Russia
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org

The BRICS summit in India in 2026 succeeded in providing the key deliverables related to the cohesion of the bloc and the objectives set by India’s presidency with respect to boosting BRICS economic cooperation at the micro-level of companies and key sectors. In this respect, most of the observers rightly pointed to the unanimous adoption of the Summit Declaration as well as the thaw in India-China relations as the most important results of the BRICS summit contributing to BRICS unity. But what was no less significant was also India’s role in further advancing the BRICS+ format, with the BRICS+ summit meetings featuring representatives of key regional integration arrangements, development institutions and global organizations. With BRICS+ summits now being held consecutively each year after the 2022 re-launch by China, the BRICS+ format is becoming a systemic and critical part of the group’s outreach to the global community.

After the bloc’s expansion and the creation of the BRICS partnership belt, the circle of emerging economies participating in the BRICS summits widened significantly. In 2026 all representatives of the partnership belt and the BRICS core attended the BRICS/BRICS+ summit, with Saudi Arabia also attending the meetings, being represented by Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
In terms of the regional integration arrangements invited to the BRICS+ meetings[1], the BRICS summit featured yet gain ASEAN – this time the regional bloc’s presidency was represented by Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., President of Republic of the Philippines. An invitation has also been extended to Uruguay as the chair in Latin America’s CELAC integration bloc, with Mario Lubetkin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay attending the BRICS+ summit. The African Union was represented by Evariste Ndayishimiye, President of Republic of Burundi, while the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was represented by Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, Minister of Foreign Affairs the Kingdom of Bahrain.

The 2025 BRICS summit in Brazil broke new ground with global organizations such as the WTO being invited to attend the BRICS+ summit. In 2026 India continued with this important trend by inviting Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of WTO as well as Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of United Nations, also attended the BRICS+ meetings delivering his address to the attendees and holding meetings with the leaders of BRICS member economies, including with the leaders of India and Egypt.

Finally, with respect to the BRICS+ format Brazil’s BRICS Presidency also expanded the scope of participants to include representatives of development institutions and in 2026 India replicated this approach by inviting Dilma Rousseff, President of the New Development Bank (NDB) and Zou Jiayi, President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). In effect, the participation of AIIB as well as the WHO and the WTO may be seen as an expansion of the BRICS+ format to what we referred to as the BRICS++ format that transcends the limits of the Global South and includes global organizations as well as the regional development institutions with participation from advanced economies[2].

With China taking over the BRICS presidency in 2027, it would appear to be challenging to further expand the scope of the BRICS+/BRICS++ format beyond the already quite inclusive composition of participants exhibited in the 2025-2026 summits. One possible further extension could involve mega-regional blocs of the global economy such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in which China is playing a key role together with ASEAN countries.

But in the end the numerical expansion of regional and global organizations attending the BRICS+ summits at some point will need to be transformed into a qualitative approach of building cooperative platforms across the regional integration arrangements of the Global South with portfolios of potential connectivity and trade liberalization projects being formed across the BRICS+ circle. Perhaps going forward some of the BRICS+ summits may also feature the launching of dialogues between regional integration blocs along the lines of how China hosted the RCEP-CPTPP dialogue on the margins of the 32nd APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting in May 2026[3]. Such a pragmatic and practical approach would position the BRICS+ platform as one of the engines of open dialogue and trade liberalization in a global economy whose vitality and growth momentum has been greatly undermined by populism, geopolitical fragmentation and waves of protectionism.

[1] https://www.mea.gov.in/media-advisory?dtl/41762
[2] https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/08/09/what-are-the-modalities-of-brics-expansion/
[3] https://asean.org/secretary-general-of-asean-participates-in-the-dialogue-between-rcep-and-cptpp-members/

Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
Image via the official website of the Government of India: https://www.pib.gov.in/ShowAlbum.aspx?albumid=229439&reg=3&lang=1
Date:12 Sep 2026; Photo Id: 216325

Russia
Source: valdaiclub.com

The SCO’s mission and its very nature as an international organisation have been the subject of much debate. Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club, explores one potential source of clues towards the self-perception of the SCO—the organisation’s founding documents and numerous summit declarations.

The recent summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Bishkek marked the organisation’s twenty-fifth anniversary. The SCO makes a significant contribution to ensuring security across the space of Greater Eurasia. Over these years, an institutional structure has been formed and now functions effectively within the SCO. Annual meetings of the Council of Heads of State are held, and regular meetings are organised at the interdepartmental level. Day-to-day cooperation is also developing. From the outset, and to this day, cooperation on strengthening security has been and remains one of the SCO’s main priorities. This is also historically determined: as is well known, the SCO’s prehistory lies in Soviet-Chinese confidence-building measures, both on border issues and in the broader aspects of mutual security.

Naturally, over the years of the SCO’s work, the organisation’s activities have acquired a far broader dimension, and its day-to-day projects are not confined to security matters alone. But one way or another, the SCO can still, to a certain extent, be called a specialised international organisation that focuses chiefly on a single priority task. This becomes more apparent when the SCO is compared with structures of genuinely comprehensive cooperation that operate across a wide range of fields. BRICS is one such example.

In this respect, owing to this specialised priority, the SCO’s documents have often devoted less attention than those of BRICS, for example, to questions of common and shared values, to the drafting of appropriate formulations, and to their subsequent crystallisation. The evolution of BRICS’s values platform has already been examined in our Valdai Report. Nevertheless, the anniversary year marking the SCO’s twenty-fifth birthday offers a good opportunity to turn our attention to the values-related component of the SCO’s documents and practice as well.

It should also be borne in mind that, unlike BRICS, the SCO is an institutionalised international organisation. The SCO has a founding document—the Charter of the SCO—which was signed on 7 June 2002 and entered into force on 19 September 2003. It is on this basis, and within the constraints it sets out, that the SCO builds its practical work.

If we examine the text of the SCO Charter, we find that it says nothing at all about values. Instead, the Charter contains a dedicated Article 2, entitled “Principles”. It is on these principles that the SCO bases its activities.

