Ethiopia
Source: www.ena.et

Addis Ababa, June 7, 2026 —The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has announced that the country took part in the 11th BRICS Foreign Policy Dialogue held in New Delhi under India’s BRICS Chairship.

In a statement shared on its official page, the ministry noted Ethiopia reaffirmed its commitment to constructive multilateral engagement and strengthened South-South cooperation through its participation in the forum.

The Ethiopian delegation, led by Mekonnen Gossaye, Director General for Strategic Planning and Monitoring at MFA, joined senior foreign policy and planning officials and experts from BRICS member states.

The dialogue focused on major global priorities, including resilience, innovation, cooperation, and sustainability, providing a platform for exchanging views among participating countries.

Mekonnen highlighted Ethiopia’s commitment to climate action, particularly through the Green Legacy Initiative spearheaded by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, which continues to mobilize nationwide efforts to restore ecosystems and advance environmental sustainability.

He also outlined Ethiopia’s ongoing economic and digital transformation, pointing to progress in infrastructure development, digital national ID systems, fintech solutions, and e-governance services as part of the country’s broader development direction.

Ethiopia further emphasized its dedication to deepening cooperation within BRICS, stressing shared knowledge, green finance, and collective resilience as key pillars for sustainable development and shared prosperity.

Iran
Source: www.tehrantimes.com

TEHRAN – Iran’s ambassador to Russia has emphasized the growing role of BRICS countries in shaping global energy security, arguing that nations of the Global South are becoming increasingly influential in ensuring the stability and sustainability of international energy markets.

Speaking at a meeting on BRICS development held on the sidelines of the 29th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2026) on Saturday, Ambassador Kazem Jalali outlined Iran’s perspective on the bloc’s evolving position within the global energy architecture.

Jalali said a combination of geopolitical tensions, supply-chain disruptions, market volatility, and rising energy demand in emerging economies has elevated energy security to one of the most critical pillars of global stability and economic development.

“Global energy security is increasingly being shaped by countries of the Global South, particularly BRICS members, which play a decisive role in this field,” he said.

The Iranian diplomat stressed that energy security extends beyond access to energy resources, describing it as a comprehensive concept encompassing supply security, demand security, investment security, technological resilience, infrastructure development, and financial stability.

He called for deeper cooperation among BRICS member states, developing the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), expanding transportation and logistics infrastructure, enhancing port cooperation, and strengthening energy network connectivity.

According to Jalali, such initiatives would contribute to greater resilience, security, and sustainability in regional and global energy trade while reinforcing economic integration among member countries.
The ambassador also reiterated Iran’s commitment to international peace and stability, stating that the country has consistently advocated dialogue and cooperation in international affairs.

“As a BRICS member and a major energy producer, Iran is prepared to play a constructive role in advancing global energy security and promoting sustainable energy cooperation,” Jalali said.

China
Source: english.news.cn

JAKARTA, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia has gained significant diplomatic benefits since joining the BRICS grouping, including greater resilience in maintaining domestic stability amid global economic and geopolitical uncertainties, Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said on Monday.

Wijaya said Indonesia's participation in BRICS has helped the government safeguard national stability despite ongoing global challenges.

One tangible benefit, he said, has been the government's ability to maintain stable fuel supplies and prices.
"Fuel stocks and prices are guaranteed to remain secure and will not increase," Wijaya said in a statement published on the Cabinet Secretariat's official Instagram account.

He added that Indonesia's food security remains well maintained, with adequate supplies available for the population.

"Food stocks are also considered secure," he said, attributing the achievement in part to stronger international cooperation through BRICS.

Indonesia became a full member of BRICS on Jan. 6, 2025. The Southeast Asian nation has said its membership aims to expand economic partnerships, deepen cooperation with emerging economies and strengthen its role in global governance and development initiatives. ■

UAE
Source: www.mofa.gov.ae

The United Arab Emirates participated in the 11th Annual BRICS Counter-Terrorism Group Meeting held in New Delhi on 21-22 May 2026, coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the BRICS Counter-Terrorism Working Group. The UAE delegation was headed by Maqsoud Kruse, Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Countering Violent Extremism and Terrorism.

During the meeting, the UAE reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening international cooperation in combating extremism and terrorism and addressing emerging threats posed by terrorist organisations and extremist groups.

In his remarks, H.E. Maqsoud Kruse expressed the UAE’s appreciation to the Republic of India for its chairmanship of BRICS and for convening the meeting, underscoring the importance of international dialogue and coordinated action to counter evolving security challenges.

He highlighted that extremist groups and terrorist organisations are increasingly exploiting cyberspace, advanced technologies, and artificial intelligence to recruit individuals, finance operations, and disseminate extremist ideologies, stressing the importance of enhanced international cooperation to address these threats.

H.E. Maqsoud Kruse noted that effective efforts to counter extremism and terrorism require a comprehensive and multidimensional approach that addresses immediate threats as well as the underlying conditions conducive to radicalisation.

He further stated that the UAE’s approach is based on long-term prevention initiatives combined with practical interventions aimed at addressing the root causes of extremism, hate, and intolerance. He added that the UAE hosts a number of internationally recognised institutions and initiatives that promote prevention from a holistic perspective and strengthen international cooperation.

Within the framework of the UAE’s co-chairmanship with China of the BRICS Counter-Terrorism Sub-Working Group on Preventing the Misuse of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes, the UAE delegation presented a concept paper highlighting approaches to strengthen international cooperation in addressing terrorist exploitation of digital platforms and emerging technologies.

The UAE delegation also presented a case study on the country’s efforts, in accordance with international best practices, to combat the financing of terrorism through robust institutional and legislative frameworks, while reaffirming the UAE’s unequivocal rejection of extremism and terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

H.E. Maqsoud Kruse stressed the need for a holistic, balanced, and coordinated international approach integrating security, development, and human rights, while calling for stronger intelligence sharing, enhanced cybersecurity cooperation, and closer coordination on virtual assets and decentralised financial systems to prevent the misuse of advanced technologies by terrorist actors.

On the sidelines of the meeting, the UAE delegation held bilateral meetings with the delegations of India, Russia, and China to discuss avenues for enhancing cooperation and exchanging expertise and best practices in countering extremism and terrorism.

The UAE reaffirmed its commitment to working closely with BRICS member states and partner nations to advance shared efforts aimed at eliminating international terrorism and promoting global peace and security.

Russia
Source: www.themoscowtimes.com

President Vladimir Putin delivered his keynote address at the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday, leaning heavily on familiar talking points about a “multipolar” world while downplaying the mounting economic headwinds hitting Russia amid its war against Ukraine.

The plenary session, scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. local time, started around an hour late. Indian journalist Geeta Mohan moderated the panel, which, besides Putin, included the presidents of Uzbekistan and Tanzania, as well as Chinese Vice President Han Zheng.

Before Putin took the stage, organizers screened an AI-generated video depicting Russia across three centuries as a historic global stabilizer. A narrator describes Russia as a country “that remembers the lessons of history” and remains “ready for partnerships that span decades to come.”

The video concludes by pitching Russia as the definitive anchor for future global order, calling it “the place where dialogue begins” and “the guarantor that agreements will actually work.”

Opening his speech with brief references to the global energy crisis and war in the Middle East, Putin proclaimed that the world is undergoing fundamental geopolitical and economic shifts.
“We are not just witnessing a transition from one phase to another, but the transformation of the development paradigm itself,” he said.

As he did during the past two forums, Putin championed BRICS — a bloc of countries originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — as the primary engine of this transition.

“BRICS leadership is growing. Projections show that this balance will continue to shift further in favor of BRICS,” the Kremlin leader said. “It’s because economic growth rates in BRICS countries will be consistently higher. They are higher now, and they will go higher still. This trend is here to stay.”

At the same time, with years of war and Western sanctions weighing heavily on the Russian economy, Putin could not avoid addressing the country’s mounting macroeconomic vulnerabilities.

“We have essentially come down to the same baseline that Eurozone countries have been living with for years,” Putin said. “The crucial thing is that we preserved the core of our macroeconomic policy. I am confident that our upward and forward progress is guaranteed.”

Russia’s economy contracted by 0.2% in annualized terms between January and March, according to the state statistics agency Rosstat. Policymakers now expect GDP to grow by just 0.4% this year, a significant decrease from their previous estimate of 1.3%.

