Russia
Source: mid.ru

The role of BRICS in the world

Question: Where is BRICS while the US acts as it pleases?
Foreign Ministry: The BRICS countries articulate their positions on international issues clearly and consistently, upholding respect for international law and the principles of the UN Charter as the foundation for global peace and stability. For instance, most members have made their views on the situation in Venezuela clear.
The group traditionally addresses all key global issues. Its consensus is reflected in documents adopted at summits, at meetings of High Representatives for Security, and in statements by BRICS foreign ministers. Coordinated actions on pressing events include the Joint Statement on the Escalation of the Security Situation in the Middle East Following the Military Strikes on Iran (June 2025), an extraordinary summit on the situation in Gaza (November 21, 2023), and a summit on trade and financial cooperation in light of the current situation in the global economy (September 8, 2025). On a wide range of issues, the BRICS countries present a united front across multilateral forums, including the UN and G20.
While fundamentally advocating for a more just and equitable international order, BRICS does not cast itself as a “global judge.” Over the years, it has evolved from a small, limited forum into a self-sufficient platform that plays an increasingly significant role in shaping common approaches among developing nations.
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Cooperation between BRICS media

Question: How is Russia’s current position on international cooperation represented in foreign media? What role do you think cooperation between media of BRICS, Global South and East plays in promoting Russia’s agenda in the international media space?
Foreign Ministry: When answering this question, it is important first to differentiate among the countries we are talking about. If we look at the collective West, or countries whose governments pursue openly unfriendly policies towards Russia, then Russia’s position, whether on international issues or on bilateral cooperation, is either deliberately distorted or simply censored. Mainstream Western media often turn Russia’s views “upside down,” or refuse altogether to provide space or airtime to Russian diplomats and experts. At the same time, the authorities of these countries actively restrict the work of Russian media within their own information environments, thereby depriving their citizens of alternative – and, more correctly, objective and factual – perspectives on global developments.
As for media cooperation within BRICS and with the countries of the Global South and East, it plays an increasingly significant role. It is an important tool for shaping a genuinely multipolar global information space and for promoting an objective, fact-based picture of the world. Such cooperation helps overcome the long-standing monopoly of Western media and counter the distorted narratives they impose.
This work is being carried out in a systematic and consistent manner. During Russia’s BRICS presidency in 2024, a large BRICS Media Summit took place in Moscow, bringing together representatives of more than 60 media outlets from 45 countries. In 2025, during Brazil’s chairmanship, the annual BRICS Media Forum in Rio de Janeiro gathered over 250 media professionals from 36 countries.
It is noteworthy that within the BRICS framework, Russia is not only listened to, but genuinely heard. Many of our assessments of the international situation resonate with, or are fully shared by, our partners. The commitment to joint work in the media sphere, aimed at ensuring the integrity of information, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression, is reflected in the final declarations of the Kazan 2024 summit (Paragraph 56) and the Rio de Janeiro 2025 summit (Paragraph 104).
However, it is essential not to become complacent. Further strengthening professional media dialogue remains necessary in order to advance a unifying agenda that takes into account the interests of all states. We expect that, from January 1, 2026, when India assumes the BRICS presidency, it will continue to pay due attention to media cooperation, and that the current momentum in this area will be maintained.
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The possibility of establishing a BRICS space station

Question: Is it feasible to establish a new BRICS space station to eventually replace the aging International Space Station? Which countries could realistically initiate and participate in such a project, given the significant engineering, technical, political, and bureaucratic challenges involved?
Foreign Ministry: The Russian Federation plays a key role in the operation of the International Space Station, which remains a unique example of multilateral cooperation in outer space. The experience gained through the ISS programme creates valuable opportunities to test advanced technologies that will be applied in future initiatives, including the construction of a Russian orbital station. This project is open to participation by Russia’s BRICS partners.
Within the BRICS framework, member states consistently support the expansion of cooperation in the space domain. In this regard, there are promising opportunities to develop coordinated positions at relevant international forums, pursue joint research initiatives, and promote the peaceful use of outer space. A notable example of effective cooperation within the group is the 2021 Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of a Satellite Constellation for Earth Remote Sensing.
During its 2024 BRICS presidency, Russia proposed the creation of a Space Council to serve as an overarching framework for promoting joint initiatives in areas such as satellite navigation, disaster management, and space observation. At the 17th BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro on July 5–7, 2025, the BRICS leaders endorsed this proposal in principle and instructed that work continue on defining the Council’s terms of reference. The establishment of the BRICS Space Council is expected to provide a solid foundation for advancing toward more ambitious projects, including manned space missions and the development of orbital stations.

