was significantly higher for countriesreceiving Russian aid, Russian foreign direct investment, arms imports and defence cooperation fromRussia. At the same time, China’s soft power also exerted considerable influence on voting patterns,to the extent that Belt and Road Initiative participation and Global South significantly increased theprobability of voting in favour of Russia.