At SPIEF, Putin acknowledged the slowdown but placed the responsibility for a turnaround squarely on state officials. “Yes, economic growth is currently subdued. I want to remind the government of the target they’ve been set: we need to return to a path of sustainable domestic economic growth starting as early as next year,” he said.

Putin stressed that reviving growth depends entirely on “increasing capital expenditure and launching a new investment cycle,” calling investment growth “the single most important metric” of performance for economic officials.

“It is vital that this economic growth is balanced, driven by domestic demand and coupled with a further reduction in inflation,” he added.

The president’s sweeping overview of socio-economic issues in Russia featured a rapid-fire delivery of macroeconomic statistics and bureaucratic goals, such as improving the business climate, ensuring predictability of laws and their enforcement, as well as easing regulatory burdens for small and medium-sized enterprises.

And yet, in practice, the Russian government has recently raised taxes on both consumers and small businesses, ratcheted up its nationalization of companies, increasingly jailed leading business figures and seized the assets of foreign corporations.

To drive economic and productivity growth despite current headwinds, Putin pointed to artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and digital platform solutions as the key technologies of the future.

“First is artificial intelligence, which enables the processing of huge amounts of data and the making of optimal decisions in virtually every field,” Putin said, adding that autonomous systems “dramatically boost productivity and reshape entire sectors of the economy.”

He warned that countries must build their own digital systems or risk turning into “digital peripheries” controlled by Western tech companies, adding that Russia had already learned this lesson.
Still, Putin’s address on Friday offered few concrete specifics on how Russia intends to navigate its major economic hurdles, particularly those tied to the costly, ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Putin made no mention of the war throughout his speech.

Dubbed the “Russia’s Davos,” SPIEF had for years attracted top Western business leaders and policymakers, serving as a platform for major deals like the Nord Stream gas pipeline. But since 2022, the forum’s lineup has reflected Moscow’s pivot toward countries in Asia and Africa amid its isolation from the West.

India
Source: www.manoramayearbook.in

• As the Chair of BRICS for 2026, the Ministry of External Affairs hosted the 11th BRICS Foreign Policy Dialogue in New Delhi on June 5.
• The policy planning heads and senior representatives from the expanded BRICS membership participated in the Dialogue, and deliberated in day-long thematic sessions focussed on future forecasting, challenges and opportunities facing BRICS countries in the current global situation, and building resilience, innovation, cooperation, and sustainability.
• The Dialogue provided an opportunity to deliberate on BRICS@20; channelling new and emerging technologies for effective service delivery; accelerating climate action and energy transition; strengthening economic, social and institutional resilience; working together for reforms of institutions of global governance; and people-centric outcomes.
• India officially took over the BRICS chairship from Brazil on January 1.

The BRICS nations

• The BRICS nations or Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa form the key pillars of south-south cooperation and are the representative voice of emerging markets and developing countries in the global forums such as the G20.
• The grouping has become a 11-nation body now with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia joining it as new members.
• The acronym BRIC was first used in 2001 by Goldman Sachs in their Global Economics Paper, ‘The World Needs Better Economic BRICs’ on the basis of econometric analyses projecting that the four economies would individually and collectively occupy far greater economic space and would be amongst the world’s largest economies in the next 50 years or so.
• The leaders of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries met for the first time in St. Petersburg, Russia, on the margins of the G8 Outreach Summit in July 2006. Shortly afterwards, in September 2006, the group was formalised as BRIC during the First BRIC Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, which met on the sidelines of the General Debate of the UN Assembly in New York City.
• After a series of high level meetings, the first BRIC summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia on June 16, 2009.
• It was agreed to expand BRIC into BRICS with the inclusion of South Africa at the BRIC Foreign Ministers meeting in New York in September 2010. Accordingly, South Africa attended the third BRICS Summit in Sanya on April 14, 2011. 
• In 2015, the BRICS established the New Development Bank (NDB) with the purpose of mobilising resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in emerging markets and developing countries.

Expansion of BRICS

• BRICS leaders have left the door open to future enlargement as dozens more countries voiced interest in joining a grouping.
• Around 40 countries had shown interest in joining BRICS out of which 23 formally applied for the membership.
• In August 2023, the top BRICS leaders at the grouping’s summit in Johannesburg approved a proposal to admit six countries, including Argentina, into the bloc with effect from January 1, 2024. However, Argentina’s President Javier Milei announced withdrawing his country from becoming a member of the BRICS.
• The decision to expand the bloc is seen as an effort to reshape global governance while putting the voices of the Global South as a key priority area to advance the overall development agenda.
• The BRICS has emerged as an influential grouping as it brings together 11 major emerging economies of the world, representing around 49.5 per cent of the global population, around 40 per cent of the global GDP and around 26 per cent of the global trade.

India
Source: www.mea.gov.in

As the Chair of BRICS for 2026, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India hosted the 11th BRICS Foreign Policy Dialogue on 05 June 2026 in New Delhi.

2. The Policy Planning heads and senior representatives from the expanded BRICS membership participated in the Dialogue, and deliberated in day-long thematic sessions focussed on future forecasting, challenges and opportunities facing BRICS countries in the current global situation, and building resilience, innovation, cooperation, and sustainability.

3. The Dialogue provided an opportunity to deliberate on BRICS@20; channelling new and emerging technologies for effective service delivery; accelerating climate action and energy transition; strengthening economic, social and institutional resilience; working together for reforms of institutions of global governance; and people-centric outcomes.

4. Ms. Aparna Ray, Joint Secretary (Policy Planning & Research) MEA led the Indian delegation.

New Delhi
June 5, 2026

Russia
Source: mid.ru

Question: We are speaking on the sidelines of the 29th St Petersburg International Economic Forum. My first question is about the political and economic significance of this event, particularly amid challenges facing Russia and precipitous changes in the international arena.

Sergey Lavrov: I believe any forum that provides a venue for dialogue is valuable, especially if it brings together representatives from all continents without exception.

Unlike other similar events, such as Davos and other Western-organised forums, where countries whose leaders pursue policies rejected or cancelled by the organisers are simply no longer invited, the St Petersburg International Economic Forum provides complete freedom of expression year after year. We’ve seen this on many occasions. People come here because they are interested in experiencing changes that are taking place in the international arena.

When I say “changes,” I mean the emerging era of multipolarity, the transition from the Western-centric model that dominated the world for the past 500 years to a polycentric organisation of international life, in which new centres of power, civilisation states such as China, India, Russia, and Iran, as well as African and Latin American countries, will take a place that reflects their real-world standing, their level of economic development, and contribution to world culture and technical progress.

At the global level, BRICS serves as a prototype of a polycentric world order; at the Eurasian level, that role is played by the SCO. The participants of these groups do not fence themselves off from the rest of the world, which includes our Western colleagues. Within APEC and the G20, for example, leading members of BRICS and the SCO work alongside Western representatives, primarily the G7, and uphold their own positions.

The fact that these forums, namely APEC and the G20, continue to function, and that within these entities the West is still compelled, albeit still trying to keep its dominance in place, to seek compromises, already represents considerable value. Truth be told, the G20 is facing a serious challenge as a result of the decision by the United States, which will host the G20 Summit in Miami later this year, not to invite South Africa. In fact, saying “they decided not to invite South Africa” doesn’t cover it; they have simply decided, unilaterally, to take it off the list. This is totally unacceptable. We are currently formulating our position on this matter both within BRICS and through our other contacts. This issue will take centre stage at the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting.

Back to your question, the St Petersburg International Economic Forum is a venue that represents the entire spectrum of international politics where all centres of growth are presented at a very high and authoritative level.

What makes this venue unique? It facilitates dialogue not only among different continents and sociopolitical systems, but also among heads of state and government, cultural and scientific figures, and representatives of civil society.

It is an extremely useful forum that fosters mutual enrichment, where the same issues are discussed during round table discussions bringing together official and unofficial specialists and experts.

Question: Away from Western hegemony, as you say, who is primarily present here? We see Arab countries; Saudi Arabia is a guest. What does this indicate? A commitment to strengthening ties with the Arab region and the Gulf states?

Sergey Lavrov: Arab countries actively participate in the St Petersburg International Economic Forum every year. Other GCC members are also here, including the United Arab Emirates, which is very well represented and takes part in the discussions – as do our other partners from the region.