South Africa
Source: iol.co.za

The BRICS Centre for Industrial Competencies (BCIC), which was launched in April 2025 in partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), functions as a one-stop centre that offers integrated services, capacity building, and technical support that is focused on Industry 4.0 competencies, digital manufacturing, and productivity enhancement. It is viewed as both a knowledge hub and a practical resource for private sector actors seeking to modernise processes, adopt advanced technologies, and navigate competitive industrial ecosystems.

India’s formal participation was concluded through a Trust Fund Agreement signed between Department For Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade of India (DPIIT) and UNIDO, creating an institutional framework for cooperation. Under this agreement, the National Productivity Council (NPC), which is an autonomous body under DPIIT, has been designated as India’s nodal centre within the BCIC network. The NPC’s role will be inclusive of coordinating India’s contribution to BRICS industrial initiatives, driving training programmes, and facilitating productivity-enhancing practices that are able to bridge capability gaps in the manufacturing sector.

Why this matters for India and the Global South
The timing and substance of India’s engagement with the BCIC are important for several reasons. Firstly, India’s industrial strategy has long wanted to balance self-reliance with global integration, exemplified by programmes like Make in India, production-linked incentives (PLI), and digitalisation drives aimed at strengthening competitiveness and export capacity. MSMEs are at the center of that vision: they account for a substantial share of GDP, millions of jobs, and a large fraction of manufactured exports. Participation in BCIC will give Indian MSMEs exposure to international best practices and emerging technologies at a scale that is otherwise difficult to achieve through domestic programmes alone.

Secondly, BCIC’s focus on Industry 4.0 including automation, artificial intelligence, data integration, and smart manufacturing, pays attention to a key bottleneck for many MSMEs in the global South, and that is the gap between digital potential and actual technological adoption. By facilitating cross-national knowledge exchange and technical assistance, the BCIC can help firms leapfrog traditional stages of industrial development, reducing costs and increasing resilience in global value chains.

Thirdly , in a world where Western industrial blocs often shape norm-setting institutions, India’s engagement within BCIC under UNIDO’s umbrella reinforces an alternative multilateral architecture rooted in South-South cooperation. BRICS nations , originally Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, now expanded to include several other emerging economies, represent over one-third of global GDP and a significant share of global population. Working through this framework thus allows emerging economies to align around shared priorities such as inclusive growth, sustainable industrialisation, and equitable technology access rather than purely competitive geopolitics.

Beyond cooperation: Challenges and comparative benchmarks
While the BCIC offers promise, its success will really depend on effective implementation at national and firm levels. India’s MSMEs have previously struggled with barriers ranging from limited access to finance and skill shortages to regulatory complexity and slow uptake of digital tools. Although the BCIC sets a collaborative platform, structural constraints like infrastructure gaps and uneven digital readiness have to be addressed in tandem if India’s smaller firms are to fully benefit.

Comparisons with other emerging industrial players are instructive. China’s rapid ascent as a manufacturing powerhouse was encouraged not just by state support, but by coordinated industrial parks, robust infrastructure, and export-oriented clusters. India’s industrial base, on the other hand, has been more dispersed, with policymakers now emphasising targeted ecosystems to replicate export-led growth. In this context, BCIC’s role as a network platform can help India and other BRICS members learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses rather than compete on unequal terms.

