Shadow of Ukraine war hangs over Putin’s BRICS summit in Russia

KAZAN — Russia wants the BRICS summit to showcase the rising clout of the non-Western world, but Moscow’s partners from China, India, Brazil and the Arab world are urging President Vladimir Putin to find a way to end the war in Ukraine.

The BRICS group now accounts for 45% of the world’s population and 35% of its economy, based on purchasing power parity, though China accounts for over half of its economic might.

Putin, who is cast by the West as a war criminal, told reporters from BRICS nations that “BRICS does not put itself into opposition to anyone”, and that the shift in the drivers of global growth was simply a fact.

“This is an association of states that work together based on common values, a common vision of development and, most importantly, the principle of taking into account each other’s interests,” he said The BRICS summit takes place as global finance chiefs gather in Washington amid war in the Middle East as well as Ukraine, a flagging Chinese economy and worries that the U.S. presidential election could ignite new trade battles.

Putin, who ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, was peppered with questions by BRICS reporters about the prospects for a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Putin’s answer was, in short, that Moscow would not trade away the four regions of eastern Ukraine that it says are now part of Russia, even though parts of them remain outside its control, and that it wanted its long-term security interests taken into account in Europe.

Two Russian sources said that, while there was increasing talk in Moscow of a possible ceasefire agreement, there was nothing concrete yet – and that the world was awaiting the result of the Nov. 5 presidential election in the United States.

Russia, which is advancing, controls about one fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea which it seized and unilaterally annexed in 2014, about 80% of the Donbas — a coal-and-steel zone comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions — and over 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

Putin said the West had now realised that Russia would be victorious, but that he was open to talks based on draft ceasefire agreements reached in Istanbul in April 2022.

On the eve of the BRICS summit, Putin met with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for informal talks that went on until midnight at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow.