Putin hails BRICS summit as ‘great success’, invites several new countries to become ‘partners’

BRICS Plus leaders meeting at their summit in Kazan, Russia, this week have invited several new countries to the organisation — reportedly 13 —   but for now only as “partners” and not full members like the original five countries and the four which joined last year. Russia has hailed this and the big turnout of 35 countries at the summit as proof that Western efforts to isolate it have failed. 

Read more: Russia hosts BRICS leaders, signalling Putin is far from isolated

Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a press conference after the summit on Thursday, 24 October 2024, that the names of the countries invited to be partners would only be announced once they had accepted the invitations. Officials said this was to avoid a repeat of the embarrassment of last year’s summit in South Africa when BRICS announced that six new countries were joining. But then the new right-wing Argentinian president declined the invitation. And Saudi Arabia has until today not confirmed if it wants to join. 

There was also much expectation that the summit would announce concrete plans to reduce dependency on the US dollar, including establishing an alternative international system of financial payments and settlements. Russia had been pushing this to help it circumvent Western sanctions, such as those which bar it from the global bank messaging network Swift. Putin told the summit: “The dollar is being used as a weapon.” 

Read more: 2024 BRICS Summit to be chaired by Russia — Fairer global order or bigger Putin support group?

But the summit took no decisions on this, referring the issue back to their finance ministers and central bank governors to continue working out the details of an “independent cross-border settlement and depositary infrastructure, BRICS Clear, an initiative to complement the existing financial market infrastructure, as well as BRICS independent reinsurance capacity, including BRICS (Re)Insurance Company, with participation on a voluntary basis”.

Putin hailed the meeting as a ”great success”. He said 35 countries and six international organisations were represented at the summit. This controversially included UN Secretary-General António Guterres — which Ukraine condemned.

Russian State Duma Chairperson Vyacheslav Volodin said on his Telegram channel that the large participation in the summit had shown that “Washington and Brussels’ plan to isolate Russia has failed… Russia became a magnet”.

Putin said the Kazan Declaration from the summit “reaffirms the commitment of all BRICS countries to building a more democratic, inclusive, and multipolar world order based on international law and the UN Charter. It also underscores our collective determination to oppose the practice of imposing unlawful sanctions and attempts to erode traditional moral values.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa hailed the summit as a success in creating a “very strong platform… which strengthens the Global South… and promotes multilateralism… and the development of Global South countries”.

Though the names of  the new partners that have been invited were not announced, the wide speculation was that there are 13 — Türkiye,  Algeria, Cuba, Bolivia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Belarus,  Nigeria, Uganda, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. If they accept, they would join the original five members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa plus Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates which joined last year at the BRICS summit in South Africa. However, they would not have the same status as the other nine.  

Second tier members

A senior South African official explained to Daily Maverick that “Partner Countries are second tier members. They do not enjoy the same status with regard to membership and will participate in only select Working Groups, Expert Meetings and Ministerials. They will not have a say in determining negotiated agreed language in the outcome documents (of summits) etc. 

“They are basically on an accession path to full membership.” 

Clearly a big prize for the BRICS and for Putin personally was Türkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s participation in the summit and the possible admission of Türkiye as a new partner country. Türkiye is a member of Nato and its accession to BRICS, especially in Russia, would create ambiguity about its loyalties for other members of Nato, which is arming Ukraine to defend itself against Russia. 

China and Russia have been pushing hard to expand the membership of BRICS, largely motivated by their need to recruit allies to support them against what they see as Western dominance of global economic and political institutions. 

However, two of the five original members, India and Brazil, and possibly South Africa have put a brake on the rapid expansion of the club, in part because they want BRICS to be complementary to  the West and to existing global institutions, and not opposed to them, and in part because they fear their influence in the organisation would be diluted by new members. 

For that reason Brazil vetoed efforts by Russia and China to admit Venezuela as one of the new partner countries, various media reported. Putin confirmed this at the press conference, acknowledging that Russia and Brazil had different views about Venezuela.

And Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who participated in the summit by video link, said: “Many insist on dividing the world into friends and enemies. But the most vulnerable are not interested in simplistic dichotomies; what they want is plenty of food, decent work and quality universally accessible public schools and hospitals.”

India probably feels even more strongly than Brazil that the BRICS should not gang up against the West. 

‘Strategic hedging’

For India, BRICS had always been a form of “strategic hedging”, said one analyst who wished to remain anonymous. Though the US and Western-led global order were crucial for India's growth, security, and access to advanced technologies, “India has historically never placed all its eggs in one basket”. 

BRICS provided a counterweight to Western influence, allowing India to pursue a more multipolar global order. 

“However, India feared its influence in BRICS might be diluted if too many new members were admitted — particularly if the new members might be closely aligned to China or Russia.”

He added that the idea of a BRICS currency to replace the dollar that some members have proposed was “a bridge too far for India. While India is open to reducing dollar dependence, the Yuan’s dominance would be seen as contrary to India’s interests, particularly given the complex dynamics with China.

“In short, while India values BRICS as a platform to voice its desire for reforms in global governance, it is wary of allowing the bloc to take an explicitly anti-Western stance or cede ground to Chinese influence, especially in the financial sphere or as a backdoor to the entry of Belt and Road.”

Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, the national director of the South African Institute of International Affairs agreed, saying that India and Brazil wanted to diversify their global economic and political relations.

“But they wouldn’t want to replace one dominance with another. It’s about reducing exposure, vulnerability,” she said.

On the financial issues, she said that for countries like Brazil, India and South Africa it was not so much about de-dollarisation as about having more options. 

“Whereas for Russia, de-dollarisation is much more important.” 

Sidiropoulos said, however, that the symbolism of the summit was probably the most important thing for Putin as he had shown that he was capable of attracting a considerable number of world leaders to Russia and inviting 13 new countries to join BRICS,  thereby demonstrating to the West that he was not isolated, as it hoped. 

Arina Muresan, a senior researcher at the Institute for Global Dialogue, said that BRICS wanted to engage more closely with the Global South. But this did not necessarily mean formal expansion of the BRICS, and so the category of partner countries covered this need. 

Much bolder statements

She noted that the Kazan summit had also made much bolder statements on peace and security issues (like Gaza) than previous summits where the Brics members had often rather agreed to disagree on issues. 

Muresan said that although there had been high expectations about decisions on alternative payment systems, much of this was already happening through the BRICS Interbank cooperation mechanism.

Indeed, Putin denied after the summit that BRICS intended creating an alternative to Swift “or anything”. “We will continue to enhance interbank communication and to work on creating mechanisms for payments in national currencies that are immune to external risks,” he said.

“Regarding payment systems, we are using the Russian financial messaging system created by the Central Bank of Russia. Other BRICS countries also have their own systems, which we will also use, are already using and will continue to use.

“However, we are not inventing a separate common system, since we are doing well with what we have. All we need to do is take timely administrative decisions, which we also discussed with our colleagues, and we will continue down that path.”

And Putin told the summit that nearly 95% of trade between Russia and China was already being conducted in rubles and yuan.

Tensions in the GNU

The summit provoked tensions in the South African government.  Ramaphosa warmly greeted Putin on his arrival in Kazan as “a valued ally”.  This prompted John Steenhuisen, leader of the DA, the ANC’s main partner in the Government of National Unity, to issue a statement saying: “We cannot and will not agree that South Africa should consider an authoritarian regime, that is currently violating international law by waging an imperialist war of aggression against a sovereign state, as an ally.”

Steenhuisen added that at a time of growing optimism with the first real prospects of economic growth in almost two decades, the government could not afford to make statements that could jeopardise international relations and trade opportunities. This was clearly a suggestion that the US in particular could take exception to Ramaphosa’s warm embrace of Putin, and this could jeopardise South Africa’s US trade access. 

Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya retorted that the DA had a right to maintain its own foreign policy positions, but could not impose these positions on the president. He insisted that Ramaphosa would not be “micromanaged” on foreign policy. DM