BRICS is expanding: A victory for Russia or another PR campaign for the Kremlin and its allies?

The year 2024 started with significant changes in the global geopolitical environment. The decision taken by the BRICS member countries regarding the admission of new members at the summit held in Johannesburg on 24 August 2023 came into force on 1 January. In the year that the Russian Federation chaired this organization, it joined Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Russian President Vladimir Putin did not hide his joy in his speech on this occasion. Dozens of other countries are lining up to join this anti-Western club, he said. But has the new year 2024 really started with such a delicious gift to authoritarian regimes, or is this another “Potemkin deal” on a global scale?

BRICS is seen as an alternative to the G-7. Why statistics aren’t everything

According to World Bank estimates, BRICS countries in 2019 With a population of more than 3 billion (41% of the world’s population), they occupied 29.3% of the world’s surface area, their total economic size was 24% of the world’s GDP, and their share of trade was 16% relative to the world. With the addition of new participants, the share of BRICS economies will now reach approximately 37% of the world’s gross domestic product, and the share of the population will reach almost half (47% of the world’s population).

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From the very beginning of BRICS It was designed as an alternative to the Group of Seven (G-7), which includes the United States, Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy. According to the specified BRICS indicators indeed, it is significantly ahead of the Club of Seven (almost 10% of the world’s population and a third of global GDP) – figures and statistics much loved in the Kremlin and Beijing. But historical practice shows that dry statistical figures do not always adequately reflect the real situation.

BRICS countries in fact almost half of all humanity is concentrated within its borders, but this is perhaps the poorest and least educated half of humanity; The richest inhabitants of the planet live in G-7 countries.

With GDP volumes everything is more complicated. India and China are actually the main engines of the world economy of the 21st century, but for now they continue to operate within the framework of the global economic system, the main element of which is the US dollar. And the status of this geopolitical project will largely depend on whether they succeed in changing the current situation.

Politics rather than economy

Interestingly, the concept of BRICS itself It emerged in the West. It was introduced (albeit as BRIC, without South Africa) by Goldman Sachs financial analyst Jim O’Neill. Then we were talking about the economies of medium-sized states that were developing very dynamically at the beginning of the 21st century. But less than a decade has passed since the idea transformed from abstract economic theory into a fully practical geopolitical reality.

The first BRIC summit (yes) took place in Russia in 2009, and a year later South Africa joined the club (South Africa – the English letter S in the abbreviation), which gave the club a modern look. This was a purely political decision, because South Africa had already lost its economic potential at that time, but it ensured that Africa was represented in the organisation. The political principle has been preserved in the last expansion, because the economies of Indonesia and Nigeria are much stronger than those of Egypt and Ethiopia, but the participation of these states in the organization has so far been rejected.

The struggle for imagined unity and a place in the sun

This is explained by the diversity of BRICS. The only thing that unites all its members is the ambition to improve their status in international relations. They are a kind of planet-wide proletariat that dislikes the current social elites in the G7 role, but conflicts are raging among club members and these conflicts could potentially even escalate into armed conflict.

Therefore, there are territorial disputes between India and China, the largest economies of BRICS, and even conflicts between the border guards of these states in recent years.

Brazil, India and South Africa are market democracies; The PRC and the Russian Federation, on the other hand, are dominated by authoritarian regimes that tend to turn into totalitarian regimes.

Each member of this motley association is afraid of excessive strengthening of the other, which leads to certain slowdowns in expansion and precisely the composition of these new participants – each country balancing the influence of a certain existing member of the BRICS. So if Iran is an openly pro-China creature, then India has good relations with Saudi Arabia.

It is interesting that out of five new participants, two pairs of conflicts stand out. In the autumn of 2022, war almost broke out between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Egypt had a claim on the Ethiopian dam on the Nile River. Therefore, BRICS participants from the very beginning resembled the swan, pike and crayfish in the famous Ukrainian proverb, and they continue to maintain this trend.

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Common feature: authoritarianism

It is worth noting that at the summit in Johannesburg it was decided to accept six provinces, but Argentina changed its mind after the change of president. This weakened Brazil’s position, because Argentina, with its previous president Albert Fernandez, was the work of Lula da Silva.

