‘Global South’ interested in joining BRICS – as it’s ‘tone deaf’ to anti-Russia rhetoric
For Vladimir Putin, the optics could not be better.
More than two and a half years into his war in Ukraine, he is shaking hands this week with not just one world leader, or two, but more than 20.
China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian…there’s even Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of a NATO member state and EU candidate country.
They have all come to the Russian city of Kazan for the BRICS summit of emerging economies.
As you might expect, the Russian president was positively beaming as he sat down with various heads of state for a string of one-on-one meetings.
The message from the Kremlin is loud and clear – the West’s efforts to isolate Russia have not worked. Instead of losing friends, Moscow has made them.
Mr Putin and Mr Xi shake hands during their meeting on the sidelines of BRICS Summit. Pic: AP
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“It shows something about the weakness of the sanctions regime,” Mark Galeotti, principal director of Mayak Intelligence, told Sky News.
“There was a lot of exaggerated sense as to how the West could put a stranglehold on Russia, and many countries are, frankly, not willing to play those games.
“It highlights the degree to which in this incredibly complex, multi-connected, modern world, it’s very hard to actually isolate any country, especially one as large and as engaged in global commerce as Russia.”
Mr Putin embraces Narendra Modi during their meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan. Pic: Reuters
The first BRIC summit was in 2009, involving Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa joined in 2010 to add the S on the end of the acronym.
For much of the last decade and a half, the group has been dismissed by economists as an alphabet soup of countries – too spread out and fundamentally different from one another to form any meaningful alliance.
But in the last few years, it has grown more significant and seemingly influential.
‘A powerful platform’
The group has expanded its membership to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia has also been invited to join, and according to Russia, there are dozens of other countries that want to become part of the club.
That’s despite Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the West’s attempts to cast Mr Putin as a war criminal.
“A lot of countries in the Global South are really tone deaf to rhetoric about Russia breaking the rules,” Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told Sky News.
“All the questions ‘what about Iraq?’ are not driven by Russian propaganda points but by genuine concern about the US abusing its role as the most powerful country.
“They realise that the current international order underwritten by the US doesn’t really deliver for them and they don’t know what the alternative is but BRICS is really a powerful platform where these issues can be discussed.”
Top of the agenda this week is an alternative platform for international payments, which Mr Putin hopes will end the dominance of the dollar and make the BRICS economies immune to Western sanctions.
Because despite all the talk of sanctions not having the desired effect, they have caused Russia problems.
It’s been cut off from international markets, and more recently, the country’s had difficulties with cross-border trade, even with friendly countries like China, because it’s linked to the dollar and there’s a threat of secondary sanctions by the US.
An entirely new system, not involving the dollar, would bypass those issues. But it’s unlikely to come to fruition this week.
For one, the idea is still in its infancy. What’s more, not all the BRICS members, like India and Brazil, share Mr Putin’s anti-Western sentiment.
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“There is concern among these countries about how close you want to move towards Russia or an agenda that’s seen as enabling this horrible war from Russia in Ukraine,” Mr Gabuev said.
Brazil and India are not alone. Saudi Arabia and Turkey also share strong ties with the West. Their presence in Kazan can be seen more as an attempt to play both sides, rather than overt support of Russia.
But that does not seem to matter to the residents of Kazan. Most people we have spoken to here view the summit as the Kremlin intends.
“This is a wonderful event,” Alexandra told us. “I think that this will be a breakthrough and that the world has become multipolar.”
Alexei is another who is proud of his president.
“He is looking in all directions and it’s bearing fruit,” he said. “If someone thinks we’re isolated, it is probably only their problem.”
Not everyone shares that opinion, though.
Favaris points to Russia’s closer ties with North Korea: “If you are friends with an outcast, then you have fallen lower than ever.”
Police have released new details about the killer in the US Catholic school shooting – including that they “idolised” mass murderers and they wanted to “watch children suffer”.
Two children, aged eight and 10, were killed during mass at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
Eighteen other people were injured, including children aged between six and 15 and three adults in their 80s.
Police said Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman, opened fire with a rifle through the windows of the school’s church as children sat in pews.
Robin Westman
Almost 120 rifle rounds fired, police chief says
In a news conference on Thursday, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the attacker fired 116 rifle rounds into the church.
“It is very clear that this shooter had the intention to terrorise those innocent children,” he added.
The police chief said the killer “fantasised” about the plans of other mass shooting attackers and wanted to “obtain notoriety”.
When asked about the attacker obtaining the firearms used legally, Mr O’Hara said that they did not have a criminal history or any diagnosed mental health disorders.
While they had potentially concerning social media posts, the police chief added that there was no evidence to suggest that Westman was legally barred from purchasing a firearm.
People mourn outside the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. Pic: Reuters
Suspect ‘wanted to watch children suffer’
Joe Thompson, acting US attorney for Minnesota, also said evidence recovered of the killer’s plans showed “pure indiscriminate hate” and that they “idolised some of the most notorious school shooters and mass murderers in our country’s history”.
