BRICS building more democratic multipolar world order – Putin: BRICS Summit as it happened
The leaders of Russia, India, China, South Africa, the UAE, and Egypt, as well as the UN secretary-general, gathered in the Russian city of Kazan for the 16th annual BRICS Summit. The event, which has also welcomed a host of potential BRICS partner countries, has been widely seen as a snub to the West and a signal that Russia has not been isolated by Ukraine-related sanctions.
The current BRICS member countries are Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia has yet to ratify its membership invitation.
The second day of the summit included bilateral meetings between leaders of BRICS member states and panel sessions where key global issues were discussed. BRICS also published a joint declaration which addressed multiple global challenges and outlined the group’s vision for global governance, economic development, and international cooperation.
On Thursday, BRICS members talked more about the group’s expansion plans and finalized the establishment of a new ‘partner state’ status, as around 34 countries have expressed interest in formally joining the group or deepening cooperation with it.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has held several high-level meetings with BRICS leaders, including talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Other BRICS members also held bilateral meetings.
24 October 2024
20:26 GMTThis life feed has ended.
- 20:11 GMT
Politics is keeping Berlin from using the remaining branch of the Nord Stream network that once delivered Russian natural gas to Germany, according to Vladimir Putin. “There is still one line along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, Nord Stream 2. So, what does it cost the German authorities? They just press a button and the process starts,” the Russian president said at a press conference following the 16th BRICS Summit.
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, built under the Baltic Sea to transport Russian natural gas directly to the EU nation, were disabled by powerful underwater explosions in September 2022.
The West’s ongoing investigation into the Nord Stream attack is unlikely to identify its true masterminds and perpetrators, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, said this month. The US and the UK were directly involved in the 2022 attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, he alleged. Naryshkin also suggested that the attack was aimed at dividing Europe.
In a February 2023 article, Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that the attack had been commissioned directly by US President Joe Biden, with US military divers planting explosives on the pipelines using a NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea as cover. While Washington strongly denied the accusations, Moscow described this theory as plausible.
- 19:28 GMT
Russia’s position on Venezuela’s admission to BRICS does not match that of Brazil, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday at a press conference following the BRICS Summit.
The Russian leader was answering a question from a TV Globo journalist. He said that he “speaks about this openly,” adding that he had a phone talk with the President of Brazil, with whom he has “very good friendly relations.”
Admission to the BRICS group is only possible through consensus, Putin said. “We have a rule that requires the consent of all member states to accept any candidate. Without this, it is impossible to take such a step,” he pointed out.
“Venezuela is fighting for its independence, for its sovereignty,” Putin said, adding that Moscow anticipates that Brasilia and Caracas will sort out their relations in future talks.
- 18:15 GMT
The Palestinian people appreciate Russia’s position on the issue of their statehood, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said.
“We are pleased with the strong positions that the Russian Federation takes in support of the Palestinian issue and in support of the sovereign right of the Palestinian people to achieve all their goals and create our state,” Abbas said on Thursday during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of the BRICS Summit.
Abbas agreed with Putin’s proposal to conduct a dialogue on the Middle East, noting that “the most important thing is that this takes place within an internationally legitimate framework.”
- 17:40 GMT
Vladimir Putin on Thursday held talks with the President of Laos, Thongloun Sisoulith, inviting him to take part in the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. On the subject of Russian-Laotian cooperation, Putin called it “mutually beneficial and has reached the level of a strategic partnership.”
According to the Russian leader, trade turnover between the two countries is still modest, but there are very good trends for its development.
In turn, Sisoulith congratulated Putin on the successful BRICS Summit, saying “I think that after this event, Russia’s role will grow.”
- 17:21 GMT
BRICS countries will develop interbank communication and the create conditions for settlements in national currencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said, noting it is important to make “timely decisions at the administrative level.”
“As for SWIFT … we have not created and are not creating any alternatives for anything, but nevertheless the issue is very important today…” Putin said on Thursday.
Russia has ramped up efforts to move away from the SWIFT system since many of the country’s financial institutions were cut off from the Western financial network in 2022.
Moscow has accelerated trade with international partners using their national currencies. The trend has been increasingly supported by BRICS members, which have increasingly shifted away from using the dollar and euro for trade settlements.
- 17:19 GMT
The Russian president has said that the security of the country remains an absolute priority for him, and that any attempts to threaten the nation are counterproductive. “You can threaten anyone, but there is no point in threatening Russia, because it only emboldens us,” Vladimir Putin told a press conference on Thursday following the conclusion of the BRICS Summit in Kazan.
Putin also denied claims by former US president and Republican nominee Donald Trump that he had threatened a strike against Moscow, dismissing the comment as election campaign talk. At the same time, Putin commended Trump’s repeated promises to bring the conflict between Russia and Ukraine to an end. Moscow welcomes any peace initiatives regardless of who presents them, he said, reiterating the country’s readiness to take part in peace talks.
- 16:10 GMT
The BRICS group has agreed on a list of partner countries, according to the Russian president. “We have decided that at the first stage, with a view to possible expansion, we will go along the path of agreeing on a list of partner countries… Some countries that participated in today’s and yesterday’s events have submitted their proposals and requests for full-scale participation in the work of the BRICS group,” Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.
Over 30 nations have expressed interest in formally joining the BRICS group or deepening cooperation with it. Earlier on Thursday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that around 12 or 13 countries, including Belarus, have become BRICS partners. - 15:57 GMT
BRICS countries have expressed their commitment to building a more democratic and multipolar world order, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a press conference on Thursday. According to Putin, the center of business activity is gradually shifting towards developing markets and “The trend for the BRICS’ leading role in the global economy will only strengthen.”
- 15:29 GMT
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has revealed the number of countries to be granted BRICS partner status. “12 or 13 countries, including Belarus, have become partners,” he said in an interview with Izvestia on Thursday on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in the Russian city of Kazan, as quoted by Belta news agency.
Lukashenko also said he was somewhat surprised that although about 30 countries expressed their desire to join BRICS, just a dozen countries became partners.
In June, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that BRICS had voted to temporarily suspend new membership applications and focus on integrating the countries that joined in 2024. Lavrov added that a new category of “partner countries” would be created as a “stepping stone” to full membership.
