London and Washington may think that they scored a victory by creating security threats that have prevented Russian President Vladimir Putin from participating in person in the Aug. 22-24 BRICS summit in South Africa, but Russia’s policy related to the BRICS has not been diminished nor derailed. Russian spokesmen stated over the last 48 hours that the issue of non-dollar trade settlement mechanisms will be on the agenda for the upcoming summit, and that they expect the 2024 BRICS summit – hosted by Russia in Kazan – to see the number of participants grow beyond the current five members.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters today: “Next year the Russian Federation will chair BRICS, the summit will be held in Kazan. Let’s see what the coming months will bring in terms of defining the parameters of BRICS expansion and how many heads of state will come to Kazan, it’s an open question. I think it will be more than the current five,” he said.
Ryabkov also emphasized that Putin’s participation in the Johannesburg summit in video format “does not signal a decrease in attention” to BRICS. “On the contrary, it is a reflection that our leadership is fully focused on the format.”
