These include meetings of their think-tanks, academics, experts, corporates, journalists, followed by advisors, several officials and senior ministers including their foreign ministers. Third, BRICS has always stood as a unique forum that holds dozens of pentagonal meetings that precede their annual summits. National leaders of some of these countries are expected to join the summit and several others will join the BRICS usual leaders' outreach summit. Last month, BRICS foreign ministers were joined by representatives from Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Senegal and Thailand. Last year, BRICS added Bangladesh, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Uruguay to its New Development Bank. This could also mean an expanded BRICS overtaking G7 earlier than imagined.īRICS has been shy of adding new members and South Africa was the last to be added in 2010. The Ukraine crisis has seen fissures emerge in the G20 and adding new members to BRICS could make it an alternative minus US and its allies. Second, the most novel proposition of this summit - BRICS expansion - also makes the presence of Putin and several new invitees open to various interpretations. This has been facilitated by the BRICS' shared policy stance on Ukraine: refusing to denounce Russia, urging both sides for immediate cessation of hos-tilities and for initiating direct talk to resolve this crisis.
But while the Ukraine crisis has seen US allies reduce their Russian imports, China and India have increased theirs. What adds to US discomfiture is that most of its own allies have also been and continued to be major importers of Russian energy. The reality is that China stands out as the largest importer of Russian energy and India as the largest importer of Russian defense equipment. This is because they have been extremely uncomfortable with all BRICS members resisting the US-led campaign to denounce Russian actions and slap unbearable sanctions against Russia. The summit likely would be read in the West as the BRICS countries' enhanced support and endorsement of Putin's policies. The coming BRICS Summit - to be hosted online by China on June 23 - is already drawing attention for becoming the first multilateral forum of this year where Russian President Vladimir Putin will be seen interacting directly with national leaders from China, India, Brazil, South Africa and several other invited nations.
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