I believe our relations with this Arab “six,” and with the Arab world as a whole through the Arab League, are very close, constructive and comradely. In fact, they are exactly the kind of relations we want to build with all countries.

As for the Persian Gulf, of course we cannot ignore what is happening there as a result of US and Israeli aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran. One of the aims of this reckless move, I have no doubt, was to derail the emerging process of rapprochement and normalisation between the Arabs and Iran, through discussions on the future of the Gulf and surrounding territories.

There is a Russian Security Concept for the Persian Gulf. We have just updated it, sent it to our GCC colleagues, and to Tehran as well. Now we await their response. All of this happened literally in the last few days. But the process of polycentricity and multipolarity will not be easy, of course.

I can also mention BRICS, which includes both Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Question: Given the ongoing conflicts, you mentioned BRICS – what role does this association play in maintaining the balance of power in the region and ensuring stability?

Sergey Lavrov: The platform itself is always important. We held a BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting on May 14-15 this year, attended by representatives of Iran and the UAE. There was quite a serious spat between them. Nevertheless, India as the current chair, and the other BRICS countries at that meeting, certainly tried to find ways to initiate a dialogue between the Emirates and Iran. That dialogue has to happen eventually.

We see a readiness for such a dialogue on the part of a number of other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia. Of course, those who stirred up this mess and launched this reckless move hate to see rapprochement between the Arabs and Iran – or even just normalisation of relations.

Our concept calls first and foremost for non-aggression. Incidentally, Saudi Arabia is now talking about non-aggression too. A non-aggression pact would probably be a good first step, but additional steps could follow, including an agreement on transparency in military activities, limits on military operations, notification of manoeuvres, and confidence-building measures more broadly.

I sincerely hope that common sense will prevail, and that this region will begin to agree on how all participants can coexist peacefully, without fear of military risks. We advocate for that and continue to work with our Arab colleagues.

Question: What, in your opinion, is currently standing in the way?

Sergey Lavrov: I’ve already mentioned that Israel certainly does not want rapprochement between the Arabs and Iran. The United States is taking an ambivalent position: one day they say an agreement is about to be reached and the Strait of Hormuz will be opened; the next, they say if Iran hesitates for two more days, we’ll start bombing again. Why even talk about Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz? It was already open, without any problems, until February 28 of this year. I don’t know what Washington means when they say they want to end the “47‑year period in which Iran terrorised everyone”. That is a propaganda slogan, unburdened by any serious historical analysis of what actually happened there.

But demanding the opening of the Strait of Hormuz? It was open. And all that talk about Iran and Muscat (the Omanis) now planning to impose a toll on passage, and them not allowing it to happen? There never was such a toll until this aggression began.

The second point, which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated in his recent testimony to Congress, is that Iran must accept that it will never have nuclear weapons. Until the attack on Iran in June 2025, the entire leadership was united around the fatwa of the recently assassinated leader of Iran, Ali Hosseini Khamenei. That was essentially a political assassination. And if anything could change the mood among Iran’s elite, and in Iran as a whole, regarding its commitment to the principle of non‑nuclear weapons, it would be this aggression: the actions that the US and Israel have carried out and continue to carry out, absolutely without any justification.

And everyone is watching what happened to those countries that once pursued nuclear weapons. The first technical steps in this area have already been made, as was the case in Libya. As soon as that “problem” was closed, as soon as Libya renounced its nuclear weapons, Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and mockingly killed live on television, to the delight of Hillary Clinton, who sat in front of the screen practically applauding. Meanwhile, those who have nuclear weapons... This is the logic that many developing countries have already explained to us.

Take the DPRK. That country is not a party to the Nuclear Non‑Proliferation Treaty. It simply concluded that without nuclear weapons, it would be wiped off the face of the earth. The North Koreans have acted on that choice, and no one bothers them.

I am not suggesting that everyone should follow this path. But there has never been any suspicion regarding Iran. The IAEA has regularly stated in its reports that there are no signs of Iran diverting any aspect of its nuclear or energy programme to military purposes. And so far, no one has produced any evidence to the contrary. Yet Washington has made an unfounded accusation.

The Americans made an utterly unimaginable move in Venezuela. Even I cannot recall anything like it. Under the pretext that President Nicolás Maduro was allegedly running a drug cartel, they kidnapped him – but immediately announced that they had interests in the oil sector, and that they would “take over” Venezuela’s oil industry and explain to their Venezuelan colleagues what to do, who to sell to, and who not to sell to.

It started with Iran, too. They said Iran had been promoting international terrorism for 47 years. It quickly became clear that the real reason was oil. At one point, the Americans proposed a 50‑50 split between them and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. It is all about oil again – about global energy markets. But this is also causing inconvenience and heavy losses for Arab countries. We know that well.

Yes, they will now look for alternative routes and build new pipelines. But that requires capital investments, all those costs – and the natural routes that have suited everyone for decades are now under enormous risk. Now the Bab el‑Mandeb Strait could become another flashpoint. So the consequences of this aggression are obvious to everyone. I sincerely hope that lessons will be learned.

Question: I would like to ask about another conflict, the Ukrainian one. In your opinion, what are the chances for achieving a peace settlement?

Sergey Lavrov: We are always ready, as President Vladimir Putin has said many times, to have talks, but we see that the other side is not ready. Moreover, and most importantly, there are no counterparts capable of reaching a deal. However, the very fact that the Kiev regime which has come to power following the February 2014 government coup is totally incapable of reaching any kind of an agreement is so obvious that, I think, we do not have to persuade anyone that this is the case. Even those who cover up, finance and arm this regime know well what it is worth.

The Europeans have been seeking to shield and protect Vladimir Zelensky with so much zeal and vigour for the only reason that he is fighting against the Russian Federation for Europe, for western interests and for the Western overall agenda which consists of eliminating Russia as a competitor. They tried doing this ahead of World War I, and during World War II, and many times over. They proceeded along the same lines during the Crimean War.

Today, we have started hearing statements coming from European capitals saying that they need to talk to Russia, after all, while alleging that it would be up to them to decide when to speak to Russia and about what. At the same time, I would have preferred to refrain from repeating what Kaja Kallas has been saying, since she is still the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, when she talks about the European Union demanding that Russia sit down at the negotiating table but only after slimming down its army and stockpiles and setting some kind of a cap. Kaja Kallas and many other European representatives have openly stated that Europe would not be a mediator at the negotiating table. But in that case, what will be Europe’s role? Will it be tasked with imposing its terms and accepting Russia’s surrender?

Europe has misled Russia and the entire world many times on the Ukraine issue, starting with the government coup. It happened within 24 hours after France, Germany, represented by its current President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and Poland undertook to act as guarantors under a peace deal between then President of Ukraine and the opposition. But the very next morning, the opposition trampled upon these guarantees, while the West pretended that this constituted what they called an iteration of the democratic process. A year later, in February 2015, the Minsk agreements were signed, and once again, there are signatures of Germany and France on these documents, as approved by the UN Security Council. And all this came apart. Moreover, both Angela Merkel, who was the German Chancellor at that time, and then President of France Francois Hollande who signed this document – both said that no one ever intended abiding by these agreements. All they needed was to win some time in order to arm Ukraine and enable it to be more effective in its war against the Russian Federation.

The West had so many opportunities to assume a mediating role. Today, the European Union claims that it is not a mediator since it is firm in its commitment to siding with Ukraine. I was surprised that this was precisely what Secretary of State of the United States Marco Rubio said during his recent appearance at the US Congress: he would like the conflict in Ukraine to end this year, even if the chances for achieving this outcome are quite low in his opinion since the parties to the conflict, especially Russia are not ready to make concessions. What a strange thing to hear from a person who took part in the Anchorage meeting on August 15, 2025, where President Vladimir Putin accepted the proposal floated by President of the United States Donald Trump regarding the priority steps for stopping hostilities and launching talks on a political settlement in all its aspects. It was strange for Washington to change its position after we expressed out agreement with the proposals that the United States had put forward in Anchorage. Instead of working on these proposals in their interactions with the Ukrainians, the United States is now pretending that it is up to the conflicting parties to deal with this. Not exactly a consistent approach.