“I won’t dignify the shooter’s words by repeating them,” Mr Thompson added. “They are horrific and vile, but in short, the shooter wanted to watch children suffer.”
Earlier, the mayor of Minneapolis called for a statewide and federal ban on assault weapons after the deadly attack, saying “thoughts and prayers are not going to cut it”.
“There is no reason that someone should be able to reel off 30 shots before they even have to reload,” he said.
“We’re not talking about your father’s hunting rifle gear. We’re talking about guns that are built to pierce armour and kill people.”
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Minneapolis mayor urges assault weapons ban
Thomas Klemond, interim CEO of Minneapolis’s main trauma hospital Hennepin Healthcare, said at a news conference earlier that the hospital was treating nine patients injured in the shooting.
One child at the hospital was in a critical condition, he added.
Children’s Minnesota Hospital also said that three children remain in its care as of Thursday morning.
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In a post on Facebook, the hospital said “there are no words to describe the overwhelming pain many are feeling”, adding: “We feel that pain with you.
“To the entire Annunciation community, you have our deepest condolences. During this time of unimaginable grief and loss, we want you to know that we at Children’s Minnesota are with you.
“We will always be here to care for you. And in this moment, we hurt alongside you.”
After all those raised hopes of peace, Ukraine has been hit by the second-worst night of Russian air attacks since the war began.
So much for diplomacy, despite the Alaska summit, then the Washington DC meeting.
The Kremlin says it was aiming at military targets, but yet again, the pictures tell a very different story.
Follow latest: UK summons Putin’s ambassador
Firefighters work at the site of a burning building after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine. Pic: AP
One civilian building after another was hit, more than a dozen people were killed and British Council and EU buildings were also damaged.
So what’s going on? Why is Vladimir Putin doing it?
Because he can.
The Russian president thinks he’s winning this war, and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that he’s using diplomacy to play for time while he carries on beating down the Ukrainians will to win.
And at the moment, no one is stopping him
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At least 14 killed in Kyiv attack
Ukraine is hitting back, particularly at Russia‘s oil installations, more of them going up in thick black smoke, after being hit by long-range Ukrainian drones.
It is taking a heavy toll on Putin’s ‘Achilles heel’, but on its own, analysts don’t expect it will be enough to persuade him to end this war.
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British Council building hit in Kyiv
The West can wring its hands in condemnation.
But it’s divided between Europe that wants a ceasefire and much more severe sanctions, and President Trump, who, it seems, does not – strangely always willing to sympathise with the Russians more than Ukraine.
He’s back to blaming Ukraine for starting the war, saying earlier in the week that Kyiv should not have got into a war it had no chance of winning.
It is a grotesque perversion of history. Ukraine, of course, had no choice but to fight to defend itself when it was invaded in an act of unprovoked aggression.
Every time the US president has condemned Russia for these kinds of attacks, he has never followed through and done nothing to punish them.
Rescue workers carry an injured woman after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine. Pic: AP
More worryingly for the Ukrainians, the Russians are getting the upper hand in the drones war, taking Iranian technology and souping it up into faster-moving drones that the Ukrainians are having increasing difficulty bringing down.
They expect as many as a thousand drones a night coming their way by the winter, and many, many more innocents to die.
Next week, Putin will join Chinese and North Korean leaders in a summit in Beijing, both supporting his war in Ukraine.
(L-R) Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un. Pics: Reuters
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A war that began as one man’s mad idea has, in three and a half years, metastasised into a titanic struggle between east and west, fought increasingly with machines in a dystopian evolution of war.
If President Trump is not prepared to use his power to bring this war to an end, what will another three and a half years of his presidency bring?
It is a chilling question.
Kim Jong Un will join Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin at a major military parade in Beijing next week, North Korean and Chinese state media have announced.
The dictator will make the rare trip abroad as China marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
Mr Putin’s presence had already been confirmed. He and Mr Kim will be among 26 foreign leaders at the event, with none expected from the US or Western Europe.
China, Russia, and North Korea are close allies. Beijing has long been Pyongyang’s biggest aid and trading partner, while Mr Kim has been providing the Russian president with troops for his war in Ukraine.
There are currently no details of exactly when and for how long Mr Kim will be in China. It’s set to be his first visit in some six years – before the pandemic.
Hong Lei, assistant foreign minister of China, said the country would “warmly welcome” Mr Kim and that “maintaining, consolidating, and developing” relations between the two countries’ governments was a priority.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, North Korea, October 7, 2024. Pic: Reuters
Asked what message China was sending by hosting Mr Putin, Mr Lei said the Russian president’s attendance at commemorative events “further demonstrates the high level of the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era and declares the unity and solidarity between China and Russia”.
He added: “Facing an international landscape fraught with both change and turmoil, China and Russia, as founding members of the UN and permanent members of the Security Council, will continue to uphold the authority of the United Nations and international fairness and justice.”
It may not be the last of Mr Kim’s major global summits of the year, with Donald Trump having said earlier this week he fancies another meeting with the North Korean.
The pair had an unprecedented meeting during the US president’s first term, and he’s suggested they could reunite later this year.
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