Putin's BRICS party proves he's not a pariah
While BRICS is far from a coherent bloc, it's a reminder that Putin is not "isolated" as most Western leaders claim. He’s just isolated from them.
For a man in isolation, Vladimir Putin sure has a lot of company. "Putin the Pariah’" threw a BRICS party and 32 heads of state and government showed up. The UN Secretary General António Guterres somehow forgot he’d accused Vlad of "unleashing a nexus of horror" on Ukraine and, perhaps not wanting to miss out on a free BRICS tote bag and pen, went along to the conference in the Russian city of Kazan.
He joined the leaders of Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and many others at Russia’s biggest gathering of international politicians since the invasion of Ukraine. The debate about the morality of Guterres’s presence is fierce. The Estonian Foreign Minister said the UN chief had handed “a clear propaganda victory to Putin's regime.” It is unlikely Gutteres has repeated his view that the butchers of Bucha must be held “accountable”. Nevertheless, his attendance is another example of how Putin is not "isolated" as most Western leaders claim – he’s just isolated from them. It also shows that BRICS is a forum demanding attention.
The dozens of countries attending the 16th BRICS conference are not necessarily pro-Russian, many are simply interested in a grouping of nine countries which account for about 25 per cent of the world economy and 45 per cent of the world’s population. The original members of BRICS were Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. They have now been joined by Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE, while others, such as Nicaragua, Thailand, Cuba, Bolivia, Belarus, and even NATO-member Turkey are interested in membership.
So, who’s afraid of the Big Bad BRICS? No-one. Who’s watching carefully in case it becomes, as Russia hopes, a political and economic powerhouse opposed to the West? Everyone, especially the G7 countries.