April 17, 2024 (EIRNS)—Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed an April 16 meeting of the United Russia Party in Moscow, where he took up the strategically decisive initiatives being taken by the BRICS in 2024, during Russia’s presidency of that grouping.
“We are interested in enhancing the role of the BRICS states in the currency, financial and trade systems, developing interbank cooperation, expanding the use of their national currencies in mutual trade and pooling efforts in creating a rating agency and the association’s exchange,” Lavrov stated. He emphasized that not everyone is happy with these BRICS initiatives: “This work is becoming an increasing concern for the U.S. and its allies. They understand that in case of success—and we will achieve success—it will call into doubt the mechanisms of globalization of which the West is in charge now.… The West has started to shamelessly abuse these mechanisms, using them for suppressing competitors and punishing those who do not accept its neocolonial policy.”
Lavrov’s emphasis on the BRICS as a replacement for the collapsing Western financial system served to underscore the spot-on analysis presented the same day by the Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin on his Telegram channel. Volodin argued that the blowout of the U.S. debt bubble was the immediate cause of all of the West’s wars of aggression around the world. “To maintain its hegemony, they started a war in Ukraine and sacrificed the economy of the European Union. But that is not enough. Today they are again provoking military escalation, now in the Middle East. Washington will continue to create more and more military conflicts, trying to delay the default.”
Lavrov reported that Russia’s 2024 chairmanship of the BRICS would focus on three main areas: “politics and security, the economy and finance, and cultural and humanitarian contacts. In light of the accession of five new members to our association on January 1, the key priority now is to ensure the new members’ harmonious integration into the strategic partnership architecture and to preserve the effective operation of all existing BRICS mechanisms.” BRICS will also deepen dialogue with “friendly countries in the BRICS Plus/BRICS Outreach format” and with the EAEU, CIS, CSTO and the SCO.
