The BRICS summit is Putin’s show of strength –

Leaders of about 40 countries are gathering today in Kazan, on the banks of the Volga, for the BRICS summit. During the session, issues critical to the future of international economic relations will be discussed.

The big question is what Vladimir Putin plans to do with the alliance and whether that is feasible.

The group, founded in 2009, now has nine members – Brazil, China, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Russia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. Nine countries representing 45% of the world’s population and 37% of global GDP – more than the G7 which has 29%. They also control 80% of oil production.

The summit, in defiance of Western sanctions on Russia, will be held as Moscow gains ground on the war fronts in Ukraine and forges alliances with the US’s main rivals — China, Iran and North Korea.

The Kremlin boasts that it is the “most important diplomatic event ever organized in Russia” and seeks to demonstrate the failure of the West’s attempt to isolate the country after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

“Russia is not isolated”

This BRICS summit is meant to “show that Russia is not only far from isolated, but has partners and allies,” Konstantin Kalachev, a Moscow-based political analyst, summarized to AFP.

Pending an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in March 2023 over the deportations of children from Ukraine to Russia that Kiev blames Moscow for, Vladimir Putin was forced to miss the previous summit, in the South Africa, and has greatly curtailed his travels abroad.

At this meeting, at home, the Kremlin considers it “crucial” to demonstrate that there is “an alternative to Western pressures (…) and that the multipolar world is a reality”, according to Mr. Kalachev.

Moscow does not stop presenting its attack against Ukraine not as a war of conquest, although it has proceeded to annex Ukrainian regions, after that of Crimea in 2014, but as a conflict caused by American hegemony.

For the countries of the West and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia moves against it always having a logic of sovereignty over its neighbors and seeks to enforce the law of the strong on an international scale.

With four members (Brazil, Russia, India, China) when it was created in 2009, the BRIC alliance has expanded, first including South Africa — when it became BRICS — in 2010 before earlier this year including several emerging economies, including Egypt and Iran, but also Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.

Dark spot on the table: the absence of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, fueling speculation of serious disagreements between the world’s two energy heavyweights

The Chinese president is also in Russia

Chinese President Xi Jinping has left for Russia to attend the BRICS summit, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported today.

Mr Xi will hold a bilateral meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit, which starts today and runs until the day after Thursday in Kazan.

Draconian security measures in Kazan

In the center of Kazan, on the banks of the Volga, very strict security measures have been imposed, AFP journalists have found. Residents were urged to avoid travel, according to Russian media.

Kazan, some 1,000 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, has been the subject of repeated Ukrainian drone attacks targeting industrial facilities linked to the military.

Fifteen bilateral meetings of Putin

Vladimir Putin will begin today a marathon of some fifteen bilateral meetings, according to the Kremlin.

The first will be the one with his Chinese counterpart, an indication of the Kremlin’s strategic shift in Asia.

Afterwards, Mr. Putin will meet with the federal Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi.

He is scheduled to host an official dinner at a hotel in Kazan, according to his Kremlin services.

Erdogan is also in Kazan

Tomorrow, Wednesday, he is expected to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — whose country, a NATO member, has asked to join BRICS — as well as with Iranian President Massoud Pezeskian.

The day after Thursday, according to the Kremlin, he will have a long-awaited meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the first since April 2022.

For his part, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva canceled his trip to Russia yesterday and will take part in the work via video link, according to the Brazilian presidency.

Lula explained how he hit his head last Sunday when he suffered a “serious” fall at his home during a phone conversation with a member of his party who leaked their conversation on social networking sites.

Beyond the war in Ukraine and tensions in the Middle East, an international payment system expected to compete with SWIFT, which most Russian banks have been blocked from after the Russian military invaded Ukrainian territory, will also be discussed.

Russian President Putin is also expected to hold a press conference the day after tomorrow, after the summit concludes.

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