Russian President Vladimir Putin will host the BRICS summit, which opened on Tuesday in the southwestern Russian city of Kazan.
The three-day summit in Russia will be the largest gathering of world leaders in decades and will take place at a time when the Kremlin is locked in a Western-backed war on Ukraine.
So, what’s on the agenda and why is the summit important?
What is BRICS?
BRICS is Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The group began in 2006, and Brazil, Russia, India and China convened for the first BRIC summit in 2009. South Africa joined a year later.
The alliance aims to challenge the economic and political monopoly of the West. The group sets priorities and holds discussions once each year during the summit, which members take turns hosting. The summit will be held on the 16th.
In 2023, the BRICS called for the addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that applied for membership. Saudi Arabia has not yet formally joined, but others have.
Argentina was also invited at the same time, but the South American country turned it down after President-elect Javier Mille in December campaigned on a promise to strengthen ties with the West.
Who attends the BRICS conference?
Two dozen world leaders attended the start of the summit on Tuesday.
Leaders of BRICS member states including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will attend the summit.
United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Iranian President Massoud Beseshkian, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed arrived in Gazan for the summit.
Leaders of many countries who are interested in deepening relations with BRICS are also participating. Including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vietnamese Prime Minister Bam Minh Sinh.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva canceled his trip to Russia on October 19 after injuring his head in a fall at home. Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira will now represent the country at the summit.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is also attending – and is expected to meet Putin on Thursday. On Monday, Ukraine’s foreign ministry criticized Guterres, saying he declined an invitation to attend a pro-Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland in June. It is a false choice that does not advance the cause of peace. It will only tarnish the reputation of the UN”.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Putin, charging him with the war crime of illegally deporting children from Ukraine.
What’s on the agenda for the summit?
A central theme uniting BRICS members is their disillusionment with Western-led global governance institutions, especially when it comes to economics.
Sanctions imposed on Russia after its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine have alarmed many countries in the Global South, worried that the West could weaponize global financial instruments against them.
“After the war in Gaza [in which the US is sending Israel weapons]”Russia and China have exploited this anti-Western sentiment very effectively, exploiting Western double standards and frustration with Western sanctions and economic coercion,” said Asli Aydintaspas, a Turkish foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, think tank.
“This does not mean that the middle powers are willing to trade American hegemony for the Chinese, but it does mean that they are open to joining Russia and China for a more fragmented and autonomous world.”
To that end, the BRICS partners want to reduce their dependence on the US dollar and the SWIFT system, an international messaging network for financial transactions, from which Russian banks have been cut off from 2022.
In 2023, Lula proposed a trading currency for BRICS members. But experts warn that any such effort could be fraught with challenges. In August, India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar also expressed doubts about how realistic the BRICS currency would be.
Instead, BRICS members now increasingly use their national currencies for bilateral trade to insulate against currency fluctuations and reduce dependence on the dollar.
“China is now an alternative to the SWIFT payment system, although less in use, as countries such as Turkey and Brazil convert their dollar reserves into gold,” Aydintaspas said. “Currency swaps for energy contracts are also a popular idea – all of which suggest a desire for greater financial freedom from the West.”
Why is the summit so important to Putin?
Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the country and its leader have been isolated.
A month after the invasion, Canada, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States issued a range of sanctions on Russian banks, oil refineries, and military exports. Since then more sanctions have been imposed on Russia and its allies.
An ICC arrest warrant for Putin means he cannot travel without arrest to countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute, the UN treaty that established the court. In 2023, he boycotted the BRICS summit in South Africa, which was part of the deal, amid pressure from Pretoria to detain the Russian leader if he attended.
Western leaders also do not want to join any multilateral organization with Putin. Although New Delhi is not a party to the Rome Statute, Putin boycotted last year’s G20 summit in India.
Against that background, “Putin is hoping for a big PR win against Ukraine and the West, despite the war and Western sanctions, Russia still has plenty of international partners willing to engage and trade with Russia,” Timothy said. Ash, an associate fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House, told Al Jazeera.
Other experts agree.
Angela Stent, director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University, said the Kazan summit was of great symbolic and practical importance to the Putin regime. “This summit will demonstrate that, far from being isolated, Russia has important partners like India, China and other major developing powers.”
The enlarged BRICS group now represents 45 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP).
What else is Putin trying to signal?
Putin’s anti-Western message, shown by images of world leaders with him at the BRICS summit, is about his presentation of talks on the war in Ukraine at a time when talk of ending the war is growing in the international community. .
India, a key BRICS member and traditionally a reliable Russian ally, has been actively working to bring the two countries closer to talks with Moscow and Kiev. Indian Prime Minister Modi visited Moscow in July and took Putin for talks. Then went to Kiev in August. He met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September before returning to Russia for the Kazan summit in October.
“I think Moscow is eager to signal that it’s ready for a long war, but really, I think it’s setting the scene for possible peace talks, which will happen soon,” Ash said.
What’s next for BRICS?
BRICS continues to expand.
Southeast Asian countries have recently expressed interest in joining the alliance.
Thailand expressed its desire to join the BRICS dialogue with developing countries held in Russia on June 11.
On June 18, shortly before Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited the country, Malaysia expressed interest in becoming a member of the BRICS organization.
NATO member Turkey also formally applied to join the BRICS organization in September.
“Many countries that not so long ago were considered a pariah state for violating international law by invading Ukraine are ready to go to Russia, confirming the trend of a growing number of countries in the world: they do not want to choose between partners,” said Tara Varma, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute.
