Russia\u2019s BRICS summit
\nThe summit, which leaders from two dozen nations will attend, is the largest event Russia has hosted in years and a signal to the West amid the war in Ukraine, analysts say
\n Kazan
\nRussian President Vladimir Putin is hosting the annual BRICS summit, which started on Tuesday, in Russia\u2019s southwestern city of Kazan.
\nThe three-day conclave will be the largest gathering of world leaders in Russia in decades and will be held at a time when the Kremlin is locked in a war on Western-backed Ukraine.
\nSo, what is on the agenda and why is the summit significant?
\nWhat is BRICS?
\nBRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
\nThe group started in 2006, and Brazil, Russia, India and China convened for the first BRIC summit in 2009. South Africa joined a year later.
\nThe aim of the alliance is to challenge the economic and political monopoly of the West. The group sets priorities and has discussions once every year during the summit, which members take turns hosting. The summit is the 16th held.
\nIn 2023, BRICS extended invitations to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates after these countries applied for membership. Saudi Arabia has yet to formally join, but the others have.
\nAn invitation was extended to Argentina at the same time, but the South American country turned it down after President Javier Milei, elected in December, campaigned on the promise that he would bolster ties with the West.
\nWho is attending the BRICS summit?
\nTwo dozen world leaders attended the opening of the summit on Tuesday.
\nLeaders of BRICS member countries \u2013 including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa \u2013 are attending the summit.
\nUAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed have also all landed in Kazan for the summit.
\nLeaders of several other countries that have shown an interest in deepening ties with BRICS are also participating, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.
\nBrazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva cancelled his trip to Russia after suffering a head injury in a fall at home on October 19. Minister of Foreign Affairs Mauro Vieira will now represent the country at the summit.
\nUnited Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is also attending \u2013 and is expected to meet Putin on Thursday. On Monday, Ukraine\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised Guterres, saying that while he did not accept an invitation to attend a Ukraine-backed peace summit in Switzerland in June, \u201che did, however, accept the invitation to Kazan from war criminal Putin. This is a wrong choice that does not advance the cause of peace. It only damages the UN\u2019s reputation\u201d.
\nIn March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deportating children from Ukraine.
\nWhat is on the summit\u2019s agenda?
\nThe central theme that unites BRICS members is their disillusionment with Western-led institutions of global governance, especially when it comes to the economy.
\nThe sanctions imposed on Russia after its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine have spooked many Global South nations, worried that the West could weaponise tools of global finance against them.
\n\u201cIn the aftermath of the war in Gaza [in which the US is sending Israel weapons], Russia and China have more effectively harnessed this anti-Western sentiment, capitalising on frustrations over Western double standards as well as the use of sanctions and economic coercion by the West,\u201d Asli Aydintasbas, a Turkish foreign policy expert, said in comments to the Brookings Institute, a Washington, DC, think tank.
\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean that middle powers want to trade US dominance for Chinese, but it means they are open to aligning with Russia and China for a more fragmented and autonomous world.\u201d
\nTo that end, BRICS partners want to reduce their dependence on the US dollar and the SWIFT system, an international messaging network for financial transactions that Russian banks were cut off from in 2022.
\nIn 2023, Lula proposed a trading currency for BRICS members. But experts have cautioned that any such initiative might be riddled with challenges. In August, India\u2019s Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar also expressed scepticism about how realistic a BRICS currency might be.
\nInstead, BRICS members are now working on using their national currencies more for bilateral trade to insulate them from currency fluctuations and cut their dependence on the dollar.
\n\u201cChina now has an alternative to the SWIFT payment system, though limited in use, and countries like Turkey and Brazil increasingly restructure their dollar reserves into gold,\u201d Aydintasbas said. \u201cCurrency swaps for energy deals are also a popular idea \u2013 all suggesting a desire for greater financial independence from the West.\u201d
\nWhy is the summit significant for Putin?
\nSince Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the country and its leader have grown isolated.
\nA month after the start of the invasion, Canada, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the US unveiled a slew of sanctions on Russian banks, oil refineries and military exports. There have been more sanctions on Russia and its allies since.
\nThe ICC arrest warrant for Putin also means he cannot travel to countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute, a UN treaty that established the court, without risking arrest. In 2023, he skipped the BRICS summit in South Africa, which is a party to the treaty, amid pressure on Pretoria to detain the Russian leader if he were to attend.
\nWestern leaders are also largely unwilling to join Putin in any multilateral setting. Putin skipped the G20 summit in India last year even though New Delhi is not a party to the Rome Statute.
\nAgainst that backdrop, \u201cPutin is hoping for a big PR win against Ukraine and the West, trying to send a message that despite the war, and Western sanctions, Russia still has plenty of international partners willing to interact with Russia and trade,\u201d Timothy Ash, an associate fellow in the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House, told Al Jazeera.
\nOther experts agree.
\n\u201cThe Kazan summit has great symbolic and practical importance for the Putin regime,\u201d Angela Stent, the director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University, said in comments to the Brookings Institute. \u201cThe summit will demonstrate that, far from being isolated, Russia has important partners like India, China and other major emerging powers.\u201d
\nThe expanded BRICS group now represents about 45 percent of the world\u2019s population and 25 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP).
\nWhat else is Putin trying to signal?
\nPutin\u2019s message of defiance towards the West, showcased by images of world leaders with him at the BRICS summit, is also about posturing for negotiations on his war in Ukraine, at a time when calls for talks to end the war are growing in the international community.
\nIndia, a key BRICS member and traditionally, a trusted Russian partner, has been actively working with both Moscow and Kyiv to bring them closer to a dialogue. Modi, the Indian prime minister, visited Moscow in July to nudge Putin towards negotiations. He then travelled to Kyiv in August. He met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy again in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly meeting in September, before returning to Russia in October for the Kazan summit.
\n\u201cI think Moscow is eager to signal that it is ready for a long war, but in reality, I think that is all setting the scenes for likely peace talks which will happen sooner, rather than later,\u201d Ash said.
\nWhat\u2019s next for BRICS?
\nBRICS is continuing to expand.
\nSoutheast Asian countries have recently expressed an interest in joining the alliance.
\nAt the BRICS Dialogue with Developing Countries held in Russia on June 11, Thailand said it wanted to join.
\nOn June 18, Malaysia expressed interest in being part of BRICS just before Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited the country.
\nNATO member Turkey also formally requested to join BRICS in September.
\n\u201cThat so many countries are willing to go to Russia, deemed a pariah state not so long ago for having violated international law by invading Ukraine, confirms a trend followed by an increasing number of countries in the world: They don\u2019t want to have to choose between partners,\u201d said Tara Varma, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russia\u2019s BRICS summit The summit, which leaders from two dozen nations will attend, is the largest event Russia has hosted in years and a signal to the West amid the war in Ukraine, analysts say Kazan Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting the annual BRICS summit, which started on Tuesday, in Russia\u2019s southwestern city of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-439097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n