These principles include the following: mutual respect for sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and the inviolability of state borders; non-aggression; non-interference in internal affairs; the non-use of force in international relations; the equality of all member states; the peaceful settlement of disagreements between member states; the non-targeting of the SCO against other states; and others. A particularly telling principle is that of the phased implementation of joint actions in areas of common interest. This emphasis on phased implementation as a guiding principle actually explains a great deal. In any case, in our view, the occasionally inflated expectations of the SCO’s activities, and the disappointment sometimes closely bound up with them—that “nothing happens beyond the summits”—are, firstly, simply mistaken, and, secondly, find their explanation precisely in this fundamental principle of phased implementation.

The very absence of the term “values” from the SCO Charter is likewise perfectly explicable, and by no means diminishes the level of mutual trust between member states. Let us recall that, in the case of BRICS too, the term “values” was far from an immediate feature of the final declarations, only becoming firmly established there from the mid-2010s onwards. Before that, the term used to characterise BRICS’s internal cohesion was, among others, precisely the term “principles”, just as with the SCO.

Moreover, in 2002 the term “values” was not yet as politically fashionable as it is today, and it was used fairly rarely in the documents of the leading countries of the non-Western world. At that time, in these countries—Russia included—the word “values” was more often postulated in the political lexicon in a negative sense, as “values imposed by the West”, and therefore as something requiring resistance. The realisation that this is a game two can play, and that in order to effectively strengthen solidarity among non-Western countries they needed to formulate their own platform of shared values, came much later. And the work of ensuring that non-Western values are perceived as comprehensible, attractive, and at the same time not banal—not simply in the style of “we are for all things good and against all things bad”—continues, in our view, with mixed success, to this very day.

It should further be noted that, with regard to one particular term (and its substantive significance), the SCO chronologically outpaced BRICS by a considerable margin. This is the term “spirit”. In the declarations of the annual BRICS summits, the term “BRICS spirit” and its constituent elements first appeared during China’s chairmanship in 2017. The “spirit” then disappeared from BRICS documents for several years. The term returned once again in 2022, once more during China’s chairmanship. But thereafter, in all subsequent BRICS summit declarations of 2023­25, whose initial drafts were prepared by other countries, the term “BRICS spirit” was consistently present.

In the case of the SCO, however, the term “spirit” appeared in the very first declaration following the Shanghai summit of 15 June 2001, when the “Shanghai Five”, previously existing as an informal grouping, was transformed into a fully-fledged international organisation, the SCO. In this declaration, the “Shanghai spirit” was mentioned as a separate point, characterised by mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, mutual consultation, respect for cultural diversity, and a striving for shared development. It was emphasised that this “Shanghai spirit” constituted an invaluable asset accumulated by the countries of the region over years of cooperation, and one that would be further enhanced in future.

It is evident from these SCO and BRICS texts that the term “spirit” is rooted, first and foremost, in contemporary Chinese political tradition, since in every case it first appeared in documents in years when the summits were held in China. This is, in a sense, a Chinese peculiarity. That said, the term “spirit”, even if not immediately, subsequently became firmly established in BRICS declarations; and in the case of the SCO, a year later, in 2002, when the summit was held not in China but in Saint Petersburg, the term “spirit” entered the preamble of the SCO Charter. In the Charter, however, the epithet “Shanghai” disappeared in relation to the spirit; there it is referred to simply as the “spirit of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, mutual consultation, respect for cultural diversity, and a striving for shared development”.

In addition, and relevant to today’s political ideology, is the civilisational approach reflected in the Shanghai Declaration of 2001. It specifically noted “mutual respect and mutual trust between states belonging to different civilisations and bearing different cultural traditions”. A year later, however, the mention of civilisations disappeared from the preamble of the SCO Charter.

If, in this context, we examine the preamble of the current Bishkek Declaration of the SCO Council of Heads of State of 1 September 2026, we find it emphasises “firm commitment to the goals and principles enshrined in the SCO Charter, as well as to the further strengthening of good-neighbourliness, friendship, and effective multifaceted cooperation”. Moreover, this declaration once again employed precisely the term “Shanghai spirit”, which is embodied in the principles set out in the preamble of the SCO Charter.

It is clear that, since the constituent elements of this SCO spirit are fixed in the legal text of the Charter, their formulations remain unshakeable even twenty-five years on. Herein lies the difference between the spirit of the SCO and the spirit of BRICS, where, from year to year, various elements of this spirit are added or removed by successive chairing countries, depending on their own national particularities. And the definition of the BRICS spirit turns out, each year, to be at least slightly different. But in the case of the SCO, it is telling that the epithet “Shanghai” has returned—an epithet which, unlike the spirit itself, is not legally fixed.

It should also be noted that the particular attention devoted in the Bishkek Declaration to the SCO’s commitment to the Shanghai spirit and to the SCO’s principles is not especially typical of other SCO summit declarations in recent years; there is some variation here. For example, in the declarations following “non-anniversary” summits, a preamble is practically absent altogether, and the description of the international situation and security challenges begins right from the outset. In the declarations issued in Astana in 2024, in Delhi in 2023, and in Moscow in 2020, neither the “Shanghai spirit” nor simply the “spirit” was mentioned (although the Moscow declaration does contain the term “SCO space”). In the declarations issued in Tianjin in 2025 (naturally enough), in Samarkand in 2022, and in Bishkek in 2019, there is a mention of the “Shanghai spirit”, but it is located not at the beginning of the text but deep within the first section.

It is clear that the specific character of the current declaration is explained by its anniversary nature; the declaration issued in Dushanbe for the previous anniversary—the twentieth, in 2021—was composed in exactly the same way, likewise featuring a lengthy preamble that mentions the Shanghai spirit and commitment to the principles. Nevertheless, this is highly telling.

That said, it is entirely natural that a terminological analysis of the texts, and of the values platforms they reflect, merely supplements the far larger picture of practical cooperation between the SCO countries achieved over these twenty-five years.

Russia
Source: mid.ru

Your Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

We appreciate your interest in our assessment of the developments surrounding Ukraine.