Toward a shared industrial future
To conclude, India’s accession to the BRICS Centre for Industrial Competencies is reflective of a broader intent to reshape global industrial cooperation through collective action, where emerging economies pool resources and knowledge to overcome shared developmental hurdles. For the global South, this is more than a strategic alignment , it is a tangible step towards industrial transformation that is inclusive, technology-driven, and equitable. Whether this translates into measurable improvements in productivity, export diversification, and MSME dynamism will mainly depend on how such multilateral commitments are translated into real-world capacity building and national policy coherence.

As the world navigates shifting economic orders, platforms like the BCIC offer a vision of cooperation that amplifies the voice and agency of the global South, positioning industrial development not as a zero-sum game, but as a shared journey toward innovation, resilience, and sustainable growth.

Russia
Source: mid.ru


Question: How far has the redirection of Russian gas and oil deliveries towards Asian markets, including Southeast Asia, India and China, progressed considering the EU’s ban on Russian LNG imports in 2027? Is the Foreign Ministry considering a political risk insurance for these energy routes by means of signing new agreements within the BRICS and SCO framework?
Maria Zakharova: As you can see, the destructive activities of West European, NATO and EU countries have turned global energy markets into a zone of confrontation, harsh rivalry and even aggressive aspirations, which is damaging the established supply chains.
It is obvious that the EU’s key goal is to disrupt the functioning of the Russian economy and inflict a “strategic defeat” on us, rather than ensure its own benefits in the sphere of pricing or the quality of products. Nothing of the kind. It’s a typical example of hurting someone simply because they are evil. We’ve been triggering such emotions in them throughout our history.
We are actively resisting these efforts by diversifying our export routes and strengthening cooperation with Asian countries, which see their future in fruitful cooperation, and which want to develop such relations and know how to do it.
In light of the ban on gas deliveries to the EU, Russia has quickly and effectively redirected its main gas delivery routes towards the new centres of economic growth in the East. Our focus is on boosting cooperation with our closest partners in the EAEU, the CIS, BRICS and the SCO.
Agreements that regulate the parameters of energy supplies and include so-called political risk insurance are usually bilateral documents.
Energy cooperation is an important subject of the multilateral dialogue in the BRICS format with a focus on energy security, including non-discrimination against any type of fuel, taking into account the specific features and development priorities of our countries. This provision is enshrined in the documents adopted by the group’s leaders and in the relevant ministerial statements.
In particular, the final declaration of the 17th BRICS summit (Rio de Janeiro, July 5-7, 2025) emphasised the role of energy security as the foundation of socioeconomic development and national security. It also pointed out the need to strengthen it through the development of stable energy markets and reliable energy supplies from various sources, as well as called for ensuring the stability and protection of critical infrastructure. The Roadmap for BRICS Energy Cooperation 2025-2030, adopted in 2025, provided for expanding hydrocarbon supplies and strengthening the interconnection of energy systems. The BRICS Energy Research Cooperation Platform is functioning effectively.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation created a mechanism of cooperation, known as the SCO Energy Ministers Meeting, in 2021. A lot of work has been accomplished to coordinate the partners’ approach to this issue of extreme importance for international relations with due regard for everything the West has done. All this has been reflected in a number of the SCO’s political and policy documents, including the SCO Energy Cooperation Concept (2021), the SCO Green Belt Programme for the adoption of modern resource-saving and eco-friendly technologies among member states (2021), the Statement of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO Member States on International Energy Security (2022), the Joint Statement on Cooperation between the SCO Member States on New Fuels and Modelling in the Energy Sector (2023), and the Statement of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO Member States on Sustainable Energy Development (2025).
At present, cooperation on the energy track is proceeding in accordance with the SCO Energy Cooperation Development Strategy until 2030 (Astana, July 4, 2024). During the SCO summit in Tianjin, China, in 2025, the member states approved a roadmap for the implementation of that strategy, which outlined the forward-looking spheres of cooperation in the oil and gas sector. It provides, in part, for strengthening the SCO countries’ trade and transit potential, discussing the diversification of export routes, attracting investment for the development of natural gas and LNG markets, promoting cooperation between petrochemical producer and consumer countries, and launching joint projects for the production of hydrocarbon-based products.
If necessary, the SCO platform can be used to discuss and coordinate in-demand projects in the oil and gas sector.
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Russia
Source: mid.ru

