BRICS SUMMIT ANALYSIS
Putin fails to win support for his Ukraine war narrative from fellow bloc leaders
In his address to the BRICS summit, President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine and the West for his country’s invasion of Ukraine. It didn’t appear to gain traction with other leaders from the bloc.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have failed in his attempt at the BRICS summit in Sandton to drum up support from fellow leaders of the bloc for his war effort in Ukraine.
Putin, addressing the summit by video from Moscow, presented a narrative of his invasion of Ukraine as effectively an act of self-defence against Ukraine and the West for mounting a coup in Ukraine in 2014 against the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and then attacking pro-Russian elements in Ukraine’s Donbas region.
But the other four BRICS leaders who were physically present at the summit – President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Lula da Silva and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not publicly support his justification in their responses.
From left: President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of China Xi Jinping and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during the 2023 BRICS Summit at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg on 23 August 2023. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Gianluigi Guercia / Pool)
Putin blamed the Ukraine war, by implication, on the West. He said “some countries” – a clear reference to the US and other countries of the West – were promoting their own hegemony in pursuit of a policy of ongoing colonialism and neo-colonialism.
Read more in Daily Maverick: Putin, via video link, uses BRICS gathering to justify Russia’s war in Ukraine
He said their aspirations for hegemony in the world had led to the dire crisis in Ukraine. They had supported an unconstitutional coup in Ukraine and after that, they launched a war of attrition which had lasted eight years against those who did not support the coup. And so Russia had decided to support those people who were fighting for their culture, their possessions, their language and their future.
“Our actions in Ukraine were guided by only one thing: to put an end to the war which was unleashed by the West against the people of Donbas.”
Read more in Daily Maverick: Putin’s failure of historic proportions to rewrite history
In his direct response to Putin, Ramaphosa merely said, “We agree that the war can only be resolved by negotiations which you have always said you support.”
In his speech to the summit, President Lula simply said: “We cannot avoid dealing with the main current conflict taking place in Ukraine with global effects.”
He emphasised that “Brazil’s historic stance is to defend sovereignty, territorial integrity and all the United Nations’ purposes and principles” – principles which Russia has clearly violated by invading Ukraine, though Lula did not spell that out.
However, Lula put the conflict in the context of a world order that had shifted in a few years from “a scenario of benign multipolarity towards one that resumes the obsolete mentality of the Cold War and geopolitical competition”.
Prime Minister Modi did not refer to the war in Ukraine at all in his address.
President Xi also did not refer to it directly, though he said BRICS should cooperate to maintain the momentum of development towards meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals in a period of global turbulence.
The more precise position of the other BRICS leaders on the war in Ukraine might only emerge when they issue their summit declaration on Thursday. They were scheduled to conclude their summit and issue the declaration on Wednesday, but officials announced that they would not be able to do so as they still had to settle some outstanding issues.
Building BRICS
The consensus of most analysts was that one of the main sticking points was about expanding membership of BRICS, which more than 20 other countries have formally applied to join.
International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor said the BRICS leaders had “agreed on the matter of expansion and we have a document we have adopted which sets out guidelines and principles, processes for considering countries that want to be members”.
Read more in Daily Maverick: BRICS leaders appear to back economic bloc’s expansion, but the devil may be in the details
However, analysts said they believed the five leaders had not agreed on which countries should be admitted now. One senior official told Daily Maverick that he expected that the BRICS leaders would announce on Thursday a list of five or six countries that would be invited to join. This was likely to include Egypt, which is already a member of the BRICS New Development Bank.
Sithembile Mbete, senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Pretoria, said she believed that the delay in reaching an agreement could have been caused by disagreements on a number of issues, including expanding BRICS membership, plans to move towards doing more trade and financial transaction in local currencies rather than the US dollar – and perhaps eventually to create a common BRICS currency to diminish the power of the US dollar; and also expanding BRICS cooperation in global political relations.
“Which is a shift because to date BRICS has been mainly concerned with economic issues,” she said.
Mbete was struck by the fact that several of the BRICS leaders had on Wednesday explicitly stated the view that BRICS should get more involved in the political, security and strategic realms. Xi had gone furthest by proposing intelligence cooperation among the five member states.
Mbete noted that all the BRICS countries had publicly agreed on the principle of expanding membership and their ministers and officials had already agreed on some aspects of it, but they appeared to have left some more sensitive issues to their leaders to resolve.
She said that there appeared to be some outstanding political questions about expanding membership that only the leaders themselves could resolve.