In his remarks at the US Congress, Secretary of State of the United States Marco Rubio said that Russia was not ready to make concessions, and went on to point out that the United States was not a mediator because the US is consistent in supporting Ukraine by continuing to supply it with the required amounts of weapons and military hardware. In this situation, let me repeat that when someone tells us that we are the ones who are not ready to launch talks, I must stress that we were ready many times over. Not only were we ready but we had held these talks on multiple occasions, supported these processes and signed the relevant documents. As for the West, it is uncapable of reaching deals and negotiating. Its guiding principle can be described the following way: I can promise something at a specific point in time only to stretch the time, so that, much like in an Arab saying, either the donkey or the padishah it carries die. There is a lot of dishonesty in this policy line, since it is designed to obtain and accumulate unilateral benefits, returning for more concessions, etc. Unfortunately, this is the dominant posture at this juncture.

Considering what Secretary of State of the United States Marco Rubio said on supporting Ukraine – and I have been maintaining working ties with him, since we discussed the Ukraine situation just two weeks ago – nothing sets apart the approaches of the United States and Europe anymore. The United States seeks to offer a more positive visions since they always advocated dialogue with Russia from the very moment when Donald Trump started his second term at the White House.

Apart from the Anchorage meeting, President of the United States Donald Trump has been in touch on a regular basis with the President of Russia. They have had many telephone conversations. Marco Rubio and I met several times in person and have telephone conversations every now and then. During his appearance at the US Congress, he said that there is always a need for dialogue and that the United States would never reject dialogue. They must be recognised and lauded for this posture. But it is not only dialogue per se that matters. Carrying out the agreements is equally important. Once again, let me stress that we reached a clear understanding in Alaska based on a specific proposal by the United States. Had the United States been serious about ensuring that its initiative materialises, we would have been sitting at the negotiating table for a long time now, while hostilities would have ceased.

Question: In light of what you have said, how do you currently view Russian-American relations overall? Why are European countries so diligently attempting to derail any rapprochement?

Sergey Lavrov: To be perfectly honest, I believe the essence of the West’s position remains unchanged. It is that the West wishes to continue dominating, as it has done for many centuries in world politics, and believed that the “end of history” had arrived when the USSR collapsed – but things turned out quite differently. The objective course of events, the objective development of humanity, has ushered us into an era of a multipolar, polycentric world order, in which new centres of economic growth, financial power, and political influence naturally demand for themselves a worthy place in any structures engaged in global governance – a place commensurate with their real weight on the international stage.

This process is historically determined, objective, and unstoppable, yet the West is doing everything in its power to slow it down, resorting to a vast array of underhanded methods: from illegal sanctions, restricting access to financial instruments, and excluding undesirable countries from multilateral structures, all the way to interfering in internal affairs, influencing elections, and even military invasion, as we have witnessed on several occasions.

Therefore, when the United States advocates for dialogue, we support it. Europe, in its current state – under the leadership of these elites – is, for me as for global diplomacy, a lost cause. Voices are heard there saying that they will eventually talk. This is all frivolous; they have had a great many opportunities, all of which they squandered. When, after returning to the White House, Donald Trump telephoned President Vladimir Putin, they agreed to resume dialogue. We actively welcome this. The dialogue continued: I met with Marco Rubio in Riyadh in February 2025, followed by numerous contacts, including the summit in Alaska. US President Donald Trump stressed publicly that if he had been president at the time, there would have been no war in Ukraine – that it was, allegedly, Joe Biden’s war, that no one needs it, that people are dying, and so on. However, what US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Congress about the role of the United States not as a mediator, but as a country supporting Ukraine, suggests the opposite: that Joe Biden’s war has become Donald Trump’s war. Moreover, the Pentagon has a budget within which the programme of support for Ukraine is approved up until 2029 – that is, practically three and a half years ahead.

A couple of weeks after the summit in Alaska, the United States announced sanctions against Lukoil and Rosneft, while all the sanctions imposed by Joe Biden are being extended. Washington has declared its goal to dominate global energy markets – hence the Venezuelan “episode,” and hence the squeezing out of Lukoil and Rosneft from their entirely legitimate projects outside the Russian Federation, and much more besides – which testifies to the desire of the United States first and foremost to subordinate to itself the key sectors of the global economy, primarily energy, and thereby control the processes that will be used to exert pressure on China, on the Russian Federation, and on other competitors.

Therefore, we appreciate that the United States has taken a position, first, in favour of dialogue, and second, President Donald Trump has clearly stated that there will be no NATO membership for Ukraine and that the realities on the ground must be taken into account – those realities that took shape after the referendums on returning to Russia. This is precisely what underpinned the proposals put forward by the Americans in Alaska.

Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance Mark Rutte went to Kiev, where he stated directly that Ukraine will be in NATO. He does not give a damn that the United States, in the person of President Donald Trump, considers this unacceptable. Mark Rutte simply declared, embracing Vladimir Zelensky, that Ukraine will be in NATO. And as for the recognition of the realities on the ground that emerged from the struggle against the Kiev regime, as well as the will of the population of the territories of southeastern Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky stated publicly – and Europe supports him – that there will be no recognition. He declared that he would stop the war, build up his forces, and then continue to reconquer “his” lands, so that the Nazi regime could be preserved there – or rather, restored.

Europe is dragging Ukraine into NATO because it finds it easier to admit it into the Alliance than to take the fateful step of including Ukraine in the European Union. In the latter case, the European Union would fall apart. They understand this perfectly well. In NATO, there will be joint production of armaments – it already exists – military technologies, and so on. But at the same time, Europe says: stop the Russians, present them with our terms, and provide security guarantees to whatever Ukraine remains after the ceasefire. But this means they want to perpetuate the Nazi regime, without demanding from it any compliance with the UN Charter, its own constitution, or the numerous conventions whose provisions concern guarantees of linguistic, religious, and other rights of national minorities. Russians are, of course, not a minority in Ukraine, but the Russian language, culture, education, and media have been banned by law. Europe wants to perpetuate this, maintaining a permanent bridgehead for creating threats to Russia.

Question: And to fight, as they initially said, to the last Ukrainian.

Mr Lavrov, thank you very much for this substantive interview.

Russia
Source: russiaspivottoasia.com

Cooperation between Uzbekistan and Russia has become multilevel and multifaceted, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said at the plenary session of the 29th St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Addressing Russian President Putin and the entire hall of attending delegates, he stated that “To Uzbekistan, Russia is not just a neighbour in the region but a strategic partner and an ally that has stood the test of time. Our relations today have entered a new era. Cooperation has become multilevel and multifaceted. Our two countries have developed from regular trade in goods to the formation of production chains, technological alliances, joint design and production localisation. Uzbek-Russian trade more than tripled over the past ten years, increasing from US$4 billion to US$13 billion, Mirziyoyev said. The total joint projects investment portfolio exceeds US$50 billion.”

The president also emphasised the expansion of interregional cooperation, adding that “The volume of implemented interregional projects has reached US$5 billion, and an investment package worth another US$5 billion is being prepared. I would like to comment on cooperation in the energy sector. Thanks to investment projects, including those involving Russia, we have increased electrical power generation by more than 50%, from 58 billion kilowatt hours to 87 billion kilowatt hours.”

By 2030, Uzbekistan plans to increase electrical power generation to 120 billion kilowatt hours, and 54% of the generation will come from renewable energy resources. The country’s energy capacity will also increase with the launch of Uzbekistan’s first nuclear power plant, being built by Rosatom and partially financed by Moscow. The ⁠plant is located in Uzbekistan’s central-eastern Jizzakh Region, which borders both Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. . A ceremony to lay the first stone in the foundation of the NPP has recently been held.
This NPP project features a unique configuration, with power units of different capacities being placed on the same site for the first time. It will include two large power units with Generation 3+ VVER-1000 reactors (each with a capacity of 1 GW) and two small modular RITM-200N reactors (each with a capacity of 55 MW). Once operational, the plant is expected to generate approximately 17.2 billion kWh of electricity annually, covering up to 15% of Uzbekistan’s electricity needs.

Rosatom’s role is not limited to the construction of the nuclear power plant: as part of the agreement, the corporation will provide a preferential export credit, ensure long-term supplies of reactor fuel, take over the service and maintenance, arrange the disposal of spent nuclear material, and provide training to Uzbeki nuclear scientists. The construction cost is estimated at US$9.5 billion.

Mirziyoyev said, “We also intend to work together in other areas of peaceful atom use – medicine, agriculture, industry and science.”

