Russia hosts BRICS summit, pushes new world order agenda to rival West

Russia is rolling out the red carpet to its geopolitical allies as it hosts the latest BRICS summit on Tuesday, pushing its agenda to create a “new world order” that challenges the West.

The group was initially comprised of Brazil, Russia, India and China before South Africa joined in 2010, giving the organization of rapidly economically-developing nations its current name. It has since morphed into a geopolitical forum for the world’s most powerful nations outside of the West.

The BRICS now have additional clout after Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates joined the group in January, with membership to the bloc becoming an attractive prospect for countries looking to boost trade, investment and economic development.

Russia has been trying to woo what’s collectively known as the “Global South” — or economically-developing countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America — and contrast to the “Global North” of industrialized nations, traditionally led by the U.S.

Russian President Vladimir Putin frequently comments on his ambition to establish what he calls a “new world order” to rival and usurp the geopolitical and economic pre-eminence enjoyed by the U.S.-led West.

Russia, holder of the rotating BRICS presidency and economically isolated and heavily sanctioned by the West, can also turn to this year’s summit to demonstrate that it still commands respect on the global stage and has powerful allies willing to turn a blind eye to its ongoing war in Ukraine.

Putin has described the beefed-up BRICS group as a “strong indication of the growing authority of the association and its role in international affairs” and signaled on Friday that he intends for the so-called “BRICS +” format to challenge the West on both a geopolitical and economic front.

“The countries in our association are essentially the drivers of global economic growth. In the foreseeable future, BRICS will generate the main increase in global GDP,” Putin told officials and businessmen last Friday at the BRICS business forum in Moscow, which precedes the group’s summit, in comments translated by Reuters.

“The economic growth of BRICS members will increasingly depend less on external influence or interference. This is essentially economic sovereignty,” Putin added.

Earlier in October, Putin said Moscow was open to using the summit for discussions with its allies on the “the parameters of interaction in the emerging multipolar world, and is open to discussing the issues of building a new world order with all our friends, partners and like-minded people,” he said, according to Russian state-owned news agency Tass.

Putin added that “it is in this spirit that we are preparing the BRICS and Outreach/BRICS Plus summit,” referring to the last day of the three-day summit when officials from almost 40 Asian, African, Middle Eastern and Latin American countries are attending as part of the group’s bid to expand ties with the “Global South.”

The expansion of the BRICS coalition is both significant and performative, one security analyst told CNBC.

“It is indicative of a collective movement away from the West, a demonstration of a fundamental shift within the world order that is seeking to challenge Western economic hegemony,” Callum Fraser, a research fellow in Russian and Eurasian security at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, told CNBC Monday.

Fraser added that it was “still unclear to what degree BRICS+ will be able to challenge the Western-dominated G7, or even to what degree they are able to align their visions of the international system.”

“Currently, the main glue that holds them together is the aspiration to achieve the same quality of life as in the West that they feel unable to achieve through cooperation with the West. Ultimately, BRICS+ is only anti-West in that it operates as an alternative institution. This means that it still remains to be seen what BRICS+ will provide for its member states, but increased cooperation among its members is extremely likely,” he said.

Russia’s chairing of the summit would be “utilized to maximum effect to demonstrate Russia’s strong position within this emerging order,” Fraser added.

It’s unclear whether the elephant in the room — Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine — will be acknowledged at the summit. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Izvestia newspaper that the conflict in Ukraine was not on the agenda, but he insisted that participants could “raise this issue at their discretion,” according to a Google translation.

The Kremlin appears eager to avoid mention of what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, stating that the BRICS+ discussions would concern “pressing international issues, with a particular focus on the escalating situation in the Middle East and interactions between the BRICS countries and the Global South in the interests of sustainable development.”

Putin is set to hold meetings with various leaders in attendance, including India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, China’s President Xi Jinping, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

It’s also expected that Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian could sign a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ agreement” at the summit that could signal their commitment to deepening military and defense cooperation. following several years of exchanging military and technical support amid the war in Ukraine.

Meetings with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi are also slated to take place this week, according to comments from Yury Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy aide. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva cancelled his trip to Russia after injuring his head in an accident at his home last weekend.

Saudi Arabia, which has been invited to join the BRICS group but has not yet formally acceeded, is also participating in the latest summit in the southwestern Russian city of Kazan. Argentina decided in 2023 not to join the group, citing a change in foreign policy.