BRICS‘s meeting in Kazan, Russia showcased how strong the emerging alliance of non-Western countries is becoming.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “proposed to discuss the idea of creating BRICS’ own platform that would help to unlock the potential of the growing economies of the association’s member states,” Russian state media TASS reported.
“It is obvious that the next wave of global economic growth is being born in the countries of the global majority. Therefore, the time has come to discuss the idea of creating our own platform to unlock the potential of our growing economies,” Putin said.
Russia is hoping to use the meeting of India, China, South Africa and Brazil, along with new partners of BRICS, to further its interests.
Using the Soviet Union’s playbook
Putin spoke about outreach to the rest of the world, to create a large non-western bloc of states. This is not unique in history. The Soviet Union did the same and so did the non-aligned movement during the Cold War. However, this has major ramifications for the war in Ukraine, Gaza and other potential conflicts.
“It is important to build alternative, reliable and free from any dictate multilateral financial mechanisms for production, logistics chains, establish an exchange of technologies and advanced knowledge, develop and increase the capacity of new international transport corridors,” Putin added, while also discussing new economic corridors such as one that would stretch through Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also made similar comments on X/Twitter, insisting “the sun is rising from the East, and truly setting in the West.”
The Iranian envoy said this was his takeaway “following close consultations with 11 nations in past 2.5 weeks, accompanying President Pezeshkian to BRICS summit in Kazan.”
There are a number of countries in BRICS who represent the new trend.
BRICS was founded in 2009 when there was a meeting in Yekaterinburg, between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Dmitry Medvedev, Manmohan Singh, and Hu Jintao, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. South Africa joined two years later. Now other countries are seeking to join or become partners. This includes Iran, the UAE, Egypt, Turkey and even Saudi Arabia may consider joining.
The expansion of BRICS into countries that are close to the West shows how many states are hedging their bets on this non-western group of powerful economies.
The Iranian envoy used the 16th BRICS summit to slam Israel. “Araghchi also pointed out that the statement condemns the attacks by the Zionist regime on Gaza and Lebanon, emphasizing the need to cease these attacks,” Iranian state media noted.
Iranian President Pezeshkian met with the presidents of Russia, China, South Africa, and Egypt, as well as the prime ministers of India and Ethiopia, and the head of state of the United Arab Emirates. This is important and it may have ramifications for Israel; who is absent of representation in these types of meetings.
Israel has increasingly felt this kind of diplomatic isolation since the Hamas attack on October 7. Russia, Iran and Turkey back Hamas.
Russia also used this meeting to showcase that it can do outreach to the UN even while Moscow has been charged with crimes in Ukraine. The head of the Russian DUMA said that the meetings show Russia is not highlighted. Bolivia’s president also attended the BRICS meetings, according to Russian state media. Iranian media said that the countries “will sign comprehensive agreements for long-term cooperation, as well as bilateral agreements that include gas and corridor contracts.” Iran also held meetings with Armenia in Kazan.
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