Uzbekistan has a population of 38 million (more than Poland and similar to California), while its 2025 GDP growth was 7.7%. It is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, is preparing to join the Eurasian Economic Union and is a BRICS Partner nation.  

USA
Source: thediplomat.com

Tashkent and Moscow celebrated the start of construction on the plant – two months after the companies involved celebrated the same thing.

On June 4, via videoconference from St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, joined by International Atomic Energy Agency Director general Rafael Grossi, celebrated the start of construction on the first unit of a new nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan. 

“The start of pouring concrete for the foundation of Unit 1 of the future nuclear power plant marks the beginning of the construction of one of the largest nuclear power plants in the region,” Putin said.

The event, on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, comes more than two months after the heads of Uzatom and Rosatom, partnering on the project, marked the start of construction at the site in Jizzakh region’s Forish district.

In May 2024, during a state visit to Uzbekistan, Putin and Mirziyoyev shook hands on a deal the latter called “vital”: the construction of a nuclear power plant. Various configurations have been floated, but the current plan includes two small modular reactors (SMRs), specifically RITM-200N reactors, with a capacity of 55 megawatts each and two large VVER-1000 reactors, each generating 1 GW.

“The fact that Russia and Uzbekistan are implementing such a truly flagship high-tech project is a shining example of the friendship and alliance between our two countries and testifies to the successful and dynamic development of the Russian-Uzbek strategic partnership across all areas,” Putin proclaimed this week.

Mirziyoyev called the moment “historic.”

“We are ushering in a new era of technological, industrial, and scientific development for our country,” he added. “In Uzbekistan, the foundations are being laid for the development of a new field – modern nuclear energy – an industry that symbolizes advanced scientific capabilities, cutting-edge engineering expertise, and a strategic vision for the future.”

While government statements – including Putin’s recent remarks – list the large reactors first, it’s actually the small ones that will be constructed first.

Once fully operational, Uzbek authorities claim that the plant will meet over 15 percent of Uzbekistan’s electricity needs – around 16-17 billion kWh per year. 

The first unit, providing 55 megawatts of energy, is planned to go critical in late 2029, if construction stays on schedule. 

Uzatom Director Azim Ahmedkhodjayev said this week that the case cost of the nuclear power plant – two small reactors and two large reactors on the same site – is $9.5 billion. The financing is still being sorted out, with Uzbekistan hoping to score funding through the BRICS New Development Bank, among others.
“We want to attract 85-90 percent [of the project’s cost in loan funds],” Ahmedkhodjayev said.

Putin has promised support. “Importantly, Russia will not only build the nuclear power plant but also provide its Uzbek partners with a preferential export loan and support throughout the plant’s entire lifecycle,” he said on June 4. 

That’s a deal Russia has extended also to Kazakhstan, where Russia was selected to construct its first modern nuclear power plant. Earlier this week, Putin touched down in the Kazakh capital for a state visit – and the signing of several agreements critical to the nuclear power plant project planned for the village of Ulken, on the shores of Lake Balkhash.

In Kazakhstan, Rosatom is set to build a pair of VVER-1200 III+ reactors with a combined capacity of 2.4 GWe. The cost is higher, with Almasadam Satkaliyev, the head of Kazakhstan’s atomic energy agency, telling reporters that the project will cost, in total, around  $16.4 billion, to include about $2 billion for security and infrastructure.

Kazakh officials have pegged 2027 for the genuine start of construction and are targeting early 2034 to commission the first reactor. 

Central Asia is pushing forward into a new nuclear era. The industries that regional governments position as the keys to future growth – critical minerals and AI, most prominently – are energy intensive. The region’s population is booming, and its existing energy mix is already insufficient. But those same future industries – and the nuclear power generation necessary to support them – are all tremendously water-intensive. And water is a diminishing resource in the region.

With each successive celebration of a starting point, a next step, these questions will only grow more acute.

Russia
Source: thinkbrics.substack.com

Uzbekistan and the New Development Bank: Development Finance Sovereignty or Wall Street Consensus 2.0?A briefing for civil-society advocates, development-finance researchers, and South-South cooperation networks following Uzbekistan's accession to the BRICS New Development Bank

On 22 May 2026, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed the law ratifying his country’s accession to the BRICS New Development Bank. Official communications framed it as a milestone in South-South cooperation. Uzbek Senate readouts spoke of expanded “opportunities to attract foreign investment and finance large infrastructure and sustainable development projects.”

The question civil-society advocates need to ask is sharper: does NDB membership actually give Uzbekistan more autonomy from Western-aligned conditionality — more policy space to build productive capabilities in cotton, mining, agriculture, and energy — or does it replicate the same de-risking architecture under a different flag?

This is the question our new advocacy brief confronts head-on. And the answer, as our research finds, is neither a clean yes nor a clean no.

Why This Moment Matters

Uzbekistan is at a genuine structural inflection point. President Mirziyoyev’s reform decade has rebuilt the country’s external creditworthiness, lifted foreign reserves to US$66 billion according to the brief, and brought multilateral lenders back into the market. For the first time in the post-Soviet era, Uzbekistan has real choices about how it finances its development trajectory — choices that simply did not exist under the previous government.

NDB membership is one of those choices. With a $5 billion announced project pipeline (though, importantly, not yet approved), the stakes are high. But so is the risk of celebrating or dismissing the accession without serious scrutiny.

"The honest reading: NDB is a partially differentiated institution, not an alternative paradigm. Whether the differentiation translates into genuine development gains depends on how Uzbekistan and the NDB structure individual projects."

That scrutiny is precisely what our research provides — and it’s why we think this briefing matters beyond Uzbekistan’s borders. As more countries join the NDB’s expanding membership, the questions we raise here apply across the Global South.

This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

What the Research Finds

Our brief maps the NDB’s genuine differentiators against the Bretton Woods institutions — the IMF and World Bank — and finds that the differences are real, but bounded. The NDB offers equal voting rights with no IMF-style weighted voting and no single-member veto, no programme-level policy conditionality of the kind the IMF attaches to its lending, and the use of national environmental and social standards rather than imposed international templates. Under NDB President Dilma Rousseff, the bank has also committed to providing 30% of total financing in the local currencies of borrowing members and exceeded its climate finance targets, with 55.3% of 2024 lending classified as climate-aligned according to the NDB’s 2024 Annual Report.

These are non-trivial features. Civil-society organizations have spent decades demanding exactly these kinds of reforms from the Bretton Woods institutions. To dismiss them out of hand would be intellectually dishonest.

Key Finding: According to the NDB’s 2024 Annual Report, climate finance comprised 55.3% of the year’s lending — exceeding the 40% target set for the 2022–2026 strategy period. New members including Egypt, UAE, Algeria, Colombia, and Uzbekistan collectively hold under US$1 billion in approved projects despite approximately five years of NDB expansion, while founding members carry a net portfolio of $35.2 billion across 105 projects.

Uzbekistan’s announced $5 billion pipeline is pipeline — not yet approved. The Egypt precedent, where NDB membership operated alongside a US$8 billion IMF Extended Fund Facility, suggests realistic expectations are warranted.

But the differentiators have limits. The NDB’s local-currency lending is concentrated in renminbi and South African rand, not in borrowing countries’ own currencies in most cases. The bank’s project pipeline overlaps directly with World Bank, ADB, and AIIB pipelines. And crucially, the Egypt case — the clearest test of the development-finance sovereignty hypothesis among new members — shows that NDB membership did not substitute for IMF conditionality. It operated alongside it.

The Risk Question Nobody Is Asking Loudly Enough

One of the briefing’s most important contributions is its risk-distribution analysis. The key insight is this: whether NDB membership represents something genuinely different from what economists call the “Wall Street Consensus” — a framework that transfers risk from private investors to the public balance sheet — doesn’t depend on the institutional flag. It depends on how individual projects are structured.

A sovereign loan to the Uzbek government distributes risk differently than a public-private partnership (PPP) in which the Uzbek state provides demand guarantees, absorbs political risk, and underwrites climate-regulation risk so that private investors can participate. The latter structure replicates the de-risking logic regardless of whether the NDB or the World Bank is involved.

Our brief provides a project-by-project framework for civil-society organizations to track exactly these questions for each NDB Uzbekistan project as it comes up for approval.

