BRICS: The West wants Putin to be isolated. A major summit he hosts shows he is far from alone

CNN
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Nearly three years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to Moscow being condemned by countries around the world, President Vladimir Putin is hosting a summit with more than a dozen world leaders – a clear signal from the autocrat that he is by no means alone, but rather an emerging coalition of countries behind it.

The three-day BRICS summit, which began on Tuesday in the southwestern Russian city of Kazan, is the first meeting of the group of major emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa since its expansion earlier this year to include Egypt, the United States Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Iran.

Putin met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the summit on Tuesday and subsequently claimed that their countries' partnership was a “model of how relations between states should be built.”

Other leaders in attendance include Narendra Modi of India, Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa. Non-members such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are also expected to join. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva canceled his plans to attend after suffering an injury at home.

This week's meeting of BRICS and other countries will be by far the largest international gathering hosted by the Russian president since the war began in February 2022. It shows a growing convergence of nations hoping to shift the global balance of power and – in the case of some, like Moscow, Beijing and Tehran – direct counterpoint to the United States-led West.

It is the latter message that Putin – and close partner and most powerful BRICS leader Xi – will convey in the coming days: it is the West that is isolated in the world with its sanctions and alliances, while a “global majority” of the Countries she supports attempt to challenge America's global leadership.

In a speech to reporters on Friday, Putin hailed the growing economic and political influence of BRICS countries as an “indisputable fact” and said that if BRICS and interested countries work together, they would “be an essential element of the new world order” – although he denied that the group is an “anti-Western alliance”.

Putin's messages this week will be all the more poignant because the meeting comes just days before the US election, where a possible victory by former President Donald Trump could lead the US to change its staunch support for Ukraine and Washington's relations could place greater strain on its traditional allies.

“This BRICS summit is really a gift (for Putin),” said Alex Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “The message will be: How to talk about Russia's global isolation when (all these) leaders … come to Kazan.”

Russia wants to portray the BRICS “as the tip of the spear, as the new organization that will lead us all as a global community to a more just order,” said Gabuev.

But despite Russia's expansive rhetoric, the leaders meeting in Kazan represent a wide range of viewpoints and interests – a BRICS reality that observers say limits their ability to send a unified message – particularly the kind that Putin wants could.

The Russia-hosted meeting marks a sharp contrast to last year's BRICS summit in Johannesburg, which Putin attended from the other side of a video screen – he was unable to attend in person due to an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

This year, the Russian president is at the helm of the first summit since the organization nearly doubled in size – and the meeting is taking place against a very different global landscape.

While BRICS is primarily The meeting, focused on economic cooperation, took place last year in the shadow of the war in Ukraine. Now, as that war rages on, the widening conflict in the Middle East, where Israel is battling Iran's proxies, is also likely to dominate leaders' discussions.

Putin confirmed last week that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas would attend the event. The Russian leader and his officials are likely to use the conflict – and anger in the Global South over the US and its support for Israel – to push their case for a new world order without the US at the helm, observers say.

China and Russia have both called for a ceasefire in the escalating conflict and criticized Israel's actions, while the US has supported Israel's right to retaliate against the militant groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Many summit participants see the conflict in the Middle East “as a prime example of why this particular group of countries should have more influence,” said Jonathan Fulton, an Abu Dhabi-based senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. However, he said countries use it “mainly as a rhetorical argument to criticize things they don't like” rather than showing interest in advancing the solution.

Observers will also be watching to see whether China and Brazil use the meeting as a platform to push their joint six-point peace proposal on the war in Ukraine, as they did at the United Nations General Assembly session last month. Then Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the efforts, saying such plans would help Moscow, while warning Beijing and Brasilia: “You will not increase your power at the expense of Ukraine.”

Zelensky's own challenges in presenting his “victory plan” to end the war and the upcoming US elections mean that China now has “an enormous opportunity to beat the drum of its own caliber (against Ukraine) without resorting to too much pressure” said Gabuev in Berlin.

The meeting in Kazan also provides Putin with ample opportunity for personal discussions with his BRICS colleagues and other friendly dignitaries in attendance.

Iran's recent addition to the BRICS – CNN reported that Russia received hundreds of drones as well as short-range ballistic missiles (a transfer Iran denies) – brings a close Russian partner even closer to Moscow. China has also been accused by the US and its allies of boosting Russia's war effort by providing dual-use goods such as machine tools and microelectronics – a role Beijing also denies, citing its “normal trade” with Russia and its “neutrality.” defends the war.

Leaders are expected to discuss in the next few days how to advance ongoing efforts to settle payments outside the U.S. dollar-denominated system using BRICS currencies and banking networks, a system that offers economic benefits could have, but also helps member countries like Russia to circumvent Western sanctions. Countries are also likely to look for ways to promote economic, technological and financial cooperation in a range of areas, from energy to sharing satellite data.

At the same time, however, they will have to contend with the divisions and different agendas between countries within the group, which observers say limit the BRICS countries' options.

This is nothing new for the group, which held its first summit in 2009 with Brazil, Russia, India and China as a coalition of key emerging economies before expanding to include South Africa the following year. In 2015, the BRICS countries founded their new development bank, which is considered an alternative or complement to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Through a shared interest in reforming the international system to ensure that their voices are better represented, the BRICS countries have from the outset included countries with major differences in political and economic systems and other tensions.

India and China, for example, have a long-simmering border conflict but form two important pillars of the club. Their divisions have become even more pronounced in recent years as tensions between China and the US have grown while India and the US have become closer partners.

Even as the BRICS expands again today – and the Kremlin says more than 30 more countries are interested in joining or working together – deepening geopolitical fault lines are further complicating the BRICS' identity and direction, observers say.

“(China and Russia have) essentially tried to shift the group from a sense that the BRICS are emerging economies to a potential expression of fear of Western dominance,” said Manoj Kewalramani, head of the Indo-Pacific Studies at the research center of the Takshashila Institution in the Indian city of Bangalore.

And new or prospective members may not want to choose between that vision or the West. Instead, they strive to grow their economy and engage in “non-ideological and pragmatic engagement,” he said.

This story has been updated with additional developments.