With Russian troops advancing in eastern Ukraine and evidence of growing war fatigue among some of Kyiv’s allies, the Kremlin is seizing its opportunity to cast Putin as standing up to the West in attempting to reshape the global order. The US and its Group of Seven partners dismiss the argument, though it’s a message that resonates with some countries of the emerging world.
Leaders of 32 countries, as well as top officials of regional organizations and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, will attend the three-day summit starting 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 are due to join Putin alongside leaders of the new BRICS members, Iran, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia. Putin plans bilateral meetings with many of them, as well as with guests such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday canceled his plans to attend the summit after suffering a head injury in an accident at his home. Officials said he’ll participate by video link.
Even as the grouping attracts growing interest as a political and economic counterweight to the West, tensions are simmering over its direction and influence. Members are split over efforts to reduce reliance on the dollar as a global reserve currency, and on the wisdom of continued expansion of the group.
While BRICS favors greater use of national currencies in bilateral trade, members including India reject attempts to promote China’s yuan as an alternative reserve currency.
Russia has produced a summit report outlining possible changes to cross-border payments among BRICS countries aimed at circumventing the global financial system, though it acknowledges the proposals are mainly to promote discussion. They include developing a network of commercial lenders to conduct transactions in local currencies as well as establishing direct links between central banks.
Still, other BRICS states don’t have the same incentives to escape the dollar-based system as Russia, whose economy is straining under sweeping sanctions imposed over Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Russia wants to push for a de-dollarized payment system at the summit, which China regards as too ambitious, said Wang Yiwei, director of Renmin University’s Center for European Studies in Beijing.
The meeting is the first since BRICS agreed to extend membership to six additional nations at last year’s summit in South Africa. But Argentina pulled out under its new President Javier Milei and Saudi Arabia has remained non-committal.
Nations ranging from Malaysia and Thailand to Nicaragua and NATO-member Turkey are eager to join BRICS, though there’s unlikely to be an agreement on enlargement at the Russia summit.
India is against further expansion for now and supports a category of “BRICS partner countries” without voting rights because it wants to steer the group away from becoming an anti-US body dominated by China and Russia, Indian officials said on condition of anonymity because the issue is sensitive.
Brazil and South Africa support India’s view, said officials in the two countries. Any bid to dilute South Africa’s influence by inviting Nigeria or Morocco into BRICS will be resisted, said the South African officials.
The UAE completely rejects any attempt to present BRICS membership as a sign that the Global South is in opposition to the West, according to a person familiar with the matter, asking not to be identified discussing internal policy. The Gulf state has very good relations with countries in the West including the US, according to another official.
BRICS “expansion is a clear sign that the global balance of power is shifting,” said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, a Hong-Kong based economist who’s a senior research fellow at the Bruegel think tank. “But the future of the grouping 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 BRIC acronym in 2001, said expansion had made the group “highly political.” He told a forum in London in November: “I am not sure what fruitful purpose it serves other than being a club that the US is not a part of.”
BRICS’ clout is growing. Its nine members account for 26% of the world economy and 45% of the world’s population versus the G-7’s 44% of global gross domestic product and 10% of its inhabitants. Brazil will host next month’s G-20 summit, following India’s presidency last year and ahead of South Africa’s in 2025.
Putin stayed away from last year’s BRICS summit after South Africa warned it would have to comply with an arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes in Ukraine issued by the International Criminal Court in March last year.
While the warrant has limited Putin’s travels, the gathering of so many foreign leaders in Russia underscores the readiness of many, particularly from Global South states, to continue meeting him in defiance of the US and its allies.
The fact so many countries want to join BRICS indicates growing demand for international ties independent of the West, said Fyodor Lukyanov, head of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, a think tank that advises the Kremlin.
“For now, everyone just wants to see what it can gain from this,” he said. The West has dubbed you a pariah for invading Ukraine. Sanctions are aiming to cut off your country's economy from global markets.
And there's an arrest warrant out for you from the International Criminal Court.
How can you show the pressure is not working? Try hosting a summit.
This week in the city of Kazan President Putin will greet more than 20 heads of state at the Brics summit of emerging economies. Among the leaders invited are China’s Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The Kremlin has called it one of the "largest-scale foreign policy events ever" in Russia.
"The clear message is that attempts to isolate Russia have failed," thinks Chris Weafer, founding partner of consultancy firm Macro-Advisory.
"It's a big part of the messaging from the Kremlin that Russia is withstanding sanctions. We know there are severe cracks beneath the surface. But at a geopolitical level Russia has all these friends and they’re all going to be Russia's partners."
So, who are Russia's friends?
Brics stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The grouping, often referred to as a counterweight to the Western-led world, has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia, too, has been invited to join.
The Brics nations account for 45% of the global population. Added together, members' economies are worth more than $28.5tn (£22tn). That's around 28% of the global economy.
Russian officials have indicated that another 30 countries want to join Brics or seek closer ties with the club. Some of these nations will take part in the summit. In Kazan this week expect a lot of talk about Brics representing the "global majority".
But apart from providing Vladimir Putin his moment on the geopolitical stage, what is the event likely to achieve?
Keen to ease the pressure from Western sanctions, the Kremlin leader will hope to convince Brics members to adopt an alternative to the dollar for global payments.
"A lot of the problems Russia's economy is facing are linked to cross-border trade and payments. And a lot of that is linked to the US dollar," says Mr Weafer.
"The US Treasury has enormous power and influence over global trade simply because the US dollar is the main currency for settling that. Russia's main interest is in breaking the dominance of the US dollar. It wants Brics countries to create an alternative trade mechanism and cross-border settlement system that does not involve the dollar, the euro or any of the G7 currencies, so that sanctions won't matter so much."
But critics point to differences within Brics. "Likeminded" is not a word you would use to describe the current membership.
"In some ways it’s a good job for the West that China and India can never agree about anything. Because if those two were really serious, Brics would have enormous influence," notes Jim O'Neill, former Chief Economist of Goldman Sachs.
"China and India are doing their best to avoid wanting to attack each other a lot of the time. Trying to get them to really co-operate on economic things is a never-ending challenge."
It was Mr O’Neill who, at the turn of the century, dreamt up the acronym "Bric" for four emerging economies he believed should be "brought into the centre of global policy making".
But the four letters would take on a life of their own, after the corresponding nations formed their own Bric group - later Brics, when South Africa joined. They would attempt to challenge the dominance of the G7: the world's seven largest "advanced" economies (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US).
It's not just India and China who have their differences. There is tension between two of the newest Brics members, Egypt and Ethiopia. And, despite talk of detente, Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been regional rivals.
"The idea that they’re all going to fundamentally agree on something of great substance is bonkers really," believes Mr O’Neill.
And while Russia, fuelled by anti-Western sentiment, talks about creating a "new world order", other Brics members, like India, are keen to retain good political and economic relations with the West.
In Kazan, Vladimir Putin's task will be to skim over the differences and paint a picture of unity, while showing the Russian public – and the international community – that his country is far from isolated.