“Because it’s not just a question of who you invite. It also goes to the heart of the identity of BRICS and do you formalise this?”
This could include the question of whether to create a BRICS secretariat and a headquarters to manage the growing membership.
She said that among the concerns that most BRICS leaders had articulated at the summit was to how avoid ideological competition with the West. This might have also created issues about who to admit as new members. DM
Helmets on chaps! Russian cyber attack is surely inbound.
LOL. This comment elicited a loud chuckle!
The tragedy is when these captured children have been trained by Russain army they are
in my view, going to be used as “cannon fodder” and put on the front line, only to be shot by soldiers of their own country.
What happened to the narrative of ‘removing the Nazis’ ? Did the Russians not find them, hence a change in justification ?
Yes the “Nazis” led by Jewish president Zelenskyy – go figure !
What benefit has BRICS actually brought to SA and the other members? The goal of weakening the dollar’s hold on world trade is a pipe dream. Surely a good start would be the creation of preferential trade between the countries? i.e. reduce import tariffs etc. but this has never been mentioned.
There are actually a lot of trade deals being signed currently. Yesterday there was a deal allowing the export of SA Avocados to China which the SA farmers were celebrating big time. That’s a big win which will allow the significant expansion of our avocado plantations and thus more jobs.
BRICS will soon represent 40% of global GDP. It’s the most impactful forum we are currently a member of. In WTO/UN we are just one country out of 200. In BRICS we are at the table with four other massive economies. This shouldn’t be pooh poohed.
Interesting insight – thanks
It will be pooh phooed when reality strikes home – with our resources captured, our politicians corrupted ( further) and the disenfranchised sold down the river!
If we really wanted to create jobs we need to encourage reliable investment into this country which can only happen if we rid our economy of BEE legislation! Exports will give us short term gains but only investment and infrastructure spend will supply regular sustainable jobs.
Massive economies? Surely you jest! India is probably the only economy that is remotely stable out of the lot, the others are in the toilet and collapsing
China has been stealing from and intimidating its geographical neighbours for many years now, even blatantly ignoring UN resolutions about respecting marine borders. Africa should know better about greedy empires. I guess they didn’t see this as a worry?
Why do you use the first name of the Brazilian president while you refer to the other leaders by their surname?
Full name, as in the picture’s caption, is President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, so it looks like “Lula da Silva” is indeed a surname.
It is 👍
Strange we’re now doing business with CRRC again – the Zondo-Commission established that the GOVERNMENTAL CRRC had entered into an evil kick-back agreement with “Regiments Asia” and “Tequesta”, i.e. the Chinese govt. knowingly funded the Guptas. I wonder if Mr. Ramaphosa asked Xi for a refund – when they met…
What a waste of time and especially money. Ramaphosa is posturing. It is a case of Nero fiddles while Rome burns. The BRICS summit will deliver nothing as most countries who are involved are in dire economic straits so cannot aid others anyway. China is the only one who can get involved but that will be at a high price
BRICS will soon represent 40% of global GDP. India’s economy is growing rapidly. Lots of beneficial trade deals are being signed. The Chinese avocado deal will be a game changer for our farmers. A bizarre twist of fate has resulted in SA sitting at the table with 2 huge economies and another 2 gigantic economies. We would be mad not to exploit this opportunity.
Does Africa not realise that China’s “Cuddling up” and offers of financial aid will come at a price, maybe years down the line.
Unbeknown to Africa’s leaders, China is nothing more than another power bent on a new form of colonisation in Africa.
“Beware the Greeks when they bring gifts!:
The quote “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts” means to be suspicious of enemies who act friendly or offer gifts. It comes from the story of the Trojan Horse, a wooden horse that the Greeks used to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The quote is from the Aeneid, an epic poem by the Roman poet Virgil.
Just in case the Greeks decide to sue me!
Who was the Trojan Horse given to?
What is the Aeneid about?
Are there any other famous quotes from Virgil’s works?
Let’s chat
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Well said! I like your appropriate literary references.
Right now as a South African I feel like a helpless child living in an abusive family, where drunk parents are making some big decisions with disastrous future consequences.
It’s bad enough that South Africa is going to be rubbing shoulders with scummy international thugs such as Iran but to have Ramapausa ( misspelling intended ) support Putin’s view of the war with Ukraine would be intolerable.
Interesting finger position of Ramapausa in the pic above
All very well for his address to fall flat but you don’t see any of the other Heads of State calling him out do you? – all of them are a bunch of embarrassing cowards! Soon to be joined by another bunch of embarrassing cowards – Saudi Arabia? Iran? Really???