This is by no means our first roundtable discussion. All previous discussions touched matters of international law in one way or another. The Ukraine crisis is a textbook example showing how the West and its proxies, to put it mildly, have consistently disregarded their international obligations.

Today we will focus on a legal analysis of what is going on around the Kiev regime. Since 2014, the year of the bloody coup, Western capitals have turned a blind eye to the fact that the ultranationalist, not to say neo-Nazi, regime that came to power in Ukraine has been destroying everything in that country that has anything to do with Russia.

The linguistic and cultural rights of Russians and Russian speakers are being violated. These rights were outlawed in all areas, including education of all levels, the mass media, culture, and so on long before the special military operation began. Freedom of speech, assembly, and religion, as well as the right to participate in the administration of state affairs, are being violated as well.

Ukraine’s political party arena has been cleansed of political forces that take independent positions in one way or another and do not share the views of the Kiev regime.

The fundamental human right - the right to life - is not being respected, either. You regularly see footage of the activities of the “people hunters” who round up young and not so young people on the streets of Kiev and other Ukrainian cities and drag them into vehicles to be forcibly shipped off to the front without any call-up papers or official mobilisation. No doubt, that hunt will soon target women.

The rights that are being trampled upon by the Kiev regime are enshrined in the 1966 International Covenants on Human Rights and a whole range of universal human rights conventions. However, this has never stopped the West from doing what it’s doing. Under the protection of its “masters,” Kiev now also believes it’s free to do as it pleases. The West is fond of interpreting the UN Charter, but does so selectively and in its own interests, picking out the principles and provisions that suit its political plans at any given moment.

When they needed to break Kosovo away from Serbia, they unilaterally proclaimed its independence and stated that it was about the right of peoples to self-determination. Several years later, after a referendum in Crimea - there had been no referendum in Kosovo, though - they said it was not about the right of peoples to self-determination in Crimea, and the principle of Ukraine’s territorial integrity must prevail.
These examples abound. Once again, I will refer to the consensus-based 1970 UN Declaration. It is called the “Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations”. It is a substantial volume, which took a long time to work out. In the part that is of interest to us today, it explicitly states that the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity apply to states “conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples as described above and thus possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction as to race, creed or colour.”

This line of reasoning was first used in the 1960s, when African peoples gained political independence during the process of decolonisation supported primarily by the Soviet Union and a number of other countries. African peoples clearly demonstrated that the Western colonial powers who governed them did not represent the people living on African soil.

In the same way, the putschists, who were genuine neo-Nazis - this is what they should be called after all - who illegally seized power in Kiev in February 2014 did not represent the people of Crimea or the people of Novorossiya and Donbass. Clearly, all stages of this crisis are steeped in blatant legal cynicism.

I mentioned February 2014. The coup took place the following day, or rather the next morning, after an agreement between the President and the opposition had been reached and signed the day before, on February 21. Under this agreement, the President voluntarily relinquished most of his powers. It also provided for early presidential elections, which he would almost certainly have lost and the opposition would have won. To prepare for the elections, they agreed - and put it in writing - to establish a government of national unity.

This document was guaranteed by the foreign ministers of France, Germany (Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the current President of Germany), and Poland (Radosław Sikorski) who holds the same post to this day. The next morning, the coup took place, and no government of national unity was formed. Those who had signed the document on behalf of the opposition together with the President went out into the square and said, “Congratulate us. They have created a “government of victors.”

Do you get the difference in the mindset of the “government of national unity” and a “government of victors?” They defeated their enemies, and still regard as enemies the people living in Crimea, Donbass, and Novorossiya, which used to be part of the Ukrainian state, but categorically broke with it after that state became openly Nazi. The West’s position can be described by what happened the morning after the coup. We tried to convey to the Germans, the French, and the Poles that they guaranteed peace, yet a coup had taken place, and asked them to talk sense into their protégés and tell them to comply with what they signed just a few hours earlier. No reaction whatsoever.

On February 23, 2014, that is, a day after the coup, French President François Hollande got on the phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Later, Ms Merkel said they had stressed that, following a few days of violence, the democratic transition that was getting under way which was in line with the aspirations of the Ukrainian people.

Understandably, the British were part of it as well. On February 22, 2014, British Foreign Secretary William Hague had the following to say: “Events in the last 24 hours show the will of Ukrainians to move towards a different future, and ensure that the voices of those who have protested courageously over several months are heard.” To reiterate, all of that happened after the opposition, under the EU guarantees, had signed an agreement with the President on settling the crisis.

That is why our Western colleagues, people with colonial DNA – their colonial and neocolonial instincts have not disappeared – instinctively, or perhaps consciously (probably many of them consciously) act precisely in line with their colonial habits and ways.

With regard to what happened next, a year after the coup, after Crimea, the Lugansk and the Donetsk people’s republics rose up against the putschists, refused to obey them, and were declared terrorists, a war was launched against them in gross violation of international humanitarian law. You are aware of that.

The fighting continued for a year. Then, in the capital of Belarus, Minsk, a Package of Measures, the Minsk Agreements to end this conflict, was signed. Several days later, this document was endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution. The Package of Measures was signed on February 12, and on February 17 it was endorsed by a Security Council resolution. Nothing came of it. Yet Article 25 of the UN Charter says that everyone is obliged to comply with Security Council resolutions.

Despite this, the West turned a blind eye as first Petr Poroshenko and then Vladimir Zelensky grossly refused to act on the Minsk Agreements. Later, both Angela Merkel and François Hollande, who had signed this document, publicly admitted in 2022 that no one in the West had intended to implement it. They just needed to buy time to flood the Kiev regime with weapons for confronting and waging war against the Russian Federation.

In March 2022, one month into the special military operation, Ukraine asked for talks and, following a series of rounds of consultations in Belarus, proposed the principles for settling the situation in Istanbul, Türkiye.

These principles were supported by the Russian side. Both we and the Ukrainians initialled this document, which served as the basis for drafting a legally binding treaty. The Ukrainians were told not to implement this document, which had also effectively been agreed upon and which provided certain rights and imposed certain obligations on the parties.

