Vladimir Putin heralded the start of a new “world order” at the BRICS summit, as he escalated his confrontation with the West.
The Russian president hosted a three-day summit with leaders from 36 countries in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan.
Russia has long resented US and Western hegemony in global affairs.
One of Putin’s main foreign policy goals is to weaken the West’s political, military and economic influence by creating what he calls a “multipolar world.”
At the BRICS summit on Wednesday, Putin reiterated his determination to weaken the West.
“The process of establishing a multipolar world order is underway, a dynamic and irreversible process,” Putin said.
Russia has tried to portray its war in Ukraine as part of a process of reshaping international relations and “global dynamics.”
They viewed the war as a broader ideological and existential conflict with the West.
Aleksander Dugin, a Russian ultranationalist philosopher, characterized Putin’s invasion as a holy war against “absolute Evil, embodied in Western civilization and its liberal-totalitarian hegemony”.
BRICS is an informal group of developing countries hoping to increase their influence in the global order.
Founded in 2009, this organization was established on the premise that international institutions were too dominated by Western countries and no longer served developing countries.
The bloc seeks to coordinate its members’ economic and diplomatic policies, establish new financial institutions, and reduce dependence on the US dollar.
The founding members are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – that’s the acronym.
Currently consisting of 10 countries, BRICS hopes to welcome another 12 members soon.
Ukraine claims that Moscow failed to gain support for its invasion of Ukraine at the summit, after Putin faced direct calls to end the conflict from some of his closest and most important partners.
“The BRICS summit, which Russia plans to use to divide the world, once again shows that the majority of the world remains on Ukraine’s side in its efforts to guarantee a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry claimed.