Question: Mr Lavrov, on February 10, Russia marks Diplomatic Worker’s Day, a professional holiday for the personnel of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its missions abroad. You probably celebrate this day at work as usual. How do you find this holiday? How important is it personally for you and your colleagues? What do you consider the most important outcomes of the Ministry’s work?
Sergey Lavrov: It is perhaps not for us to judge the results. We have the President to whom we report, as established by the Constitution; he defines our foreign policy, including the approval of the Foreign Policy Concept. The most recent one, adopted in March 2023, reflects the profound changes taking place across the globe. Those are long-term, fundamental transformations that will shape the bulk of our practical work.
It is equally important that we develop action plans tailored for each partner country covering trade and economic cooperation, investment, scientific collaboration, and coordinated activity on the international stage, including at the United Nations and other organisations, based on agreements reached between presidents and prime ministers. Particular attention is devoted to the CIS, the EAEU, the CSTO, and the post-Soviet space at large. This day-to-day work relies on long-term planning and delivers tangible mutual benefits to both Russia and its partners.
The global arena is undergoing a transformation that began some time ago with the objective transition toward a multipolar world order. This is neither the bipolarity of the Soviet-American era with the Warsaw Pact and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, nor the unipolarity that emerged after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Instead, it is multipolarity that is shaping the trajectory of global development. For many years, the United States functioned as the engine of the global economy and the regulator of international finance, using the role of the dollar to reinforce its dominant position. It is now, objectively, losing economic significance and influence within the global system. Meanwhile, countries such as the People’s Republic of China, India, and Brazil are rising. Significant developments are also taking place across Africa, where nations are increasingly seeking to develop domestic industry rather than simply export natural resources – an effort that the Soviet Union once supported.
Multiple centres of rapid economic growth, power, and financial and political influence have thus emerged. The world is being reshaped through competition. The West is reluctant to relinquish its formerly dominant positions. Moreover, with the arrival of the Trump administration, this struggle to constrain competitors has become particularly obvious and explicit. Indeed, the Trump administration openly asserts its ambition to dominate in the energy sector and harness their competitors.
Blatantly unfair methods are being used against us: the operations of Russian oil companies such as Lukoil and Rosneft are being banned, and there are attempts to dictate and restrict Russia’s trade, investment cooperation, and military-technical ties with our major strategic partners, including India as well as other BRICS states.
A struggle is underway to preserve the old world order, one built around the dominance of the dollar and the rules formulated and enforced by the West through the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation. When the new centres of growth, operating under these very rules, began to demonstrate far more substantial economic results and significantly higher growth rates – as is evident across the BRICS countries – the West started seeking ways to block this transition. This cannot succeed, because it is an objective, irreversible process. For several years now, the BRICS countries’ growth rates and GDP volumes have, in terms of purchasing power parity, substantially exceeded the combined GDP of the G7.
These global economic processes – both the objective emergence of new development centres as well as the subjective efforts by established powers, which are losing their influence, to hinder this natural evolution – form the foundation of our work, which involves not solely global analytical forecasting but also practical bilateral cooperation with each individual country. All of these geopolitical confrontations, along with the attempts to derail the objective course of history, inevitably affect bilateral relations. I am not going to mention them all; those include sanctions, the so-called “shadow fleet” invented by the West, attempts to detain vessels by military force in the open sea in blatant violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and much more. Tariffs imposed for purchasing oil or gas from certain suppliers have now become commonplace.
So, what lies at the heart of our work? There is a song that actually serves as the anthem of Russia’s Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergencies, and Disaster Relief, but it is just as applicable to our Ministry – and basically any state institution in our country: “Our concern is simple, our concern is this: that our homeland might live, and there are no other worries.”
However, in today’s circumstances, this particular goal – “that our homeland may live” – is a challenging one; it encompasses the reliable safeguarding of our security, particularly in a situation where certain figures in Europe, masquerading as politicians, are threatening to “unleash a war” against Russia. Safeguarding security likewise demands sustained action to ensure that the Nazi state established on our borders in Ukraine – and supported by the West as a vehicle for renewed confrontation – cannot continue to exist in its present form.