Head of the Ukrainian delegation David Arakhamia, the current leader of the Servant of the People Party in the Verkhovnaya Rada, had the following to say, “Russia was willing to end the war if we agreed to undertake not to join NATO.” He later went on television to say that that then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had come and told them not to do so.

Everyone remembers what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said back then, quote, “We sincerely took every step in these negotiations… We worked together until Boris Johnson abandoned peace efforts.” That was his diplomatic way to describe the role played by the British leader at the time.

The West disregards international law and has even coined a legal term, “lawfare.” It is an Anglo-Saxon invention that describes the mindset of our “friends.”

Following Crimea’s reunification with Russia and the launch of the special military operation, numerous judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings have been initiated against our country. President Vladimir Putin recently mentioned that over 30,000 sanctions had been imposed on Russia. That is twice as many as all sanctions imposed on all other countries around the world combined.

In addition to sanctions, both quasi-judicial and judicial proceedings have been initiated, but, to reiterate, the sanctions were imposed before the outcomes of these proceedings. The results that are already available in sufficient numbers look dismal for our Western colleagues.

The purpose of these proceedings was not to settle existing disputes. They were launched concurrently with large-scale political, economic, and coercive measures, including sanctions. This is the hybrid war.

So it was not about using the legal mechanisms in good faith. The West did not even want to wait for the outcomes of all the legal proceedings it had initiated. It needed to generate geopolitical and propaganda noise and attempt to sow hatred of the Russian Federation around the world.

The “legal aggression” against Russia has a long history. In the past, the European Court of Human Rights was regularly involved in it, even before the Ukraine events. Since 2014, this aggression has become systematic. In an attempt to delegitimise the historical choice made by the peoples of Crimea, Donbass, and Novorossiya in full compliance with international law and the principle of self-determination of peoples, which we discussed today, the Kiev regime began accusing us of financing terrorism in Donbass and of racial discrimination against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea.

Two accusations – “terrorism” and “racial discrimination.” This matter has been before the UN International Court of Justice since 2017. It has been under consideration for eight years and comprises tens of thousands of pages of documentation.

Ukraine’s interests were represented by highly remunerated American and European counsel. Yet, notwithstanding all these exertions, the claim failed utterly – both in respect of the terrorism allegation and the assertion of discrimination.

In January 2024, the International Court issued its final judgment. It determined that Russia did not finance terrorism. The Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics are not terrorist organisations. There is no discrimination against Crimean Tatars or Ukrainians in Crimea. The proscription of the extremist entity “Mejlis” was lawful.

This judgment signifies something of considerable importance. At the very least, it renders meaningless all the numerous resolutions and reports issued by international bodies, which reiterate the assertions regarding discrimination in Crimea. I urge you to draw the particular attention of your capitals to this matter, for these resolutions and reports continue to be adopted and debated as if the principal judicial organ of the United Nations did not exist and as if its judgments were of no consequence. This constitutes a flagrant disregard for the ruling of the International Court.

The unlawful unilateral sanctions to which I have already alluded also remain in force, and these are motivated directly by fabrications concerning alleged discrimination against national minorities, amongst other pretexts.

The International Court declined to recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics as terrorist entities, thereby devaluing and nullifying Kiev’s attempts to characterise its war against its own former citizens as an anti-terrorist operation. They were declared terrorists after the coup d’état. When the outcomes of that coup were refused recognition in Crimea and Donbass, they were branded as terrorists. But the Court, and I reiterate, ruled that neither the Donetsk nor the Lugansk People’s Republic constitutes a terrorist organisation. In essence, this affirms the legitimacy of the decision made by the peoples of Donbass in favour of independence and subsequent integration into the Russian Federation.

Ukraine’s second claim against Russia also collapsed. This was filed in February 2022, when Kiev accused us of abusing the Genocide Convention by defending the people of Donbass from genocide. Such an accusation is nonsense, sheer absurdity. Nevertheless, the claim was supported by 32 Western states, primarily European Union and NATO members, which entered the proceedings as so-called third parties – though, in reality, they intervened clearly on the side of the Kiev regime. This represented the first instance of mass intervention in proceedings in the history of the Court and, naturally, we can regard it as nothing other than an attempt to exert collective political pressure upon the principal judicial organs of the United Nations. Yet, even this proved futile.

Two years later, in February 2024, the Court delivered its judgment: there were no violations of the Genocide Convention in Russia’s actions. Full stop. All claims against Russia were dismissed. Yet one matter remained before the Court – whether Ukraine itself had perpetrated genocide in Donbass. This issue remains under the Court’s consideration, and at the request of that body, we have provided the requisite evidence. In December 2025, the Court accepted our evidence and our claims in their entirety for review, and we anticipate a verdict in the near future. Yet, following these developments, half of the Western states that had joined as third parties withdrew from the proceedings, having recognised the futility and ignominy of their position.

Nevertheless, the evolution of events in the International Court and its judgment are being entirely disregarded by numerous international organisations and certain individuals. Only recently, the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Nicolas Levrat, distinguished himself. He hails from Switzerland, a purportedly neutral state, though its neutrality was abandoned long ago. In his report, he writes, and I quote: “The question of the Russian Federation’s invasion of the territory of Ukraine, on the pretext that the Russian-speaking minority was a victim of genocide, was referred by Ukraine to the International Court of Justice.” This is a striking example of verbal acrobatics. That is, it implies that Russia’s conduct necessitated the International Court’s involvement. Yet, the fact that the Court rejected these claims long ago – two and a half years prior to this Swiss epistolary expert compiling his report – is of no consequence whatsoever.

Therefore, our legal confrontation with the West persists and is by no means limited to the International Court alone.

In 2016, Ukraine initiated arbitration proceedings under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. We received a long list of remonstrations referring to two dozen articles. From a formal perspective, these allegations dealt with the violation of Ukraine’s rights in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. However, what motivated this effort consisted of an attempt by Kiev to challenge Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea as it was established following the free expression of will by the people of this peninsula. In its final ruling on June 15, 2026, the court of arbitration where Ukraine referred this case sided with Russia’s position.

In its decision, the court reaffirmed that the water areas of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait have always been internal waters and retain this status. All the claims as presented by Ukraine to allege that Russia had infringed upon the freedom of navigation were rejected, which did not come as a surprise considering that Ukraine tried challenging the status which had been in place since the Soviet era and was later reaffirmed and maintained as per a corresponding agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

Kiev also was seeking reparations by arguing that Russia was using Crimea’s offshore hydrocarbon deposits and marine resources, only to see its claims rejected once again. The court of arbitration also rejected Ukraine’s cynical requests to take down the Crimean Bridge. As a matter of principle, the request to destroy a bridge – any bridge for that matter – would be viewed as something rogue and savage in a civilised world. This particular case deals with a bridge that was built with a humanitarian purpose in mind, considering Kiev’s effort to block Crimea from the mainland. This constitutes a flagrant violation of the Minsk Agreements, which I have already mentioned.

Let me emphasise one again that Ukraine lost all the proceedings I have mentioned without getting anything whatsoever. They were acting in bad faith to begin with. The Kiev regime, as well as its Western masters knew that their claims did not hold water and in certain cases were not covered by the corresponding convention to begin with. That said, this is the gist of legal warfare as invented by the Anglo-Saxons. They believe in producing outcomes by making vociferous statements. This means starting by making cock-a-doodle-doo sounds, regardless of whether dawn is approaching. There was a well-known historical figure in Nazi Germany who said that the bigger the lie, the more it is believed. This goes to say that these Nazi instincts have remained alive among our Western colleagues to this day.
Unfortunately, many other international structures have been unable to resist an effort to politicise their agenda. This includes the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). The Chicago Convention vests this body with authority to review disputes, but only as long as they fall within its purview. When the Malaysian MH-17 Boing crashed in 2014, this body – the ICAO Council, ignored a massive trove of evidence as presented by Russia and rubber-stamped the guilty verdict as handed out by a tribunal in the Netherlands based on anonymous witness testimonies. There were 13 witnesses whose testimonies sided with the prosecution, but only one of them was identified, while all the rest delivered their testimonies anonymously. There was also the refusal by the United States to share data from its radars, and Ukraine’s refusal to disclose its radar data by alleging that they switched off when the disaster happened. We challenged this decision in the International Court of Justice, and this case is pending. As long as these proceedings continue, ICAO’s conclusions have no legal effect, just as the conclusions of the tribunal in the Netherlands, which I have already mentioned.

The International Criminal Court does not deserve any detailed criticism to begin with. Everyone knows that this is a quasi-judicial institution that has little to do with justice and is fully controlled by its Western sponsors. However, there are exceptions in the West. There are Western countries, in particular, the United States, which do not want the court to continue its work since it irritates many both north and south, west and east. The court carries out political hit jobs while violating both international law and its own statutes. There was a long period when the ICJ focused exclusively on African countries while turning a blind eye to the multiple Western crimes, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Today, the International Criminal Court targets only countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute and have nothing to do with this statute or this court. Apart from Russia, this also includes Myanmar, the Philippines, and Belarus. Who will be next in line is anybody’s guess. That said, the requirement of having a country accept the jurisdiction of a judicial institution is a fundamental principle of international justice. The ICJ has been failing to respect its jurisdiction in terms of territories or the generally recognised principle of immunity for officials.

Regarding the Ukraine dossier, the ICC has made no secret of the fact that its investigation is directed exclusively at Russia. Neither the Court nor its member states objected to the reservation Kiev made when it ratified the Rome Statute in 2024, under which war crimes committed by Ukrainian nationals would be excluded from the ICC’s jurisdiction for eight years. It is worth considering the terms on which this country, ruled by an illegitimate regime, was admitted to the International Criminal Court. Of the two parties to the conflict, the ICC claims jurisdiction over only one: Russia. This is despite the fact that our country is not a party to the Rome Statute, while Vladimir Zelensky’s regime has effectively been given carte blanche.

At the same time, the Ukraine case has proved to be a veritable “gold mine” for the International Criminal Court itself. Immediately after the start of the special military operation, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan appealed to Western sponsors for additional funding to pursue cases related to Ukraine. Millions in additional funding then flowed in from Britain, the Netherlands, Canada, and Japan. When announcing their contributions to this area of the ICC’s activities, the sponsors proudly claimed that the money was intended to fund investigations into Russia’s actions – that is, the prosecution of a defendant who had already been singled out was being openly financed. In any national legal system, this would amount to blatant bribery of the court, and the resulting proceedings would be regarded as nothing more than a “hit job.”

We are aware that some of our partners, including some of the countries represented in this room, continue to place their hopes in the ICC to hold Israel’s leadership accountable for the tragic situation in Palestine. We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their efforts to secure the implementation of UN resolutions, including those calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state. At the same time, we have no doubt that this pseudo-International Criminal Court has taken up the issue merely to create the appearance of impartiality and to draw attention away from its own internal scandals. We see little prospect of this case gaining any meaningful traction, and in any event, it will do nothing to advance the aspirations of the Palestinian people.

In recent months, five countries – Venezuela, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Chad – have withdrawn from the Rome Statute. We believe that the countries represented here may also wish to reconsider the advisability of maintaining membership in the structure that has completely discredited itself.

We also have serious concerns regarding the consistently laudatory tone of the General Assembly resolution adopted each year in connection with the International Criminal Court’s report.

We are currently finalising bilateral agreements with a number of our partners to ensure, on a reciprocal basis, that our citizens are protected from extradition in response to politicised requests from the ICC or from certain unscrupulous states.

The question is sometimes asked: what, then, is the alternative to the International Criminal Court?

