Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at the 7th “Russian Energy Week” forum in Moscow, where the theme is “Energy Cooperation in a Multipolar World.” Putin highlighted the role of the BRICS coalition of nations as the main drivers of growth, as the West finds itself imploding. He explained that now a new multipolar development model is being formed, one “ concentrated not in Europe or North America.” The leading Western economies are continuing to lose “Europe and North America will no longer operate as the main growth drivers. They are gradually losing their weight in the global economy. This growth will shift to BRICS countries and the states that are willing to join our association and view equal cooperation with due respect for national interests as the promising way to proceed.”
RT’s summary of Putin’s remarks said that “BRICS intends to create an effective development platform free of external interference. He [Putin] pointed to the planned creation of an independent payment and settlement system to facilitate foreign trade between group members. ‘Friendly nations’ already account for 90% of Russia’s energy exports.”
TASS quoted Putin as saying: “Russia is extending the geography and scale of energy cooperation as new routes to fast-growing deep markets, including Eurasian Economic Union countries, the CIS, Eurasia’s south, are created, supplies via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline increase, export of liquefied natural gas keeps growing.”
And the expansion has occurred despite the sanctions imposed by the West. Putin contended: “The reason for this is obvious: the West does not want competition because it cannot handle it, because it loses the competition if it plays fair, which is why it resorts to discrimination presenting it as so-called Euro-Atlantic solidarity, the protection of human rights, and the like. There are many other pretexts.”