The only trend that can be traced in this informal proletarian club is the authoritarian vector of development. Four out of every five “conscripts” are authoritarian, even despotic states (with the exception of Ethiopia, which can hardly be called an exemplary democracy). All BRICS states are moving towards increasing authoritarianism (just at different speeds).

It is interesting that when the Russian Federation founded the BRICS, it became part of the G-8, the elite club of the richest and smartest. However, it was excluded due to the annexation of Crimea in 2014. In Moscow, they chose to be “the first man in the countryside rather than the last man in the city,” but after the failure of the war against Ukraine, it is difficult to call the Russian Federation even the second in this union.

What do BRICS offer to the world?

Does BRICS have projects that would not allow this organization to be called a debating club of authoritarian leaders? The most important achievement of the organization was the establishment of the New Development Bank, which had a total capital of 100 billion dollars and even issued loans in the amount of 33 dollars. These were mostly related to various infrastructure projects. It was originally led by a representative of India and is currently led by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who was removed from office as a result of impeachment.

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The area where BRICS formulated its vision most clearly was in the currency area. Members of the organization are trying to deprive the dollar of its status as an international currency. During 2023, ideas emerged to create a common currency on the basis of the New Development Bank for settlements between members of the organization. But the main public proponent of this idea was Alberto Fernandez, currently the former president of Argentina. His successor, Javier Miley, on the contrary, proposes the use of US dollars for payments in Argentina.

For now, BRICS member countries are trying to make bilateral agreements based on national currencies. Therefore, some of the bilateral agreements between the Russian Federation and India are currently carried out in rupees. However, this path is full of various obstacles; for example, the same Indian rupee is difficult to convert into any other currency. Simply put, no one wants to buy it.

In practice, this means that Russia can only buy back goods from India in return for all foreign exchange earnings from trade with India. This is, of course, in the interest of the Indians, but it is unlikely that Moscow would agree to such trade if it had a choice, which it deprived itself of by being subject to various trade restrictions due to aggression against Ukraine.

A solution to this problem can be found by attracting the attention of the largest oil exporters. But how much will this benefit Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates? For them, this is an element of prestige and also certain security guarantees from Iran, which is now part of the same political club as them. True, as mentioned above, membership in BRICS does not guarantee the resolution of conflicts with another member of the organization.

So far, from a rational perspective, the biggest gainer has been Iran. According to him, this is a new phase of emerging from the international isolation that the country has been in for more than four decades. The step is not very big but as we know the biggest journey starts with a small step.

Claims against BRICS countries and the UN

The situation is even more deplorable when it comes to political interaction. Frank Ching, an American journalist from Hong Kong, points out that BRICS states at almost every summit that the UN should be reformed and the Security Council expanded to include Brazil, India and South Africa. But when it comes to practical decisions, they face PRC veto; This veto declared last time that further discussions were needed and that the seat of permanent member of the UN Security Council should be handed over to an African state, not the South, explicitly, instead of India. Africa. In this union, a friendly atmosphere full of mutual support and trust prevails.

What could be Ukraine’s strategy regarding BRICS?

In conclusion, it is worth saying that BRICS is indeed the most organized political movement at the interstate level and advocates revolutionary changes in the world order.

Over the past two years we in Ukraine have seen almost all the shortcomings of the democratic form of government, from populism to bureaucracy to a lack of will to make difficult decisions. But the history of the BRICS shows that authoritarian regimes are also far from ideal. Extreme self-centeredness and suspicion bordering on paranoia do not allow them to come together and act as a united front with a consistent position, even on issues that are truly important to them, such as international agreements.

For Ukraine, the BRICS organization founded by Russia is absolutely hostile, especially after Iran joined. However, do not exaggerate its weight. He is very colorful.

Kiev should focus on bilateral relations with the rest of the organization and try to make their neutral status more positive towards itself. If the situation with Argentina is rather a smile of fate, then the attitude of Saudi Arabia, which undertook to organize meetings aimed at a peaceful solution precisely on Ukraine’s terms, is the result of painstaking diplomatic work. If we could do the same with India or Brazil (or better with both), that would bring us significantly closer to peace.

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