Putin embraces diplomatic limelight as leaders of expanded BRICS gather in Russia

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SEOUL, South Korea — Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting the annual summit of BRICS, a high-prestige stage that offers him an opportunity to showcase his defiance of U.S.-led efforts to isolate his regime and punish the Kremlin for its decision to invade Ukraine more than two years ago.

Mr. Putin’s posturing is clearly meant to send a reassuring signal to average Russians that even though powerful and prosperous democracies in North America, Europe and East Asia have turned the diplomatic and economic screws on Russia since the Ukraine invasion, their nation is neither contained nor ostracized. 

The 2024 BRICS summit, the sixteenth gathering of a group that originally included just Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, runs from October 22-24 in the Russian city of Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan. Mr. Putin will welcome both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leaders of the world’s most populous countries and, respectively, the world’s second- and fifth-largest economies.

The grouping has grown markedly in recent years: The leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Turkey, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates are coming to Kazan, though Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, citing health concerns, will attend via video conference.

In all, up to 32 foreign delegations, including those from rising economies such as Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, are anticipated. There is even speculation that North Korea, whose relations with Russia have been warming rapidly, may send a delegation.

Another question is whether the body will, in the wake of the summit, expedite the membership of NATO member Turkey, which has announced its desire to join.

The BRICS summits are widely viewed as a challenge to major international institutions traditionally dominated by the U.S. and its allies. However, while the BRICS summit in 2009 announced that a key mission was to challenge the power of the U.S. dollar as the world’s principal reserve currency, the grouping has thus far succeeded only in creating a minor competitor to the U.S.-controlled SWIFT banking system.

“BRICS has not rewritten the rules of international trade, no common BRICS currency has materialized and its alternative payment systems have yet to dent the U.S. dollar’s global dominance,” wrote Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow at The Brookings Institute. “But it is not a good idea to take BRICS lightly.”

The BRICS nations boast real economic heft. Members include two top 10 global economies, China and India, as well as such major energy producers as Iran, Russia and UAE.

BRICS members account for 45% of the total global population and 35% of the global economy, based on purchasing power parity, though China accounts for over half of the economic weight. BRICS members are forecast to overtake the G-7 industrial powers in a share of global GDP by the end of this decade — 37% to 28%.  

The BRICS’ economic clout is hardly the only challenge to the current international order, as the U.S. and its allies try to maintain an increasingly fractured status quo. Politically, the loose grouping of prosperous democracies around the world is struggling to maintain strategic viability in the face of Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Not only are the Kremlin’s troops making gains along a long front in eastern and southern Ukraine despite the massive supply of Western weaponry, but Russia appears to have secured arms and troops from North Korea, a fellow global pariah, for the Ukraine fight.

Unclear path

Despite its impressive growth, the BRICS powers are far from entirely aligned with Russia’s worldview.

Unlike purpose-built financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank, BRICS is an organic, rather than planned body. 

The concept was born in 2001 when Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill grouped Brazil, Russia, India, China into a single emerging market investment package.

The concept took off beyond the investment community, becoming an exclusive body, complete with annual summits, initiated in 2009. In 2010, the loose coalition added South Africa, becoming the “BRICS,” from the initials of the founding countries. Egypt, Ethiopia and Iran subsequently joined.

Politically, however, BRICS nations have struggled to fashion a coherent agenda.

While China, Iran and Russia are ideologically aligned against the U.S., other BRICS members sit on the fence — notably India, the world’s largest democracy. Middle Eastern members Egypt and UAE have deep ties to Washington and are both major buyers of U.S. weapons.

Strategically, China and India are at odds, as are the Sunni Arab states and Shiite Iran.

Some would-be members have pulled back.

“It is worth noting that two countries that were expected to join the expanded BRICS have not done so,” wrote the BRICS’ godfather, Lord O’Neill, in a commentary last week. “After originally accepting the invitation, Argentina reversed course following Javier Milei’s election as president in 2023, and Saudi Arabia still has not decided what it will do.”

The anti-dollarization movement has also not taken off, with key BRICS economies suffering from disappointing growth rates and stifling state control.

Neither Brazil’s nor Russia’s economy has expanded as spectacularly as many emerging markets specialists originally anticipated. China, far and away the BRICS’ largest economy, has experienced domestic growth and reform problems of its own.

“The 2024 summit will surely include plenty of lofty statements about creating an alternative to challenge the U.S.-dollar-based global monetary system,” Lord O’Neill wrote. “But until the key members – namely China – are serious about opening up their own capital accounts and financial markets, this is not going to happen.”

The differing political leanings inside BRICS have also been a bar to collective action.

“Russia and …. Iran, both of which are subject to strict sanctions by the West, have a strong interest in alternative payment and settlement systems that are not controlled by the West,” wrote German NGO the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in an analysis of BRICS 2024. “In contrast, the other BRICS members, which have active trade relations with the West, are only interested in a certain degree of de-dollarization and the introduction of settlement with national and digital currencies to a limited extent.”