Pcitizen Vladimir Putin will host Russia’s largest gathering of world leaders since the invasion of Ukraine and use the BRICS summit to show the US and its allies that he is not an exception.
With Russian troops advancing in eastern Ukraine and evidence of growing war-weariness among some of Kyiv’s allies, the Kremlin is seizing its chance to cast aspersions on Putin as he represents the West in trying to reshape the world order. The US and its Group of Seven partners reject the dispute, although it is a message that resonates with some countries in the developing world.
Leaders of 32 countries, as well as senior officials of regional organizations and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, will attend a three-day conference starting on Tuesday in Kazan, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will join Putin and the leaders of new BRICS members Iran, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia. Putin is organizing bilateral meetings with many of them, as well as guests such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday canceled his plans to attend the conference after suffering a head injury in an accident at his home. Officials said he will participate via video link.
Even as the group attracts growing interest as a political and economic opposition in the West, tensions are high over its direction and influence. Members are divided on efforts to reduce reliance on the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, as well as on the wisdom of the group’s continued expansion.
Although BRICS favors greater use of national currencies in bilateral trade, members including India reject efforts to promote China’s yuan as an alternative reserve currency.
Russia has produced a conference report detailing possible changes to cross-border payments between the BRICS countries aimed at bypassing the global financial system, although it admits the proposals are encouraging for discussion. It involves developing a network of commercial lenders to carry out operations in local currencies and establishing direct links between major banks.
However, other BRICS regions do not have the same incentives to escape the dollar-based system as Russia, whose economy is struggling under heavy sanctions imposed by Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Russia wants to force the withdrawal of the dollar payment system from the summit, which China considers too ambitious, said Wang Yiwei, director of Renmin University’s Center for European Studies in Beijing.
This meeting is the first since BRICS agreed to extend membership to six countries at last year’s summit in South Africa. But Argentina backed down under its new President Javier Milei and Saudi Arabia remains non-committal.
Nations ranging from Malaysia and Thailand to Nicaragua and NATO member Turkey are eager to join the BRICS, although there is little chance of an expansion deal at the Russian summit.
India opposes the current expansion and supports the category of “BRICS non-aligned countries” without voting rights because it wants to withdraw the group from being an anti-US organization dominated by China and Russia, Indian officials said on condition of anonymity because the issue is sensitive.
Brazil and South Africa support India’s position, said officials from both countries. Any attempt to weaken South Africa by inviting Nigeria or Morocco to BRICS will be blocked, South African officials say.
The UAE categorically rejects any attempt to present BRICS membership as a sign that the Global South is at odds with the West, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified to discuss internal policy. The Gulf country has excellent relations with Western countries including the US, according to one official.
The BRICS “expansion is a clear sign that global power is changing,” said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, a Hong-Kong-based economist who is a senior researcher at Bruegel. “But the group’s future is uncertain, given its heavy economic dependence on China and the deteriorating sentiment toward China among its members.”
Jim O’Neill, the Goldman Sachs economist who first coined the term BRIC in 2001, said the expansion has made the group “more politically focused.” He told a forum in London in November: “I’m not sure what fruitful purpose it has other than being a group that the US is not a part of.”
BRICS momentum is growing. Its nine members account for 26% of the world’s economy and 45% of the world’s population compared to the G-7’s 44% of the world’s gross domestic product and 10% of its population. Brazil will host the G-20 summit next month, following India’s presidency last year and ahead of South Africa’s in 2025.
Putin did not attend last year’s BRICS summit after South Africa warned it would have to comply with a warrant for his arrest on criminal charges in Ukraine issued by the International Criminal Court in March last year.
Although the warrant limits Putin’s travel, the gathering of many foreign leaders in Russia underscores the readiness of many, especially from the states of the Global South, to continue meeting with him in defiance of the US and its allies.
The fact that many countries want to join BRICS shows the growing need for international relations outside the West, said Fyodor Lukyanov, head of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, a think tank that advises the Kremlin.
“Right now, everyone wants to see what they can get out of this,” he said.
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