For us, there is no need for an alternative, because there is no need for the Court itself. At least, there is certainly no need for such a body at the global level. Experience shows that international criminal tribunals have almost never genuinely helped to resolve conflicts – rather, the opposite has been true. Notable examples include the unfortunate, and indeed shameful, experience of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as well as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Western actors have now embarked upon yet another pseudo-legal venture – the establishment of a so-called “special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.” Proceedings are being carried out under the aegis of the Council of Europe. They do not even attempt to feign impartiality: the party deemed guilty is named in the very title. It is disregarded entirely that only the United Nations Security Council possesses the authority to determine the existence of aggression. Furthermore, one of the parties to the conflict – Ukraine – is a co-founder of this “special tribunal.” This is patently absurd and nonsensical; it is clear that this “tribunal” will become nothing more than a veritable sham.

Likewise, under the auspices of the Council of Europe, a so-called “compensation mechanism, a register of damage for Ukraine, and an international claims commission” is being created. The objective is such that Ukraine itself, and those in the West who command it, would consider claims against Russia and themselves dictate the amount of compensation.

It is evident that this is a wholly futile exercise. We expect that the countries represented here, and the Global Majority at large, will not yield to the pressures currently being vigorously applied in your capitals – of which we are well aware – to join these entirely illegitimate initiatives. We observe how you are being shamelessly enticed, both by blackmail and by empty promises. I will speak plainly (as we always do with you): Russia cannot regard such a step as anything other than unfriendly, indeed, hostile.

The legal aggression of Western states also manifests itself in the expansive reinterpretation of the norms of international law and the rewriting of these norms to serve their own interests. A striking example is the situation concerning the assets of the Central Bank of Russia, which have been “frozen” in the Brussels depository Euroclear. Now, the European Union is fabricating various quasi-legal justifications not only to legitimise what is, in essence, outright theft, but also to remove these funds from Belgian jurisdiction, as Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has categorically refused to take any action towards their confiscation – precisely what the EU leadership desires. They seek to transfer these assets to an account under EU-wide, rather than Belgian, control.

This is a flagrantly criminal attempt to diffuse responsibility, to organise collective cover. The intention is to engineer a situation where the funds formally belong to Russia, but any profit from them, above a certain agreed share, does not accrue to Russia.

This would be standard practice if the assets were not under arrest, if they had not been “frozen”. Ordinarily, a contract is concluded, the funds are placed in Euroclear or another depository, and the contract stipulates the percentage the owner nation receives annually from these funds. All earnings above the agreed percentage belong to the depository.

However, when all assets belong to us, even then, the existing contract must be honoured. When we are denied the ability to dispose of our own property, when we cannot receive the interest due to us, and when others, profiting handsomely from our capital, finance the war against Russia – such actions are indefensible before any legal authority. The European Commission, as I have already stated, still seeks to confiscate these assets and return them only after we pay Ukraine some form of reparations. We will achieve the restitution of our gold and foreign exchange reserves – of that I have not the slightest doubt.

There is yet another mechanism of “legal aggression” directed against Russia, as well as against our individuals and legal entities: unilateral coercive measures. I have previously mentioned these. At the same time, secondary sanctions are being employed, which “strike” countries with no involvement whatsoever in Ukrainian affairs.

These sectoral secondary restrictions have already impacted companies and individuals from more than fifteen states – our steadfast partners and friends. These include China, India, the United Arab Emirates, Türkiye, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and a host of others. In direct contravention of the principle of sovereignty, enshrined in perpetuity in the United Nations Charter, these and other nations are being coerced into renouncing trade and economic relations with Russia from which they benefit.

The logic is thus: if the European Union, by its own folly, is undermining the very foundations of its economy by renouncing Russian energy supplies and paying five or six times more for deliveries from alternative sources, primarily from the United States, then the rest of the world should suffer as well. This is nothing short of colonial thinking: “It is difficult for me, but I am prepared to suffer solely to defeat Russia, and you will suffer along with us.”

Any unilateral restrictions that are adopted in circumvention of the UN Security Council are against international law. They are unlawful. This has been confirmed by multiple resolutions of the UN General Assembly, the BRICS summits, including the most recent one that wrapped up in New Delhi. The same issue was covered by the New Delhi Declaration as well as the resolutions of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The UN General Assembly declared December 4 as the International Day Against Unilateral Coercive Measures. We have signed bilateral declarations on measures to counter and compensate for the adverse effects of unlawful sanctions with several countries, including our colleagues from Iran, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Belarus, Syria, Zimbabwe and Cuba. Subsequently, we do not rule out establishing a multilateral mechanism that would rely on the experience of the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures. A representative of the Republic of Belarus acted as one until recently.

We are concerned about increasing infringement on the freedom of maritime navigation. Since January 2026 alone, the European states have detained 12 vessels while referring to terms like “shadow fleet” that do not exist in international law and were invented. They stop vessels on the suspicion of “lack of nationality” with no probable cause whatsoever and claim that these vessels allegedly operate under “fake flags.” We know how this scheme works: regardless of the territory where the vessel was detained, it is escorted to a port or an anchorage.

In most cases, these are ships that carry oil, gas and grain from Russia. That is, the Europeans are undermining the economy and wellbeing of third countries that ordered Russian goods. Meanwhile, the vessels under actual fake flags that operate in the interests of these European states exist and are not subject to any restrictions. If oil cargo is bound to Europe, whatever the vessel and whatever the flag, the Europeans never come up with any grounds for detention. When it comes to vessels operating in the interests of Russia or our partners, upon detaining such vessels, the Europeans immediately instruct their ambassador in the country of the flag to go to the foreign ministry or the presidential executive office of this country and demand that any flag provision consent be revoked – and insist on it. Because, as a rule, they are involved in providing some sort of aid to this country.

I really hope that your governments will not cave in to this unabashed pressure that Europe and the United States exert on the flag states. That would benefit the common interests of all participants in mutually beneficial trade and economic relations.

Naturally, Russia is not the only country subjected to the West’s “legal aggression.” Any state in the world can become a target. Any state may have its gold and currency reserves stored in Western depositories, seized. Therefore, protecting international justice systems and international law in general from dishonest politicisation serves the interests of all sensible states that care about their national interests. Therefore, we consider last year’s resolution of the UN General Assembly to mark December 14 as the day against any manifestation of colonialism absolutely timely.

I hope that we all will be preparing for this sort of discussions to make them as constructive as possible and to prevent our Western colleagues from turning them into another show.

