Indonesia is nearly 10,000 km away from Ukraine – a flight across continents, cultures, and entire histories. Only about 8,000 of the more than 240 million Indonesians are Ukrainian. If anyone dares to bring up Ukraine, they’re expected to also bring up Palestine. And while Indonesia officially values freedom of speech, the reality is… selective. Criticising the authorities? Risky. Talking about Russia? Safely “neutral”. Talking about Ukraine? Suddenly “political”.
In this environment, where the war is referred to as the “conflict in Ukraine” and any mention of Russia is politely avoided, understanding the local perspective on Ukraine-Russia relations is tricky. It’s a space where colonial history, anti-Western sentiment, strongman politics and Russian narratives blend into a unique – and often misunderstood – picture.
To untangle it, we spoke with Radityo Dharmaputra, lecturer in the Department of International Relations at Airlangga University in Surabaya, head of the Centre for European and Eurasian Studies, and one of the few Indonesian academics focusing on Ukraine, Russian foreign policy, and Moscow’s disinformation campaigns in Indonesia.
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Radityo has spent the past three years studying how narratives about the war travel, mutate and settle in the Indonesian public consciousness.
How would you characterise the official Indonesian stance on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and how it has changed since 2022?
I think it hasn’t changed that much from my point of view.
From the very beginning, the official stance was always trying to keep a distance, trying to be neutral, trying not to offend Russia, but at the same time saying that the invasion is a violation of Ukrainian territorial integrity.
Even though they never say that it is being done by Russia. It’s very similar to Western countries; when talking about Palestine and Gaza, they never say Israel.
In the Indonesian case, they never say that it was Russia who invaded Ukraine. They don’t want to use the word “invasion”, which is very interesting from my point of view.
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What word do they use?
I think they usually just use “the war in Ukraine”. No mention of Russia.
But who started this war?
It’s very silly, I know. But I think it’s been very clear from the beginning that they don’t want to offend Russia. In the last government of Joko Widodo [president of Indonesia from…
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