MUNICH — A Nobel Peace Prize winner from South America has warned that the West’s heavy concentrate on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dangers alienating a lot of the remainder of the world, which is coping with the results of upper vitality and meals costs stemming from the warfare.

“Ukraine is sucking all of the vitality, when there are greater than 100 conflicts presently on the earth,” mentioned Juan Manuel Santos, the previous president of Colombia. “There’s a dissonance right here” with the worldwide south, he mentioned. “And if this warfare prolongs itself, the danger of discovering much less and fewer assist for it is vitally actual.”

Mr. Santos spoke to The New York Occasions over the weekend on the sidelines of the Munich Safety Convention, the place leaders from america and different Western nations redoubled their dedication to supporting Ukraine. He mentioned that he informed Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, throughout a go to to Kyiv in August “that you must do extra exterior Europe to seek out and keep assist in Latin America and Africa,” given the financial prices of the warfare to the world’s poor.

Mr. Santos mentioned that there’s basic recognition that Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine. “However realities change the perceptions of individuals,” he went on. “They’re involved in regards to the value of oil and lack of meals. And whenever you say that, effectively, ‘Brazil can invade Colombia,’ they giggle, as a result of it’s a hypothetical. They need their meals.”

Different leaders in Munich additionally expressed worries about perceptions of the warfare within the international South, however Mr. Santos was significantly blunter in regards to the extent of the issue.

Mr. Santos gained the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his efforts to barter a peace deal with the Colombian insurgent group often known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, however solely after heading a tricky army marketing campaign towards them.

Slogans don’t result in peace, he mentioned, and negotiations to finish battle are typically messy and morally fuzzy.

“There may be all the time an ethical dilemma in each battle and each peace course of,” he mentioned. “There may be the battle between peace and justice.”

The tip usually hinted at within the West is Ukraine profitable a whole victory, which Mr. Santos regards as unrealistic as a result of armies and populations turn into exhausted and conflicts turn into unsustainable.

“Typically you could take into consideration ending the warfare earlier than profitable the warfare,” he mentioned.

Mr. Santos, now 71, mentioned that a lot of the worldwide South sees “hypocrisy” within the West’s fixed references to the U.N. constitution. Russia, a member of the Safety Council, has clearly violated the constitution, he acknowledged. However different conflicts don’t generate the identical stage of concern in Washington and in European capitals, he mentioned, citing the lengthy Israeli-Palestinian battle and the regular enhance of Israeli settlements on occupied land.

“That is additionally a violation of worldwide legislation, and there the massive powers keep silent,” he mentioned.

The concentrate on Ukraine has additionally taken consideration away from combating local weather change, he mentioned, including: “That may be a far more worrisome problem that we face.”