What a contrast in one year! During the previous Brics summit in South Africa, Vladimir Putin, targeted by a warrant from the International Criminal Court, only appeared on video because he did not dare to travel, for fear of being arrested. The 2024 edition, at home, from October 22 to 24, in Kazan, on the banks of the Volga, offers him a brilliant revenge: the family photo will allow him to showcase the fact that he is anything but isolated .
Nearly three years after provoking the start of the war in Ukraine, the Russian president managed to bring together around twenty heads of state, members of the Brics or candidates for entry into this club of emerging countries created fifteen years ago years and which now represents almost half of the planet’s economy and a third of its GDP. Initially comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China; then South Africa in 2011, it expanded last year to four new countries (Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, United Arab Emirates), and the list of candidates knocking on its door (like Turkey) continues to lie down.
Among the most powerful guests, the Russian master of ceremonies welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi – Brazilian Lula will only speak remotely, his doctors having banned him from traveling for health reasons. More surprisingly, the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, will also participate in the summit, effectively giving it a form of respectability.
Bringing together very heterogeneous states
Putin’s diplomatic victory is all the more striking given that, at the same time, his army continues to gain ground in the Donbass and that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “victory plan” – which notably calls for integration into NATO – was greeted with caution by Westerners divided on how to support Ukraine.
The future has never seemed so uncertain for this attacked country, two weeks before a US presidential election which could bring Donald Trump back to the White House and end aid to kyiv.
All the skill of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping is to have succeeded in bringing together very heterogeneous states. “More and more important countries are calling into question the current world order resulting from the Second World War and American domination. The Russians and Chinese have been able to play on this rope, without forcing them to go on a crusade against the States -United and their allies”, explains Michel Duclos, former ambassador and special advisor at the Montaigne Institute. In fact, some are clearly on an anti-Western line, like Iran; when others, like Brazil and India, try to maintain a more balanced position between West and East to gain the most possible advantages.
“The Brics, which initially had a forum to promote the economic potential of its members, have gradually taken on an increasingly political and geopolitical dimension,” underlines Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, director of the Russia-Eurasia center at Ifri. In this logic, this year there is talk of developing a concrete solution to free ourselves from the hegemony of the dollar: an alternative payment system to the American Swift system. “The objective, in the short term, is to circumvent the sanctions. For Russia, for Iran, it is completely vital, in the immediate future. But other countries, likely to be a today targeted by the West, may be interested”, continues the researcher.
There is certainly friction in the BRICS world, as evidenced by the absence of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, who was accepted into the club but has not yet confirmed that he wants to join. . But, at a time when Zelensky is desperately looking for support to slow down the advance of Russian troops, this rallying of the southern country around Putin darkens the future even more.
.