Nazi foundations must be eliminated. We will ensure, and I have no doubt about it, our own security interests, by preventing the deployment on Ukrainian territory of any weapons threatening us, and, second, by guaranteeing reliable and full protection for the rights of Russian and Russian-speaking people, who have been living in Crimea, Donbass and Novorossiya for centuries, and whom the Kiev regime that came to power after a coup declared subhuman “species” and “terrorists” and unleashed a civil war against.
This is a most vital task of ensuring “that our homeland may live,” to say nothing of the economy and social matters, which are under the permanent control of President of Russia Vladimir Putin and which are handled by the Government.
In our case, one of the main tasks of the Ministry and our foreign policy is to create and ensure maximally favourable external conditions for the country’s internal development (in economic, social and industrial terms), and for the growth of the citizens’ well-being.
It is clear that, given the global war unleashed against us and the feverish attempts of the West to “punish” all our partners by demanding that they stop trading with us and cooperating in the military-technical sphere, it is significantly harder to do our job and to provide maximally favourable conditions for internal development than it was, say, 10 or 15 years ago. But this does not make the tasks less relevant.
We are doing everything to cope adequately with the tasks entrusted to us by President Putin. It is for Russians to judge.
I know that Russian citizens are actively interested in the Ministry’s work. We welcome this, but it imposes great additional obligations. Hopefully, as we prepare for and celebrate Diplomatic Worker’s Day on February 10, we will be able to tell you more about our activities, and most importantly, to answer the questions sent to the Ministry from our citizens, which we always try to answer as fully as possible, keeping in touch with our people. It is important for us.
It is important to understand how they feel about the external problems that Russia is facing. It often gives us good guidance. Public opinion polls and the suggestions sent to us provide useful hints for choosing our practical foreign policy steps.
Question: In 2025, the Republic of Indonesia joined BRICS. You have already mentioned India and China. Do I understand it correctly that you are now paying still more attention to international cooperation within BRICS? What development prospects can you see in your work?
Sergey Lavrov: No doubt.
Everything that I have said in answer to the first question means that when the West is losing its hegemony but keeps on clinging to the institutions set up to secure that hegemony, which by default can no longer reflect the real situation and the fair nature of interactions at the international level, the establishment of new entities to facilitate international economic, investment, trade, and transport links is inevitable.
We are not advocating for the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO to cease their existence. For many years since the establishment of BRICS, we have been seeking a reform of these institutions so that the member states (and these were and still are the fastest growing world economies and trading powers) receive votes and rights in all those Bretton Woods institutions commensurate with their real weight in the world economy, trade and logistics.
The West is trying to oppose it categorically. President Putin has said on many occasions that we are not the ones refusing to use the dollar. The United States under President Joe Biden did everything to make the dollar a weapon against those who are deemed objectionable.
I would note that, for all the statements from President Donald Trump’s administration to the effect that the war in Ukraine started by President Biden should be ended, that we should come to terms and remove it from the agenda, and that supposedly then we would see bright and clear prospects of Russian-US mutually beneficial investment and other interaction, the administration has not challenged all the laws adopted by Joe Biden to “punish” Russia after the start of the special military operation.
In April 2025, they extended Executive Order 14024, on the emergency regime, the core of which is the “punishment” of Russia and sanctions against our country, including the freezing of Russia’s gold and currency reserves. That document mentions “harmful foreign activities of the Government of the Russian Federation.” Examples include efforts to undermine the conduct of elections in the United States (something that US President Donald Trump speaks against daily, categorically rejecting all this) and the violation of international law and human rights. You can find anything there!
This is all pure “Bidenism,” which President Trump and his team reject. Nevertheless, they have easily pushed through the law and sanctions against Russia, which continue to be in effect. They have imposed sanctions against Lukoil and Rosneft. And they did it in the autumn, a couple of weeks after a good meeting between President Putin and President Trump in Anchorage.
