Is Putin's anti-Western alliance winning?

Vladimir Putin will host the summit of the so-called Brics+ alliance in Russia, the first meeting of the group since it expanded earlier this year.

Named after the five emerging economies who founded the alliance – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – the Brics+ group now includes Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia is in the process of formalising its membership and, according to the Russian president, another 34 countries have expressed interest in joining "in one form or another".

Dozens of world leaders will attend the three-day summit, starting today in the southwestern Russian city of Kazan: the biggest such event in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. It showcases an expanding alliance that the Kremlin hopes will challenge the US-led "hegemony".

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What did the commentators say?

The gathering is "meant to send an unmistakable signal", said Stewart Patrick from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Despite the West's best efforts to isolate it, Russia has many friends around the world."

The summit defies predictions that the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions would turn Putin into a pariah, said Time. It's also a far cry from last year's Brics summit in South Africa, which Putin had to attend via video link so the host nation would not be forced to comply with the international arrest warrant against him. The summit "underscores the readiness" of many foreign leaders, particularly from the Global South, to "continue meeting him in defiance of the US and its allies". And that's because Brics' "clout is growing".

Together, the 10 countries account for 36% of global GDP, compared with the G7's 30%, said Foreign Affairs. They also represent 45% of the world's population, compared with the G7's less than 10%. Putin can claim to be a "pivotal member of a dynamic group that will shape the future".

The narrative is not just that Russia is "at home with the global majority", but that the West is now "the global minority", Alexander Gabuev, from the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank, told The Washington Post.

But the growing allure of Brics is more about "the power of China's economy", and growing disillusionment with Western failures and hypocrisy (intensified by US support for Israel), than it is "an endorsement of Putin or his anti-Western fervour", said the paper.

Brics is also rife with internal divisions. First, China and Russia increasingly position the alliance as an anti-US bloc. Iran's recent admission to the group "risks cementing" this reputation, which sits poorly with founding members India and Brazil, as well as new members the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and could put off prospective members.

The second faultline is over efforts to reduce reliance on the US dollar as a global reserve currency. Putin sees Brics as "a key tool" in his plan to "destroy the power of the American dollar". That's a goal "largely shared by China", which is attempting to promote the yuan as an alternative reserve currency, but not by others: crucially, India. A de-dollarisation agenda would imperil India's relationship with the US, its most important economic partner.

What next?

Officials already see the summit as a "massive success", said The Associated Press (AP). There are the "optics of standing shoulder-to-shoulder" with world leaders, and the opportunities to negotiate deals to "shore up Russia's economy and its war effort", with troops advancing in Ukraine.

Putin will be able to talk to the most important Brics members, China and India, about "expanding trade and bypassing Western sanctions". The summit will allow President Xi Jinping and Putin to "flaunt their close relationship". An expected meeting with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi could "see some rebalancing of their ties", despite Russia's growing alliance with China, India's main rival.

Russia is expected to sign a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty with Iran, said AP, bolstering the "increasingly close ties", which have ramped up since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.