Staff Writer Angelika Etherington-Smith examines Russia’s efforts to strengthen BRICS as a counterweight to Western influence, exploring the geopolitical implications of its expanding membership and the challenges faced at the upcoming summit in Kazan.
In late October, leaders from all over the world are flying into the capital of Tatarstan for the annual summit of BRICS. With Russia being this year’s hosts, the event takes place in Kazan – 400 miles east of Moscow, and in the heart of the Republic of Tatarstan. With the city preparing to receive hundreds of international dignitaries, Meduza shared different ways of how “the city is preparing to protect the visitors from the locals”.
Those include limiting sales of alcohol, sending university students and workers onto WFH arrangements, closing schools and closing off streets in the centre of the city. Over the last 2 years Tatarstan has faced several drone attacks, leading to closures of local airports, but over the time of the summit security is being raised, including acquiring additional police and emergency services into Kazan from nearby villages.
Such actions are done in the impending arrival of Narendra Modi, Xi Jingping and Brazil’s Lula De Silva, with other guests including the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres. This summit will be the biggest international event since the start of its invasion of Ukraine.
It is less than a week before the summit, and the tension is already palpable in the air. One of the more obvious and most recent examples of this is the balancing act the Kazakh government is stuck in at the moment. After the president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev shared that Kazakhstan will not be joining BRICS this year, the Russian agricultural agency put a temporary ban on imports of vegetables, seeds, wheat and cereals from the central asian country.
This year, the tension may well be elevated in the international sphere, as BRICS are officially being joined by 5 new members – Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). With the situation in the Middle East heating up over the last year – primarily due to the escalation of the Israel-Hamas war and Israel’s renewed attacks on Lebanon in their fight against Hezbollah – it’s astonishing how little coverage the BRICS summit (including the attendees and new members list) has received from traditional media.
This year the summit is strongly underscored by the unspoken theme of loneliness . In the last 2 years Russia has been largely under harsh economic sanctions from most of the Western world over their ongoing invasion into Ukraine. It’s notable that now it’s their turn to chair BRICS, an emphasis is put on increasing membership. It’s unclear whether that is done in an attempt to show strength, or combat loneliness on the global stage.
This is in stark contrast with the isolationist status that Russia has grown into over the last decade. Despite that image, they seem to increasingly be vying for allies – whether in the members of the BRICS or the new deal recently struck with North Korea. In the highly militarised context of the region, with sparks flying in seemingly all directions, the BRICS summit oddly highlights every other aspect of statecraft. Discussing economics, development and political agreements, the member states are focusing on growth and diplomacy. This is highly similar to the procedures done during summits like G7 and G20. So why BRICS?
The Indian External Affairs Minister underscored the “unity-in-rejection” atmosphere around the BRICS bloc, saying “We Formed Our Club After G7 Shut the Door”. This follows a commonly understood anti-Western spirit of the BRICS bloc, especially with its architect being Russia. And notwithstanding the fact that several other members, old and new, have a history of economic and political differences with several Western states.
This is however rebuked on an official level by Viktoria Panova, the Sherpa of the Russian Federation to the Women’s 20. In a recent piece she wrote: “despite the fact that BRICS does not and will not take an anti-Western stance … each of the countries understands that it needs insurance in implementing an independent national policy.” This “independent national policy” ironically goes against the bloc nature of the BRICS group – binding the states together, aligning across policies. It’s hard to decide whether the nature of this summit is thus hypocritical or simply confused.
Nonetheless, the most important thing about this summit is the way in which it emphasises the increased multipolarity of the modern world. This isn’t just a summit of anti-western allies, this is a minilateral summit that has the potential to increasingly affect international relations in the eastern hemisphere, creating a ripple effect all over the world. Raja Mohan defined the concept of minilateralism as “small groups of countries focusing on specific issues and shared interests—often voluntarily, rarely as a formal bloc—as a pragmatic alternative to cumbersome multilateralism”. This concept allows states to cross the limit of geography to work towards shared aims. BRICS is a strong argument in favour of the demise of American hegemony, the dollar as a global currency, and the consolidation of various multilateral organisations. With the rise of minilateral blocs, the world is both bigger and smaller today than it has ever been before. A lot of discussion today goes on about the best ways of governing.
BRICS cannot be dismissed – not least for the platform it has created for a negotiation between the ever-pugnacious relationship with India and China. More importantly, it has now created a track record of supporting developing nations in establishing a bigger, established global scale, to play with the ‘big boys’ on a more equal footing. The most notable case for that is Ethiopia officially becoming a member of BRICS this year.
With this bloc of states giving the platform to states often lacking one – and those often caught in global controversies – the BRICS bloc has great potential to actively affect the world in the most influential decade of this century so far. They’re learning to lead in a world with stark internal divisions in the US, the climate emergency that grows ever more present with each day, and increasing tensions worldwide as class and gender divides steep deeper. This bloc of conservative, yet armed, rich, and powerful states cannot be dismissed by the Western world for much longer.
With the calls to “inform about suspicious faces around town” and bussing in police from nearby towns for increased security, the world waits on the outcomes of this contentious summit that is sure to affect both political and economic development around the world in the coming year. In the meanwhile, the citizens of Kazan – a bubble-wrapped town which is drowning in corruption are keenly awaiting the start of the summit, and the change – or stability – it will bring.
