BRICS summit in Kazan: Putin wants to show that Russia is not isolated

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes Starting Tuesday, around twenty foreign leaders, allies or partners, will gather for the annual summit of the BRICS, an alliance of emerging countries that the Kremlin wants to see compete with “the host country” “Western Gemony”.

The BRICS summit, which runs until Thursday in Kazan, comes as Moscow gains military ground in Ukraine and has forged close alliances with the United States' biggest adversaries: China, Iran and North Korea.

The Kremlin boasts that it is organizing “the most important diplomatic event ever organized in Russia”, a snub to the West intended to demonstrate the failure of its policy of isolation against Vladimir Putin since the offensive against Ukraine in February 2022.

In the city center of Kazan, on the banks of the Volga, security measures have been significantly reinforced, AFP journalists noted. Residents are urged to stay at home, local media reported.

Kazan, a thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border, has repeatedly suffered drone attacks from Ukraine targeting industrial sites linked to the army.

– Xi, Modi, Erdogan… –

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping, on May 16, 2024 in Beijing, in a photo published by the official Russian news agency Sputnik © POOL – Sergei BOBYLYOV

Vladimir Putin is due to begin a marathon of around fifteen bilateral meetings scheduled between now and Thursday on Tuesday, according to the Kremlin.

A sign of the importance of Moscow's strategic shift towards Asia, the Kremlin's leader will speak on the first day of the summit with his Chinese ally Xi Jinping, whose departure for Russia was confirmed by the official Chinese news agency on Tuesday morning. Vladimir Putin will then meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A dinner is planned for the evening at Kazan City Hall, according to the Kremlin.

The Russian head of state will meet on Wednesday with Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan – whose country, a NATO member, has asked to join BRICS – and with Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian.

Before continuing on Thursday, according to the Kremlin, with a highly anticipated one-on-one meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a first between the two men since April 2022.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on September 27, 2024 © AFP – EVARISTO SA

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva canceled his trip on Sunday and will speak via videoconference, according to the Brazilian presidency.

On Monday, he explained that he was suffering from a headache after a “serious” domestic accident, during a telephone conversation with a member of his party who broadcast the exchange on social networks.

In addition to the conflict in Ukraine, the escalation of tensions in the Middle East must be discussed, as well as the future development of an international payment system intended to compete with Swift, from which Russian banks were mostly excluded after the invasion in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin will also speak at a press conference on Thursday at the end of the summit.

– “Multipolar world” –

This BRICS summit “aims to show that Russia is not only far from isolated, but that it has partners and allies,” underlines Russian political analyst Konstantin Kalatchev.

Vladimir Putin, who is targeted by an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in March 2023 due to the deportation of Ukrainian children, which kyiv accuses Moscow of, is restricted in his travel abroad.

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

Moscow presents its assault on Ukraine not as a war of conquest, despite its new claimed annexations of Ukrainian regions after that of Crimea in 2014, but as a conflict provoked by American hegemony.

For the West and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia is on the contrary in a logic of domination of its neighbors, and seeks to impose a law of the strongest on an international scale.

With four members (Brazil, Russia, India, China) at its creation in 2009, the BRICS bloc integrated South Africa in 2010, thus taking its name from the initials of these states in English. He was joined this year by four countries (Ethiopia, Iran, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates).

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, October 16, 2024 in Brussels © AFP – NICOLAS TUCAT

The only downside was the absence in Kazan of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, fueling speculation about possible disagreements between the two global energy heavyweights.

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