Productive Capabilities: The Sectoral Stakes

The briefing also applies a capability-formation lens — drawing on the Reinert-Andreoni-Chang tradition in development economics — to Uzbekistan’s key sectors. The core question: does NDB finance deepen productive capabilities, or does it lock in primary-product specialization?

For Uzbekistan’s cotton-textile vertical, where the country ranks as the world’s sixth-largest cotton producer according to the brief, the test is whether NDB project finance funds ginning, spinning, weaving, and garment assembly — capability-deepening investment — or raw-cotton infrastructure and export logistics. For mining, where Uzbekistan produces approximately 105 tonnes of gold annually per the brief’s figures, the test is downstream refining and fabrication versus raw extraction. For irrigation, the question is whether projects build domestic engineering capacity or default to Chinese turnkey procurement with limited skill transfer.

These are not abstract questions. Uzbekistan’s cotton sector was the subject of an international boycott for over a decade, lifted in 2022 after sustained civil-society pressure and ILO monitoring. The labour-standard discipline those campaigns established is, our research argues, the model for oversight of NDB-financed projects.

Explore the Research on Video

The written brief is dense by design — it’s a working tool for advocates and researchers. To make the core arguments accessible to a broader audience, we’ve produced an accompanying video that walks through the main findings, explains the key concepts (including what “de-risking” and “Wall Street Consensus” actually mean in plain language), and outlines what civil-society organizations should be watching for as the first NDB Uzbekistan projects move toward approval.
Whether you’re approaching this as a development-finance specialist or as someone newer to the BRICS architecture debates, the video offers a useful entry point before — or alongside — reading the full brief.

What Civil Society Should Demand — Right Now

The brief closes with a prioritized advocacy agenda. We’re not summarizing the full list here — that’s in the document — but the top priorities according to our research are worth naming.

1. Project-level transparency before approval. Publication of environmental and social impact assessments, procurement plans, and financial structuring documents for each NDB Uzbekistan project — before, not after, Board approval.
2. An independent accountability mechanism. The NDB has no equivalent to the World Bank Inspection Panel or the IFC Compliance Advisor Ombudsman. Project-affected communities in Uzbekistan — where civil-society space remains constrained — have no independent grievance channel. This gap needs to close.
3. Local-content and skill-transfer commitments in NDB project finance for irrigation, mining-downstream processing, light manufacturing, and renewable energy. The brief proposes a 40% domestic-content threshold as a meaningful benchmark.
4. PPP risk-distribution monitoring. For any NDB PPP project, the risk-allocation matrix and the Uzbek state’s contingent liabilities should be published. The public has a right to know when its balance sheet is being used to underwrite private returns.

The brief also acknowledges — with intellectual honesty — where its critique may be too harsh. The realistic counterfactual to NDB project finance may not be a better-structured alternative; it may be Chinese policy-bank lending on tighter geopolitical terms, or no investment at all. Civil-society advocacy should push for the best achievable structure, not hold out for perfection that forecloses development entirely. There are specific signals the brief identifies that would meaningfully change its assessment — and those are worth reading in full.

Free Download (PDF · 9 Pages) - Uzbekistan and the New Development Bank: Development Finance Sovereignty or Wall Street Consensus 2.0?
<sub>A Note on Methodology and Framing

This briefing is civil-society research, not a policy paper commissioned by any government or multilateral institution. It draws on the NDB’s 2024 Annual Report, published December 2025; Rousseff’s address at the 9th NDB Annual Meeting in Cape Town in August 2024; IMF and World Bank institutional documents; and analytical frameworks developed by Eurodad, the Bretton Woods Project, and Third World Network. Where claims are contested or uncertain, we have tried to say so clearly rather than presenting contested positions as established fact.

The briefing is explicitly addressed to two audiences: development-finance specialists and researchers who want the full analytical apparatus, and civil-society advocates in Uzbekistan and across the BRICS+ membership who need practical, actionable frameworks. We’ve tried to serve both, and the accompanying video is specifically designed for the latter audience.
We welcome pushback. If you see errors in the analysis, gaps in the comparators, or missing evidence, we want to know. This is the beginning of a research programme on NDB expansion and development-finance sovereignty, not the final word.</sub>

Nigeria
Source: africa.businessinsider.com

The global economic centre of gravity is shifting, and Africa is increasingly being positioned as one of its biggest beneficiaries.

• BRICS countries now account for nearly 40% of global GDP and generated 49% of global economic growth over the past five years, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• The bloc's share of global trade and high-tech exports has expanded significantly, highlighting a shift in economic and technological influence toward emerging markets.
• Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said Africa's growing population, expanding middle class, and AfCFTA position the continent as a future engine of global growth.
• Leaders at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum argued that emerging economies are increasingly shaping global trade, investment, technology, and development agendas.

Russia
Source: mid.ru

Question: We are witnessing and are involved in tectonic shifts in the international order, which causes upheavals. Do you think the most dangerous phase is over?

Sergey Lavrov: I would say that this is a question for astrologers and political analysts. But we who are involved in practical diplomacy and practical foreign policy aspects prefer not to make any forecasts but instead to focus on current issues, because it is from these “bricks” that the future will be built. It will inevitably be multipolar and polycentric. It will be built in accordance with the patterns that have been developing for a long time in relations between the Russian Federation and the CSTO countries and China, and on a broader plane, within the structures where Russia and China are active – BRICS and the SCO.

Back in 1997, we adopted the Russian-Chinese Joint Declaration on a Multipolar World and the Establishment of a New International Order. It enshrines the main principles that should underlie relations between states. There is nothing revolutionary in this; it concerns the maintenance of the principles enshrined in the UN Charter, such as equality, non-interference in internal affairs, mutual respect and mutual benefit. All of these principles have been laid down in the UN Charter, but the West never acted in accordance with them.

Russia and China led the movement towards creating the foundations of a multipolar world. Every time President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of China Xi Jinping meet, the final documents of their meetings reflect this issue. During President Putin’s visit to China in May 2026, they signed the Joint Declaration on the Emergence of a Multipolar World and International Relations of a New Type. It marks yet another major step in assessing the developments and formalising approaches that will consolidate our achievements and prevent efforts to hinder, let alone derail the formation of a multipolar international order.

Attempts to at least delay this process are being made by our Western colleagues – the United States, the EU and NATO. It was during the Biden administration that the United States demonstrated open disregard for the principles of globalisation it had advocated for decades after the Second World War, such as the promotion of the free market, fair and open competition, the inviolability of private property and the like. Taken together, this implies the freedom underlying global economic processes.

The United States has rejected all of this not only to “punish” Russia after the start of the special military operation but also to contain the economic development of Russia and other rivals of the United States and the West, primarily China. When these principles were replaced with sanctions, which undermined the reputation of the dollar, the euro and all principles of the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank, it became clear that the world economy will break apart. This is exactly what is happening now.

The West’s actions are forcing us to actively look for the forms of interaction with our partners in terms of financial payments, economic principles, logistics and trade routes that will not depend on the West.

I remember the public declarations made by the United States when it publicly severed the dollar’s convertibility into gold and the dollar went untethered, saying that there is no need to worry because the dollar is not the US property, and that it will not abuse its privilege as the issuer of the world’s reserve currency. They said that the main reserve currency was not their property but a common good, the property of humankind. All of that was rejected and forgotten when they started using unscrupulous methods in economic relations.

When Donald Trump ran for re-election, he sharply criticised Joe Biden for using the dollar as a sanctions instrument, saying that these actions by Sleepy Joe undermined the reputation of the American currency. As soon as he was elected president, he started doing similar, if not the exact same, things. He accused BRICS of abandoning the dollar and using other currencies, primarily the national currencies of the group’s countries. President Vladimir Putin said on numerous occasions that if was not us but the West and primarily the United States that moved away from the dollar by trying to use the dollar to get unfair advantages.

So, this is an interesting era. I have no doubt that it will be an era and that it will be quite long. We will do everything in our power to uphold Russian interests every day and at every stage in various spheres, including finance, the economy, transport and technology, as well as on the frontlines of the special military operation, because a great deal will depend on that. There is no doubt that the achievement of the goals of the special military operation will substantially strengthen our positions on the international stage.

Question: We were just talking about a multipolar world and its structure. Washington still sees itself as the hegemon that will decide where there is war and where there is peace. And if we look at how military action against Iran was justified, they moved away from the messianic promotion of democracy worldwide and instead justified the attack on Iran using the Old Testament and religious interpretations. Moreover, this was done at a fairly high level – US Secretary of Defence Peter Hegseth even spoke about it. Do you think this is an attempt to replace secular international law with divine providence?

