Against the backdrop of his ongoing war on Ukraine, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin hosted the BRICS summit for 2024 in the large city of Kazan, safely some 900 miles from the grueling conflict’s shifting frontlines near the border.
Putin’s goal? Showing the world there is an alternative to Western dominance—and that the BRICS countries are building it. But while warm words were many, concrete actions were few. It remains to be seen if BRICS can establish itself as a meaningful competitor.
Top-level delegations from the BRICS countries—Russia, China, India, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Brazil, South Africa and the UAE—attended the summit, which took place from October 22 to 24.
Turkey, a NATO ally but not currently a BRICS member, sent a delegation. Attendees also included Saudi Arabia, Serbia and Venezuela, among other states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attended, too.
They met under Russia’s chairship to discuss expanding BRICS and greater cooperation on various security and economic priorities, including Putin’s desire for a new international payments system that would undercut the importance of the US dollar.
The overarching ambition of BRICS leaders such as Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping is to accelerate and bolster the shift away from America as the sole superpower and towards a multipolar world that counterbalances the US and its Western allies.
“We note the emergence of new centers of power, policy decision-making and
economic growth, which can pave the way for a more equitable, just, democratic and
balanced multipolar world order,” said a joint declaration from the summit’s delegates.
L-R in lower row: Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and other leaders and representatives pose for a group photo of the Outreach BRICS Plus format meeting participants…
L-R in lower row: Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and other leaders and representatives pose for a group photo of the Outreach BRICS Plus format meeting participants during the BRICS Leader’s Summit, October 24 2024, in Kazan, Tatarstan Republic, Russia. Putin and representatives of 30 countries gathered in Kazan for the 16th BRICS Summit.
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Sanctions rocked Russia’s economy in the early weeks and months following its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine as Western allies attempted to shut Moscow out of global finance and trade in response to what is widely seen as a war of aggression.
But the Russian economy, though seriously weakened, has since stabilized with vital help from its key partner China, the second-largest economy in the world and a manufacturing powerhouse.
Putin has also relied on Iran for weapons in Ukraine and is seeking to grow trade with India through a strategic partnership, particularly in the areas of energy resources and defense.
North Korea, not a BRICS country but a key Russian ally and an avowed enemy of the US, is aiding Putin’s war efforts by sending troops to fight in Ukraine. It has already sent weapons and ammunition to Russia.
These partnerships are Putin’s multipolar vision in practice, undermining the US-led West’s ability to exercise its power and enforce its desired global norms through sanctions and other economic and diplomatic levers at its disposal.
As the BRICS summit wraps up, Newsweek asked people who know Russia well—former ministers and officials, politicians, and academics—if Putin’s hosting of the event was a success, failure, or neutral for him. Here’s what they said.
Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs and chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, a Russian NGO
The BRICS summit in Kazan was undoubtedly a success for Kremlin for two main reasons.
First: The biggest international event since the beginning of the Ukrainian war with heavy representation of the Global South/East demonstrated the role of Russia as a facilitator of a new community of states. Not all of them are on the same page on many issues, though they came because they saw this gathering as something significant in the global context.
Second: BRICS has turned from a rather vague club into a vibrant grouping of countries, and this grouping manifests the new leading trend in world affairs, i.e. relatively quick diversification from the mainly Western-centric to the largely decentralized system.
It is not anti-West as most BRICS countries have extended relations with the West and intend to keep them, but a way to create alternatives that can bypass the West in case it helps to achieve particular goals.
Sergey Aleksashenko, former Russian deputy finance minister and central banker
On the one hand, the BRICS summit was Putin’s success and to his benefit—it is rare for anyone to gather such a group of world leaders. This meeting demonstrates the West’s failure to organize a global international isolation of Putin, just as it failed to create a global coalition regarding sanctions policy.
On the other hand, the summit failed for Putin, as he failed to find supporters for his hardline anti-American/anti-Western slogans and failed to gain support for his desire to create an alternative financial system or international settlement system.
The summit declaration is based on the principle “we are for all good and against all bad,” and therefore, it is difficult to disagree with anything in it.
Vladimir Milov, former Russian deputy energy minister, economist, and opposition politician
Basically, all you need to know about the success of the summit is that BRICS bank, NDB, has suspended all the financing to new Russian projects since mid-2023 due to risk of secondary sanctions.
As Russian pro-government media admits, the suspension remains effective to this day: This article also admits that BRICS member countries are actively waging trade wars against one another, and there’s no such thing as a common market or a common financial system not even in the works.
There’s a Russian proposal to develop a common system of digital transactions, but given the overregulated nature of BRICS currencies and their governments’ inclination to micromanagement and excessive control of their currencies, it is highly unlikely that such a common system will ever become effective.
Russian officials call on BRICS bank, NDB, to resume financing of new Russian projects, but to no avail. The total financing received by Russia by BRICS bank since 2018, before the suspension in 2023, is just about $5.7bn, a negligible amount.
You can make your own conclusions on how “successful” this photo-op summit was.
Vladislav Inozemtsev, economist, director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies, and special advisor to MEMRI’s Russia Media Studies Project
If one uses such a scale as you suggest, I would argue the summit should be placed right in the middle between “neutral” and “success”.
First of all, nothing has happened in Kazan that might be considered a sign of failure. There were no expectations for some breakthrough decisions and declarations, so therefore there is no reason to call the event a failure just because of their absence.
The success was manifested by the very fact that more than 20 leaders assembled in a country headed by a suspected war criminal—I cannot remember any such case in world history.
For Putin, the media images are valuable results per se, and the Kazan assembly in this sense was a great achievement.
I’m sure that the Kremlin suspected the West of trying to derail the summit, and therefore the Russian leaders are proud that it went well, and Putin played his role of a nice host to the leaders of the “non-Western” world.
The presence of the UN Secretary-General was, to my mind, a big mistake from the West’s side, which I cannot reasonably explain.
Anyway, Putin presented some evidence that he remains at the core of a new and dynamic group that at least talks (though maybe not acts) about the needed revision of the global system.
What looks also very important are the bilateral meetings Putin held with some of the leaders present. I would pay special attention to his talks with the President of the UAE, the ruler of Abu-Dhabi.
Emirates are now becoming another basic region for increasing Russian influence and safeguarding the riches of the wealthiest Russians. Some business, educational, and financial projects are now underway between Russia and UAE, so I would expect some developments to follow such long and intimate meetings that were held in Moscow.
To summarize, I think that the Russian propaganda will make a full use of the summit, and this makes it a success since nothing was expected except the media coverage and symbolic appearances of the international elite in the aggressor country.
Konstantin Borovoy, liberal Russian politician and former member of the State Duma
There is no doubt that Putin has successfully advanced the creation of an anti-Western coalition through BRICS.
To a much greater extent than around Russia, this coalition is forming around China, with which many authoritarian regimes and Global South countries are eager to collaborate. Putin and Russia are only of interest to them as a source of cheap energy resources.
This is particularly evident in the case of India.
In developing the BRICS concept, Putin is effectively playing the role of a monkey pulling chestnuts out of the fire for China.
After the return of the Republicans to power in the U.S. and the strengthening of the Western coalition of states, Putin’s efforts to divide the world into two opposing factions will lose relevance.
Update, 10/24/24, 2 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include comments from Vladimir Milov.