They tell us that the Ukraine problem should be resolved. In Anchorage, we accepted the US proposal. If we regard it “as men,” it means that they proposed it and we agreed, so the problem must be resolved. President Putin has said on many occasions that it is not important for Russia what Ukraine and Europe are going to say; we can clearly see the primitive Russophobia of most regimes in the European Union, with rare exceptions. The US position was important to us. By accepting their proposal, we seem to have completed the task of resolving the Ukrainian issue and moving on to a full-scale, broad-based and mutually beneficial cooperation.
So far, the reality is quite the opposite: new sanctions are imposed, a ‘war’ against tankers in the open sea is being waged in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. They are trying to ban India and our other partners from buying cheap, affordable Russian energy resources (Europe has long been banned) and are forcing them to buy US LNG at exorbitant prices. This means that the Americans have set themselves the task of achieving economic domination.
Furthermore, while they ostensibly made a proposal regarding Ukraine and we were ready to accept it (now they are not), we do not see any bright future in the economic sphere either. The Americans want to take control of all the routes for providing the world’s leading countries and all continents with energy resources. On the European continent, they are eyeing the Nord Streams, which were blown up three years ago, the Ukrainian gas transportation system and the TurkStream.
This illustrates that the US objective – to dominate the world economy – is being realised using a fairly large number of coercive measures that are incompatible with fair competition. Tariffs, sanctions, direct prohibitions, forbidding some from engaging with others – we have to take all of this into account.
While remaining open, just like India, China, Indonesia and Brazil, to cooperation with all countries, including a major power such as the United States, we are in a situation where the Americans themselves are creating artificial obstacles along the way. We are forced to look for additional secure ways to develop our financial, economic, integration, logistics and other projects with the BRICS countries.
Russia chaired this association in 2024. At that time, a summit was held in Kazan, and a number of our initiatives were put into action: alternative payment platforms, payment mechanisms in national currencies, the creation of reinsurance opportunities for trade within BRICS and between the association and its partners, the creation of a grain exchange, and a new investment platform.
All this is not to spite anyone, especially the United States. This is due to the fact that the United States seeks to bring all processes in the areas I mentioned under its strict control and demands unilateral concessions. Without giving up contacts with them, to the extent that they are willing to engage on a mutually beneficial basis, we are interested, together with our BRICS partners, in creating an architecture that will not be subject to the illegal actions of one or another player from the Western flank.
Question: The BRICS principles include equality, openness and mutually beneficial cooperation, which is similar to the principles of the Eurasian Economic Union. It is an integration association. Do you think the Greater Eurasian Partnership project will also facilitate international cooperation as much as the SCO and ASEAN?
Sergey Lavrov: I firmly believe the Greater Eurasian Partnership was bound to appear on the agenda. Many years ago, at the 2015 Russia – ASEAN Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested this term which is based on an objective trend of Eurasia becoming the biggest, richest and fastest-growing continent, especially its Pacific part. It is the most heavily-populated continent which, importantly, has seen several great civilisations emerge and continue to exist – the Chinese, Indian, Arab, Persian and Russian civilisations.
We can hardly find as many historical processes in the history of Africa or Latin America as there were in Eurasia. Africa and Latin America also have a rich and old history, yet it is the Eurasian continent that has such a variety of cultures and civilisations. Eurasia has a number of subregional structures – the EAEU, the CIS, ASEAN as well as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the Gulf Cooperation Council, and many others. There are many subregional organisations in Africa and Latin America, too, but they also have continent-wide umbrella structures such as the African Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
Eurasia does not have a similar common “canopy” for everyone. This is largely due to the fact that since the times of colonialism, Europeans were mainly preoccupied with making their own countries more comfortable whereas other territories, including in Eurasia, were used as colonies, be it India, China or any other territory. They were focused on improving the western part of the continent presuming that they are the masters of its remaining part as well. 