Sergey Lavrov: There is a movement in the United States that declares itself Christian but promotes a very specific interpretation of Christian commandments and values – one that is closely intertwined with Zionism and Judaism. So I would not take seriously the statements of certain figures in the current administration claiming that the Old Testament justifies US actions. That is a dubious interpretation. I think it is not serious for politicians to say such things. All it tells us is that they have no other arguments left to justify their actions – actions that have received no support anywhere, including within the United States itself.

President of the United States Donald Trump at one point said he would destroy Iran as a civilisation. That is a rather ambitious goal, but no one doubts it is unattainable. Now the Americans are demanding that Iran renounce its nuclear weapons and open the Strait of Hormuz. But before the unprovoked American-Israeli aggression began on February 28 this year, the Strait of Hormuz was open, free, and for everyone – no one encountered any problems.

Before this aggression, a fatwa issued by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who was later assassinated – it was a political killing – was in effect in Iran, prohibiting the possession of nuclear weapons. The IAEA has regularly confirmed that there are no signs of Iran’s nuclear energy programme being diverted to military purposes. Iran’s entire nuclear programme was under IAEA monitoring.

Everything that is now being demanded of Iran was already the case before this aggression began. The United States, judging by its statements and actions, clearly understands this. It is rightly uncomfortable with the current situation and unsure how to resolve it. It is for them to sort out – that’s their responsibility. But we strongly support the dialogue that is – such as it is – under way between Washington and Tehran, mediated by the Pakistanis. The Saudis and Egyptians are also keen to help. It is crucial that this dialogue continues. And any agreement reached must take into account the interests of Iran and its neighbours.

We believe it is important to advance dialogue between the Arab monarchies and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We are ready to facilitate that. We have a Security Concept for the Persian Gulf. We recently updated it and sent it to the six GCC countries and to Tehran. We will encourage dialogue. But first, we must completely rule out any future military action.

Question: It is noteworthy that the very same individuals who were negotiating with Iran before the outset of military action, and who pledged that dialogue would continue, are now engaged in dialogue with us. The episodic meetings with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner constitute essentially the entirety of our dialogue with Washington at present. Does the fact that the individuals conducting dialogue with us are responsible in the US for virtually all wars not serve to exacerbate the situation?

Sergey Lavrov: We have no objection to each country determining for itself who its chief negotiator shall be, nor to the number of agendas that negotiator shall oversee. The crucial point is that what is spoken of and what is agreed upon must be implemented.

August 15 of this year will mark one year since the summit in Alaska took place, where, following a review of the American proposals on Ukraine, the Russian leadership accepted them. Since then, we have observed no progress whatsoever, nor any desire to persuade Ukraine to accept those American proposals. All of Joe Biden’s sanctions continue to be extended – without any change whatsoever. In addition, sanctions imposed by the Donald Trump administration have been added against Lukoil, Rosneft, and much else besides.

The Pentagon openly supports the purchase by Europeans of American weaponry for Ukraine and joint programmes with the Ukrainians for the development of various types of armaments. What is more, the US Department of Defence budget includes a line item to fund security assistance for Ukraine through to 2029.

This no longer constitutes the Biden legacy – this is a decision of the current administration.

Our American counterparts, including the two negotiators you mentioned, assert that once they have extricated themselves from the inherited Ukrainian issue, they will be in a position to foster mutually advantageous collaborative ventures. However, they stipulate that the resolution of the Ukrainian issue is a prerequisite. We have proceeded, and continue to proceed, on the premise that the Ukrainian problem was resolved in August 2025 in Anchorage, to the extent that is contingent upon the Russian Federation. We accepted the proposal of the United States.

They acted as mediators, yet when one party accepted their mediation proposal, they inexplicably became dispassionate towards this process and exerted no pressure upon Ukraine. Moreover, they themselves succumbed to considerable pressure from their European allies. US President Donald Trump has declared that Ukraine will not join NATO, whilst NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, yesterday in Kiev, declared that it would.

Europe is determined to demonstrate that it is the one who will call the tune and will not renounce its support for the Nazi regime. It is to this very regime that Europe promises security guarantees once hostilities cease, a regime that has banned the Russian language and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church in defiance of all international norms, including the UN Charter, numerous conventions, and the Constitution of Ukraine itself (enacting laws that violate their own Constitution). No one has yet raised this matter with them.
Yesterday, I read that the new Prime Minister of Hungary, Péter Magyar, had announced that they had reached an agreement with the Ukrainians on restoring the rights of the Hungarian national minority in Ukraine. And now, it appears, Hungary may lift its veto on commencing negotiations with Kiev regarding Ukraine’s accession to the European Union. This signifies only one thing: that even Hungary, which comprehends the predicament of national minorities residing in Ukraine, is removing this barrier, and the European Commission is prepared to initiate negotiations. They are eager to commence negotiation processes with the Ukrainians as early as this week or next, disregarding the gross violation of the UN Charter and the Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.

In other words, the Russophobic subtext of this entire endeavour to integrate Ukraine into the European Union is not even concealed. Therefore, with regard to negotiators, President Vladimir Putin has reiterated on numerous occasions that we remain open to negotiations, we will always be ready to listen, but that our position, which we solidified on the basis of the American proposal in Anchorage, remains unchanged – the paramount consideration is that these approaches be advanced responsibly by the very authors of the initiative.

The final remark I wish to make concerning mediation and negotiators is as follows. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in Congress the other day, stated that the United States cannot serve as a mediator because it supports Ukraine, including through arms supplies. Thus, the circle is closed.

Question: Is the absence of a US ambassador to Russia hindering dialogue with the United States?

Sergey Lavrov: It was the Americans’ decision. Every country has a right to determine the level of its diplomatic representation abroad. If the current level suits Washington, it’s their choice. Of course, comprehensive normalisation should include a full-fledged head of the diplomatic mission, namely, an ambassador. We have made many proposals to the Americans to normalise our relations. In particular, during my meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Riyadh in February 2025, I proposed starting with lifting sanctions against members of both Russian and American parliaments, because nearly all of them are under mutual sanctions. There has been no response to this, although I raised the issue several times.

Likewise, there is no reaction to our calls for returning our diplomatic property, which has been illegally seized by Barack Obama before President Trump’s first term. They only hint that a settlement in Ukraine should come first, facilitating mutual advance in other spheres. We discussed the settlement of the Ukraine crisis and accepted the American vision suggested in Alaska in August 2025. It is a vicious circle, and we are going around in circles. We appreciate the fact that US negotiators – Special Presidential Envoy Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner – have very good feelings towards our country, as we can judge from their statements. They are sincerely interested in normalising our relations, but this interest has not led to anything practical so far.

Question: Do you have a feeling that President Trump is using the “madman theory,” which Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan used before him? When he attacked Iran, he said that he had killed all Iranian leaders, including Ayatollah Khamenei, and then he said that the conflict should be settled through political and diplomatic means. Can irrationality be an advantage in negotiations?

Sergey Lavrov: It’s difficult to say. What the US administration is doing on the foreign policy stage goes beyond any international legal framework. President Trump has openly stated that he doesn’t need international law, that he has his own morality and his own instincts.

This is exactly what we are watching now. He has abducted President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro because he allegedly led a drug cartel. As soon as they abducted him, it became clear that the matter concerned oil, which the Americans made no secret of. They announced that from now on they will be involved in the management of Venezuela’s oil industry.

Iran has been designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, and so must be destroyed as a civilisation. The Americans have proclaimed many goals but few of them have been attained.

Storm clouds are gathering over Cuba, which the Americans are closely eyeing. It is possible that Washington will take very dangerous actions before the mid-term congressional elections in November 2026 to prove the effectiveness of the Republican administration. This would be highly regrettable.

As I have said, we are ready for dialogue. We appreciate the fact that the United States, unlike the other Western countries (excluding Slovakia and, until recently, Hungary), was the only country ready for dialogue. The United States was the only country that recognised the need to remove the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis, that is, problems created for Russia’s security through drawing Ukraine into NATO, and the need to accept the reality created on the ground following the referendums in south-eastern Ukraine. However, we don’t see that Washington is willing to reinforce this approach, which we have supported, with Ukraine’s involvement and to convince Europe not to stand in the way. This is most probably the biggest problem now because Europe wants to be the tail that wags the dog. It’s difficult to say who the tail is, but it is most likely the United States. There is no denying that it is the leader of the Western world. Europe would like to significantly guide, if not control, the leader’s actions.

