Washington: In the coming days, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be shaking hands with multiple world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian.
They will all be in the Russian city of Kazan Tuesday for a meeting of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, defying predictions that the war in Ukraine and an international arrest warrant against Putin would turn him into a pariah.
The alliance, which aims to counterbalance the Western-led world order, initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, but started to rapidly expand this year. Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia joined in January; Turkiye, Azerbaijan and Malaysia formally applied, and a number of others expressed a desire to be members.
Russian officials already see it as a massive success. Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said 32 countries confirmed participation, and more than 20 will send heads of state.
Putin will hold around 20 bilateral meetings, Ushakov said, and the summit could turn into “the largest foreign policy event ever held” on Russian soil.
Optics and deals for the Kremlin
Analysts say the Kremlin wants both the optics of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with its global allies amid continued tensions with the West, as well as the practicality of negotiating deals with them to shore up Russia’s economy and its war effort. For the other participants, it’s a chance to amplify their voices and narratives.
“The beauty of BRICS is that it doesn’t put too many obligations on you,” says Alexander Gabuyev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre.
“There are not that many strings attached, really, to being part of BRICS. And at the same time, there might be interesting opportunities coming your way, including just having more face time with all of these leaders.”
For Putin, the summit is important personally because it shows the failure of Western efforts to isolate him, Gabuyev says.
The gathering will demonstrate at home and abroad that “Russia is really an important player that is leading this new group that will end the Western dominance -– that’s his personal narrative”, he says.
The Kremlin will be able to talk to major players like India and China about expanding trade and bypassing Western sanctions. India is an important market for Russian commodities, while China is where Moscow hopes to get its hands on dual-use and various military-related goods, Gabuyev says.
Russia also wants more countries participating in a payment system project that would be an alternative to the global bank messaging network SWIFT, allowing Moscow to trade with its partners without worrying about sanctions.
“The Russian idea is that if you create a platform where there is China, Russia, India Brazil and Saudi Arabia, many countries that are vital partners for the US, the US will not be ready to go after this platform and sanction it,” Gabuyev said.
Goals for Iran and China
Russia also is expected to sign a “comprehensive strategic partnership” treaty with Iran, bolstering the increasingly close ties between Moscow and Tehran.
After the invasion of Ukraine, Iran provided Moscow with hundreds of drones and helped launch their production in Russia. The Iranian drone deliveries, which Moscow and Tehran have denied, have allowed for a constant barrage of long-range drone strikes at Ukraine’s infrastructure.
Iran, in turn, wants sophisticated Russian weapons, like long-range air defense systems and fighter jets to help fend off a possible attack by Israel. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment when asked whether the treaty will include mutual military assistance.
For China, BRICS is among several international organisations -– along with the security-focused Shanghai Cooperation Organisation -– through which it seeks to promote an alternative to the US-led world order.
Xi pushed for enlarging BRICS, and the Kazan summit will consolidate economic, technological and military ties in the expanded bloc, said Willy Lam, a senior China fellow at the Jamestown Foundation.
Beijing and Moscow also want to see if a new international trading currency could “challenge so-called dollar hegemony”, Lam said.
The summit will allow Xi and Putin to flaunt their close relationship. The two, who announced a “no-limits” partnership only weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, already have met at least twice this year, in Beijing in May and at a SCO summit in Kazakhstan in July.
Although they will continue to present a united front, experts are watching for subtle signs of Xi distancing himself from Putin over the war.
“While Putin will want the China-Russia relationship to appear as good as ever, Xi may also want to signal to Western states and others that Beijing officially remains neutral’ in Russia’s war in Ukraine and is not a formal ally of Moscow,” said Eva Seiwert, a foreign policy and security expert with the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin.
“This will be crucial for conveying the image of China as a serious and legitimate peacemaker in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”
Balancing acts for India and Turkiye
An expected Modi-Putin meeting could see some rebalancing of their ties. Western friends want India to be more active in persuading Moscow to end the war. Modi has avoided condemning Russia while emphasising a peaceful settlement.
New Delhi considers Moscow a time-tested partner from the Cold War, cooperating on defense, oil, nuclear energy, and space, despite Russia’s closer ties with India’s main rival, China.
Their meeting will be the second in months. Modi visited Russia in July, saw President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine in August and travelled to the US to see President Joe Biden in September.
“India can’t simply abandon Russia because of its deep defence ties, the question of the regional balance of power, and the logic of multi-alignment,” said Raja Mohan, a professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies in Singapore.
“At the same time, it also builds and develops its relations with the US and the West because that is where the logic of India’s major economic development and technological growth depends on partnership.”
India and Brazil view BRICS primarily through an economic lens to promote a more equitable distribution of power in the international system, while “China and Russia see it more as a geopolitical forum”, said Chietigi Bajpayee, who studies South Asia at the Chatham House in London.
India and Brazil also don’t want to be “pulled into China’s gravitational orbit”, said Theresa Fallon of the Centre for Russia, Europe, Asia Studies.
Another key participant is Turkiye, which has applied to join the BRICS group. That comes at a time when the NATO member and European Union candidate is increasingly frustrated with the West. Turkiye’s EU membership talks have stalled since 2016 due to disputes with Cyprus and concerns over human rights.
Turkiye’s relations with Washington have been strained over its removal from the F-35 fighter jet programme after procuring a Russian missile defense system. Erdogan also has accused the US and other Western allies of alleged “complicity” in Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
Membership in BRICS would help Erdogan “strengthen his own hand” at a time when ties with the West are at a low, said Gonul Tol, director of the US-based Middle East Institute’s Turkiye programme.
Middle powers like Turkiye “try to extract more from both camps by being in-between camps, by having one foot in each camp”, he said.