This led to the emergence of concepts that reflect Euro-Atlantic approaches to ensuring security after World War II – NATO and the European Union, which currently has become an appendix of the North Atlantic alliance, and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) which is also based on the Euro-Atlantic logic since North America (the US and Canada) are among its active members. All these organisations are nearing their end – both NATO with its unredeemed promises of not expanding eastward, given to the Soviet Union at the time, and the European Union that has completely destroyed the established infrastructure of cooperation with our country, to say nothing about the OSCE which has totally yielded to the West’s unilateral actions and forgotten the foundational principle of consensus of all its members. 
It is for a reason that our initiative on building a common Eurasian security architecture, set forward by President Putin in 2024, is gaining momentum. It is increasingly attracting interest. Essentially, this idea of providing security for all nations on the continent rests on the material foundation, a basis which is the Greater Eurasian Partnership. The stronger the ties between regional and subregional organisations, the sturdier the foundation for building a common security model.
The Greater Eurasian Partnership process is unfolding. It began through the relations between the EAEU, the SCO and ASEAN. In this context, they also factored in the Belt and Road initiative by the People’s Republic of China. Heads of the executive bodies of these organisations hold regular meetings, exchange information on their current plans and the ones in the making. That allows for taking decisions on a more efficient execution of certain projects, also at a lower cost, by collaborating rather than duplicating. Cooperation is ongoing also within the International North-South Transport Corridor and the projects connecting South Asia with the Russian Far East, as well as projects of joint use of the Northern Sea Route. So, these processes continue.
Understandably, the Eurasian partnership involves countries and continents. BRICS is a global association that attracts attention across the continents. It unites not only Eurasian nations but also many Latin American and African countries. This development will continue. BRICS is a framework, an “umbrella” for the integration process on particular continents.
Over the longer term, this association may very well become a platform for harmonising development plans in the economy and infrastructure in Eurasia, Africa and Latin America. The fact that the Eurasian powerhouses like China, India, Russia, and now also Indonesia are in BRICS certainly makes the association potentially efficient and helpful with the establishment of the Greater Eurasian Partnership.
Question: India has assumed the BRICS chairmanship. The country has already revealed its priorities – Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation, and Sustainability. How do these priorities resonate with your vision of international cooperation development? What is the role of the global information space? Each of us consumes a lot of information every day. And, looking ahead, what outcomes of India’s chairmanship do you personally anticipate? 
Sergey Lavrov: Every BRICS chairmanship shows an established continuity. I have already mentioned the initiatives launched during our chairmanship in 2024 related to alternative platforms and tools for servicing the global economy. The initiatives are still being discussed and elaborated as it happened in 2025 when Brazil held the chairmanship. The same is happening now when India has assumed the position.
India pays special attention to fighting terrorism, a problem that, regrettably, remains highly relevant. We see acts of terror in Afghanistan and around it, on the territories between India and Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are plenty of such places – the Middle East, including its Asian part. That is the reason this priority matters to us, too. Especially since we, along with India, are actively promoting the initiative at the UN to adopt the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. So far, consensus has not been reached. But it is a different story.
India is also interested in and has included in its chairmanship programme food and energy security issues. It will be interesting to consider energy security in view of the Trump administration’s actions in global energy. It is also bound to absolutely practical capabilities and outcomes. India puts special emphasis on information and communication technologies security. We actively support it. 
In February, India will host a summit on artificial intelligence. Russia is among the invited parties. Our country has been actively engaged in working out the summit agenda that bears importance considering that standards of international cooperation in AI and AI application standards by each state are so far just in the making. This is a fairly grave diplomatic struggle which also has a direct practical dimension because these standards will regulate (we hope this will be the case) the conduct that security issues depend on.
You know that some actors are taking extensive action to introduce AI in the military domain. Every country has the right to see how it will unfold. But even now we see some countries’ attempts to subdue others and create a structure under their rule and subjugate everything other countries are doing, can do and have the right to do with AI in the military domain. Clearly, nations such as BRICS countries will not agree to such restrictions on their sovereignty. Nevertheless, transparency in this area is also crucial. 
India’s chairmanship has a relevant and modern programme that reflects today’s objectives and targets tomorrow. We will be supporting it more actively.