Question: Clouds seem to be gathering over the near abroad as well. Given the aggressive anti-Russia actions, is there a chance that the near abroad would eventually become the far abroad?

Sergey Lavrov: Where exactly are the clouds gathering?

Question: Over the near abroad. First Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, and now Armenia. Who’s next?

Sergey Lavrov: The West has never concealed its desire to take the benefits of cooperating with Russia away from our neighbours, so that they would pay the price for the adventure that the West has always contemplated and continues to contemplate, namely, the containment of Russia, or, better yet, its dismemberment. These ideas began circulating particularly strongly in the minds of Western elites after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the CIS and other entities, such as the EAEU and the CSTO. The West effectively started with Ukraine in the 1990s being fully aware of the precepts of Zbigniew Brzezinski, who argued that Russia and Ukraine constituted a truly powerful force, whereas Russia without Ukraine was merely a middle-ranking country. I will leave these comparisons on his conscience, but the fact remains that Ukraine has always been the most sensitive pressure point for Russia from the West’s perspective. When the first Maidan took place in 2004, Viktor Yanukovych had won the second round of the presidential election, but the West did everything possible to ensure that Ukraine’s Constitutional Court ordered a third round of voting, despite the Constitution providing for only two rounds.

Under Western pressure, the Constitutional Court violated its own country’s Constitution by that ruling. The third round was organised in such a way that Viktor Yushchenko, the West’s candidate of choice, emerged victorious. We all know what came next. Yet in 2004, before that third round took place, which was long before Crimea and before any of the problems we later encountered, the West wanted to bring its own man to power in Ukraine. Back then, it had no grievances to raise against us. Ukraine was a CIS member; we traded freely and enjoyed a free-trade zone.

In 2004, European leaders, including the Belgian foreign minister of the time, who I have vivid memories of and who perhaps inadvertently blurted out what everyone else was thinking, were publicly declaring before the third round that Ukrainians had to make a choice between Europe and Russia. This either-or thinking has never left the supposedly wise minds of the West. That was 22 years ago, when no clouds appeared to be gathering. We know what happened afterwards.

The second Maidan in 2013, which culminated in a coup in February 2014, was likewise triggered by the EU demanding that Ukraine choose between them and Russia. When Ukraine was being dragged into the EU, we made it clear to our Ukrainian neighbours that associate membership which was the first step proposed back then would entail tariff and trade obligations incompatible with the CIS free-trade zone. Duty-free European goods entering Ukraine would then flow into our market, despite the tariff protections we maintained in a number of sectors. We suggested that the EU, Ukraine and Russia meet to discuss ways of resolving the issue.

Then President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso argued that Russia had no business interfering in Europe-Ukraine relations, because the EU did not meddle in our relations with Canada or anyone else for that matter. The entire approach was based on the confrontational logic of either-or, either with us or against us. That mentality remains in place today. Europe will not support any settlement that could in any way remove the Nazi regime led by Vladimir Zelensky or whoever may succeed him from its sphere of control.

There was also a completely obvious and overt attempt to break Georgia away from Russia. Then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other US officials travelled there. In April 2008, shortly before the war in South Ossetia, the Russia-NATO summit took place in Bucharest. At that summit, NATO adopted a separate decision declaring that Ukraine and Georgia would become NATO members. When President Vladimir Putin asked during the Russia-NATO meeting why they had done this, the response was vague and unconvincing.

It was clear that Mikheil Saakashvili lost it. He decided he can get away with anything, because he would soon join NATO. He authorised the aggression against South Ossetia, including attacks on Russian peacekeepers. That aggression resulted in numerous civilian casualties. A designated EU commission later confirmed that he had started the war. Yet accusations that Russia occupies South Ossetia and Abkhazia continue to roll off others like water off a duck’s back. No one wants to acknowledge that.

Similarly, we are accused of having annexed Crimea in 2014. Even then, while still engaging with Europe, we pointed out that this had been preceded by a coup. Two days later, the coup leaders announced plans to revoke the status of the Russian language and sent armed thugs to assault the Crimean parliament building. In response, the people of Crimea held a referendum. But the EU can’t be bothered by any of that. That part of history has effectively been cancelled. In the eyes of Europeans, everything began with Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea.

By extension, there was no attack on South Ossetia in their narrative. In their view, Russia simply occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia which were part of Georgia. That remains their position to this day.

As for Georgia, its current leadership continues to affirm its commitment to joining the EU. But if that happens, the country may have to cease being the agricultural powerhouse for which it is known. Every agricultural country that joined the EU during the second and third waves of enlargement saw its agricultural sector decline, because within the EU there are established players with their own farmers and interests. Today, 70 percent of Georgia’s trade is conducted with Russia and other CIS countries. China and other partners account for sizable portions of Georgia’s trade as well. All of this would be called into question if Georgia pursued EU membership being fully aware of the requirements Brussels placed on new entrants, not least the requirement to join sanctions against Russia and align with all foreign-policy decisions of the European Commission.

I believe there are pragmatists in Georgia. We maintain regular relations. Russian tourists enjoy visiting the country and appreciating its natural beauty and hospitality.

Armenia is now facing the same EU-driven either-or formula. They are forced to make a choice. President Vladimir Putin discussed this issue in detail during his May 9 news conference. Armenia must decide whether to remain in the EAEU or to join the EU. We will respect whatever choice the Armenian people make. But that choice should actually be made.

Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan argues that a referendum will be announced only when the issue reaches a critical point. What exactly does that mean? A few days ago, during the election campaign, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated when he was setting a dove of peace free that he could not force Armenia into choosing either direction. According to him, his duty is to present alternatives, while the Armenian people are to make the choice. If that is the case, then those alternatives should be clearly presented and a referendum should be held. If Yerevan’s position is that a referendum will be announced only when it is already time to give a final answer to the EU, then it is not an entirely democratic approach.

Armenia has adopted a law launching the country’s formal path towards the EU. The fact of passing such a law means you put the question bluntly. In that case, stand by your words and put the matter before the people.

Russia
Source: english.spbu.ru

Project Office for Arctic Development (PORA): Maria Lagutina: The Arctic has become a global BRICS arena
Maria Lagutina, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal ‘Arctic 2035: Current Issues, Challenges, Solutions’, published by the Expert Centre ‘Project Office for Arctic Development’ and Professor in the Department of World Politics at St. Petersburg State University, took part in an expert discussion on Russia and BRICS cooperation in the Arctic held on 14 May 2025 at the Eurasia Today International Multimedia Centre. The event took place as part of the ‘Eurasian Vector: Our Neighbours’ project. Here is a report on her presentation.

Maria Lagutina emphasised that the primary challenge for Arctic cooperation within BRICS arises from the members’ differing ‘Arctic identities’. Russia is the only Arctic state in the group, while the other members have varying interests and a significantly lower level of engagement with the Arctic agenda compared to the Russian Federation.

Contrary to concerns that BRICS’ expansion — including countries from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia — would stagnate Arctic affairs, this has not occurred. Professor Lagutina highlighted the growing interest in the Arctic among non-Arctic countries, particularly the new BRICS members. She underscored the globalisation of the Arctic agenda, as this macro-region now attracts states from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East due to unique opportunities, such as access to new transport routes, energy projects, and climate diplomacy.
According to Professor Lagutina, the United Arab Emirates has adopted the most proactive stance among the new BRICS members, having developed its own polar strategy in 2024. Iran is also showing interest, exploring ways to connect the International North-South Transport Corridor with Arctic routes. Egypt and Ethiopia, she noted, are primarily focused on the climate agenda and adaptation to climate change.

Non-Arctic countries are engaging actively through climate and research initiatives, with cooperation advancing via non-political research projects and working groups.

Maria Lagutina concluded that the Arctic is no longer seen as a peripheral region in world politics but has instead become a symbol of global influence. For China, India, the UAE, and other rising powers, participation in Arctic affairs is now part of their broader struggle for a new world order — a way to affirm their status as emerging global centres of power.

A recording of the broadcast is available via the link.