How the BRICS summit in Kazan ended Vladimir Putin announced the emergence of a category of countries - partners of the association

The 16th BRICS summit, which Vladimir Putin called "the culmination of Russian representation," has ended in Kazan. The results of the meeting, new partner countries, and Turkey's latest proposal for negotiations with Ukraine are in the RBC article

Who and how participated in the meeting in Kazan

Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted the first day of the summit, October 22, to bilateral meetings with the leaders of the association's countries in the Kazan Kremlin, and on the second day, he chaired the BRICS summit sessions (first in a narrow format, then in a broad format), which ended with the adoption of the 43-page Kazan Declaration. On the final, third day of the summit, meetings were held in the "outreach"/"BRICS Plus" format, which were also attended by the leaders of states interested in cooperation with the association - Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Venezuela, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mauritania, Palestine, the Republic of Congo, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, as well as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. After the summit, Putin gave a final press conference.

In total, delegations from 35 countries and six international organizations took part in the summit. In the run-up to the event, it became known that two leaders whose participation was expected would not come: Brazilian President Lula da Silva was forced to miss the summit due to an injury sustained after falling in the bathtub, and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was unable to attend due to schedule conflicts (the Serbian delegation was headed by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin).

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent two days in Kazan, leaving on October 23 due to a planned visit by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to his country. Right in the middle of BRICS Plus, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also flew out of Russia. The latter was forced to cut his visit short due to the terrorist attack on the Turkish aerospace company TUSAS in Ankara the day before.

How the ranks of BRICS partners have expanded

Over 30 countries have expressed interest in cooperation with BRICS in one form or another, but the current members of the organization, as expected, decided to hold off on further expansion. Instead, some applicants were offered the status of partner countries, the modalities of which were fixed during the meeting on October 23. As the Sherpa of India, Deputy Minister of External Affairs for Economic Cooperation Dammu Ravi, said in the evening of the same day, in the run-up to the meeting, each of the BRICS member countries submitted its list of preferred candidates, and on this basis a single list was then agreed upon.

"Some countries that participated in these events - today's and yesterday's - have conveyed to us their wishes and requests for full-scale participation in the work of the BRICS association. The situation will develop as follows: we will send an invitation and proposal to future partner countries to participate in our work in this capacity and, upon receiving a positive response, we will announce who is on this list," Putin said at the final press conference. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko announced that one of the BRICS partner countries had become one of its partners. According to him, the same status was granted to a total of 12-13 countries.

On January 1, 2024, Saudi Arabia was supposed to join the group along with Egypt, Iran, the UAE and Ethiopia, but over the following months, the kingdom's representatives failed to confirm its official membership in BRICS. Ahead of the event, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Saudi Arabia's status would become clearer during the summit in Kazan.

Even before the event, it became known that the kingdom would be represented by Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud. However, he arrived in the capital of Tatarstan only on the evening of October 23 and was absent from the narrow and broad sessions of the BRICS summit. Al Saud only appeared at the meeting in the “outreach”/“BRICS Plus” format, but did not give a speech. During the press conference, Putin did not clearly state the status of Saudi Arabia, but noted his close ties with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.

Putin also said that BRICS is now an organization, not just an association or a club of interests, according to him, "this is an obvious fact." "We now need to structure the work of this organization, and, of course, my colleagues and I will think about this and are working on it," he added. "But at the same time, we would not like to overly bureaucratize the work of this organization, so that we have officials there who will drive luxury cars and have some endless staff, big salaries, and then it will be unclear at all who does what there."

What BRICS leaders said about the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine

As in the declarations of the two previous summits, the Kazan document devotes only one paragraph to the situation in Ukraine; it states that the parties reminded each other of their national positions on the “situation in and around Ukraine.” “We emphasize that all states should act in accordance with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter in their entirety and interrelatedness. We note with satisfaction the relevant offers of mediation and good offices aimed at ensuring a peaceful settlement of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy,” the document says.

However, during the summit itself, both at meetings of the participating countries and at the outreach/BRICS Plus meeting, the issue was raised several times. Xi Jinping twice recalled the “Group of Friends of Peace” created by China and Brazil, which also included other countries of the Global South. “It is important to facilitate a rapid de-escalation of the situation based on the principles of preventing the spillover of conflicts, their spread to third countries, and the escalation of hostilities and refraining from adding fuel to the fire,” he said (according to a simultaneous translation). The Brazilian president, who took part in the meeting via video link, spoke of preventing further escalation and the need to begin peace talks. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, in turn, expressed support for the peace plan proposed by China and Brazil.

The UN Secretary-General, who attended the meeting, called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine based on the UN Charter, international law and General Assembly resolutions. Modi did not address the conflict in Ukraine in his speech, but it was a major topic during his bilateral meeting with Putin on October 22. As India’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Vikram Misri said after the talks, New Delhi is “exploring the possibility of finding a peaceful way to end the conflict and also, perhaps, also looking at alternative approaches that may not be on the table at the moment.”

At the opening of the BRICS Plus meeting, Putin said that Ukraine is being used "to create critical threats to Russia's security." At a press conference, he spoke more fully on this matter, noting that he is ready to consider any options for peace agreements, "based on the realities that are developing on the ground, and is not ready for anything else." He also said that recently an aide to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "called straight from New York" with a proposal for new negotiations with Ukraine. "I agreed. I said: "Okay, we agree." The next day, the head of the Kyiv regime suddenly announced that he was not going to negotiate with us. We told the Turks: "Guys, thank you, of course, for your participation, but first sort things out with your clients, then let them say directly whether they want it or not," he said. According to Putin, even his Turkish interlocutors called Ukraine a "difficult partner."

Ukraine's reluctance to launch the negotiation process, the Russian leader believes, is due to the fact that such a step would entail the lifting of martial law and the need to hold elections, while the attack on the Kursk region is an attempt to demonstrate to the current US administration and Democratic Party voters that their investments in Ukraine are "not in vain."

What else was agreed in Kazan

Another important topic of the summit was the ongoing fighting in the Gaza Strip and the spread of the conflict to Lebanon. According to Putin, the current situation in the Middle East resembles a “chain reaction” and puts the entire region on the brink of all-out war. The Russian leader said that the only way to break the “vicious circle of violence” is to create a full-fledged Palestinian state. Other participants in the association also called for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East and for Palestine to be admitted to the UN as a full member (all BRICS members also voted “for” the corresponding UN General Assembly resolution of May 10, 2024).

The text of the final declaration and the meetings also raised other topics that are already familiar to the association: the need to reform the UN, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO); the unacceptability of unilateral sanctions; the importance of implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), combating climate change and countering terrorism. The association's leaders also called for a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan and ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which has been hampered by the increasing attacks by the Houthis, and expressed concern about the escalation in Sudan and the unrest in Haiti.

The Kazan Declaration notes that the association's participants agreed to study the possibility of creating an independent cross-border settlement and depository infrastructure, BRICS Clear. The document also includes a proposal to create "an independent BRICS reinsurance potential, including the BRICS (Re) Insurance company, with participation on a voluntary basis."