We also concentrate on counter-terrorist action. Since we are talking about Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky recently announced he intended to use UAVs against civil aviation in the Russian air space and advised all countries with direct flights to Russia to consider that in their operations. He essentially threatened to down civil aircraft, which constitutes a terrorist threat. If you had any doubts before, this threat once again underscores the criminal nature of the Kiev regime.

Countries that provide Kiev with money and weapons become accomplices in terrorist attacks and war crimes. I am sure that the countries in this audience will not become involved in such activities, even though attempts to draw them in do exist, occasionally unbeknownst to the legitimate governments. We discuss such occurrences with our friends and always get responses we expect.

Speaking of legal matters and international law, I would like to close this discussion by saying - I mentioned this many times before, but I cannot overlook this fact - that Ukraine is the only country in the world where the Russian language and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church are outlawed in all spheres, and where the ideology and practices of Nazism are encouraged, including through legislation.
Yet neither the International Criminal Court, nor the UN Human Rights Council, nor UNESCO, nor the Council of Europe, pay any attention to this. They can’t be bothered by what the Kiev regime is up to as long as it continues to serve as the point of the spear in the West’s war against the Russian Federation. We are grateful to all our friends, especially the countries that are putting forward positive and constructive initiatives in an effort to help resolve the Ukraine crisis. This includes the China-Brazil initiative and the ideas put forward by our Egyptian friends and South Africa. We support everything you are doing and regard it as a contribution to the common efforts to establish a just peace and eliminate the underlying causes of this conflict, which is a task of paramount importance.

As you may recall, in February 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping endorsed the Global Security Initiative, which contains universal principles applicable to any crisis or conflict. One of the key principles for resolving crises is identified as establishing the underlying causes of a conflict and eliminating them.
We expect that, as our friends in Asia, Africa and Latin America continue to advance their initiatives, they will pay attention to the unacceptable situation involving the banning of the Russian language and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

We will keep you informed about our initiatives. We look forward to cooperation with you in advancing them and to your support. In all our efforts and in the context of achieving, what I hope will be a durable political settlement, it is critical to preserve the inviolability of the legal foundations of international relations. Thank you. I am now ready for an interactive discussion.

Question: This year, BRICS activities were quite diverse: President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech, and declarations were made on Palestine and Iran. Do you think we are moving more quickly towards a new international order? For us, Palestinians, any order is better than what we have now.

Sergey Lavrov: What exactly do you mean when you say the order you have now?

Question: The American system.

Sergey Lavrov: International?

Question: Yes, international.

Sergey Lavrov: All right, I get it.

Question: My second question is about the visit by US President’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Reportedly, the Americans did not want a war with Iran and asked Russia to help stop it. They are willing, despite the Europeans’ stance, to do something regarding Ukraine.

Sergey Lavrov: The Europeans?

Question: No, the Americans. The Americans want Russia to help stop the war with Iran and are willing to do something about Ukraine.

My third question concerns Palestine. Parliamentary elections will be held in Palestine in November. Presidential elections are due next year. However, the situation in Gaza and on the West Bank of the Jordan River remains unchanged. Parliamentary elections will be held in Israel in October. The situation is very challenging.

Sergey Lavrov: With regard to the international order, it is widely discussed by political analysts and active politicians. They are analysing the developments that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and the end of the Cold War, followed by, as many claim, the “unipolar moment.” The well-known political scientist Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the end of history, meaning that the leading and dominant international position of the United States would never change and that everyone else would have to adjust to new reality. That is what he meant by the end of history. The Soviet Union ceased to exist, but even in its final years the Americans saw grounds for their domination when, in the late 1980s, concessions were made that were entirely unjustified and did not meet the interests of the Soviet people.

In this context, the “unification” of Germany comes to mind. First off, we approved German unification not in the form of a voluntary and equal reunification of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, but in the form of the absorption of the German Democratic Republic by the Federal Republic of Germany. This planted a time bomb in German politics. You can see how all those who support the views of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, and other hawks are demanding to outlaw the Alternative for Germany. The AfD has its roots primarily in the eastern parts of the country, which, after reunification, were in an openly discriminatory and subordinate position, and their interests were ignored. Remember, after the “unification” of Germany, politicians from the former GDR were criminally prosecuted. None of the public servants from the German Democratic Republic were taken on; they were all fired. This is the kind of “unification” that, to our great regret, the Soviet Union acquiesced in. The Soviet Union was the only country that had its armed forces stationed within the borders of the GDR. We withdrew hundreds of thousands of our servicemen in the middle of nowhere and did so for free. All other countries kept their military contingents stationed in West Germany. I do not rule out that the dynamics leading to revival of Nazism come to a considerable extent from the way the Soviet Union acted back then.

Returning to your question, we have the United Nations Organisation. It will take some time because you have asked difficult questions to which there are no simple answers. I fully agree with those – they constitute the majority – who think that changing the UN Charter absolutely unacceptable. It retains its full force and validity, including when it comes to such principles as the sovereign equality of states. The West never, in no political situation respected the sovereign equality of states. But that doesn’t make this principle any less important. On the contrary, we must uphold it. The West never respected the principle of non-interference in internal affairs either. In most cases, when some country experiences unrest or problems, the West always finds a way to interfere.

But this is not a reason to abandon this principle or any other principles, such as sovereignty, territorial integrity, the right of nations to self-determination, and respect for human rights for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion enshrined in the UN Charter. All this refers to what I have said about the unacceptable criminal activities of the Kiev regime. That is why the UN Charter must be preserved as the legal and political foundation of the system of international relations based on international law.
After the Second World War, the Soviet Union mostly focused on its allies, the Warsaw Treaty Organisation and socialist-leaning countries, as they were referred to. They were not members of the institutions created by the West – the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation. They only started joining them after the Cold War. These institutions were based on Western rules and served Western interests. The West thought it was “the end of history,” and these institutions would always serve it, ensuring its hegemony. By and large, this amounts to living off other countries. The West takes out virtually all natural resources from Africa, an extremely rich continent, and all added value is created in the West.

I have mentioned that President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni, when speaking at the Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg in 2023, cited the global coffee market, which he assessed at 460 billion euros, with only 2.5 billion euros returning to Africa. Everything else is added value. Germany alone received twice as much as the whole of Africa by roasting, packaging and marketing coffee.

That’s why the West felt secure. It viewed globalisation, which it actively promoted by involving all countries into free trade, competition, and many other “attractive” processes, as a mechanism of dominance and the continued reproduction of this dominance. However, a number of countries, primarily the People’s Republic of China, which agreed to play by these rules, started beating the West on its own home ground by its own rules. There are many such countries.

The West immediately stopped using its own slogans of free and fair competition on global markets, and market forces, and started to adopt sanctions, tariffs and everything else they needed to hinder the natural progress of states that are becoming the new centres of economic growth and financial might, and consequently, political influence. Globalisation as we know it is over.

The UN is an indispensable forum. We – nearly all those present here – remain members of the Bretton-Woods institutions, but the quota of the BRICS countries, for example, is substantially below their real share of the global economy. A reform is being deliberately hindered. They are adding a tiny fraction of a percentage, but this process can’t be stopped. A reform is pending, and the countries that really shape the global economy will get an appropriate number of votes in these institutions.

The World Trade Organisation is in a deep crisis, because its Dispute Settlement Body has not been property operating for decades. I mentioned China sending a series of complaints, primarily about the United States, over the breach of the rules that the United States has introduced within the framework of globalisation. But Washington blocks the appointment of arbiters to that body, which has no quorum and is therefore not functioning.

So, shifts are underway. Nobody wants to leave universal structures, but they must be reformed on a fair basis, so that business is conducted honestly there. Until these reforms are implemented, we have BRICS, the SCO, and the African Union, which I believe is currently undergoing its second renaissance, focusing on economic decolonisation (Africa’s economy remains largely colonial and dependent on the former parent states), and there is also the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

Therefore, within these structures, increasing emphasis is being placed on the creation of alternative payment platforms, settlement and depository mechanisms, as well as insurance and reinsurance facilities. Within the BRICS framework, among other Russian-led initiatives, the development of a grain exchange is underway, given the unreliability of Western-established stock markets, upon which it is not always possible to depend. All of this will be achieved.

I will reiterate once more – and President of Russia Vladimir Putin has underscored this on numerous occasions – we are not withdrawing from existing institutions of which we are members, namely the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the World Trade Organisation. However, as these institutions, under Western influence, are frequently politicised and fail to fulfil their statutory mandates; we are establishing parallel mechanisms to ensure that, under any circumstances, we are able to conduct trade independently of anyone’s political preferences.

The second question pertained to Iran and Ukraine. I have read such speculation alleging that the United States would supposedly assist on Ukraine if Russia assisted on Iran. As we say, horse-trading is not appropriate in this context. Such rumours have circulated somewhere. Our American counterparts have never proposed such “swaps.” I believe they have not done so, as they understand perfectly well that this is not our approach – we do not engage in such political bargaining or manoeuvring.

I proceed from the premise that any progress on Iran will be achieved primarily through the efforts of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf and the Islamic Republic of Iran. They have agreed, in this format – with the addition of Iraq – to convene a meeting in the near future in one of the cities of the Sultanate of Oman. It was scheduled to take place yesterday, but has been postponed for a few days. Clearly, there are those who object to all the littoral states of the Persian Gulf expressing an interest in establishing relations amongst themselves. That is the crux of the matter. There are those who are intent on preserving discord between them, on provoking continued conflict from which civilians in all coastal states suffer.

We have only recently attended the BRICS summit in India, where we engaged in discussions on this topic with our Iranian colleagues and Arab friends; representatives of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were also present. We support this process in every possible way, just as we support the initiatives involving Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye. All of this reflects a regional trend towards countries addressing their own issues independently, rather than being beholden to external actors pursuing their own geopolitical agendas from afar.

The same is true for Ukraine. We have consistently stated that we welcome the United States’ interest in facilitating a settlement. The main point is that the United States understands the root causes of this conflict, in contrast to other Western countries, which obstinately maintain that Ukraine is entitled to do as it pleases. “We will never recognise Crimea as Russian. We will not recognise Donbass either. Only the 1991 borders.” The European Union clings to this entirely obtuse (forgive me the bluntness) position, inscribing it in its political documents, statements and declarations. It has, for years, unceasingly proclaimed that Ukraine will be a member of NATO. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte never tires of repeating this.

The United States has unambiguously stated that Ukrainian membership of NATO must be abandoned if there is to be any hope of resolving the conflict, and that the realities on the ground must be acknowledged. They refer to this as the territorial question. US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have repeatedly asserted that the territorial issue is the root of the matter. Let them call it the territorial question. For us, it is a question concerning the fate of people who have lived for centuries in Crimea, Donbass and Novorossiya, whose forebears founded Odessa, Nikolayev and the ports of the Black and Azov Seas, and whom the Kiev regime – which seized power in a coup d’état – labelled terrorists, “non-humans” and “creatures.”

Then-President of Ukraine Petr Poroshenko, having come to power under slogans of peace, subsequently – with a “beastly face” – proclaimed from a lofty tribune that Ukrainian children would go to clean kindergartens, to clean, bright schools, whilst the children of those who refused to recognise the illegal coup would rot in cellars. That is the entire story.

That is precisely what the European Union desires. It wishes to consign people who have been branded “terrorists” solely for remaining faithful to their history, their heritage and their language, back under the rule of a Nazi regime. The European Union – in particular Ursula von der Leyen – is fond of declaring that they must remain steadfastly with Ukraine, endure privations, and that their electorates must accept a decline in living standards, all in the name of supporting Ukraine, since it supposedly upholds “European values.” And so, “European values” are Russophobia, the prohibition of the Russian language, the encouragement of Nazism, and applause for Vladimir Zelensky when he kneels before the ashes of Nazi criminals, transported for solemn reburial in a so-called “pantheon of heroes” being established on the sacred ground of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. And that, it seems, is what “European values” have become.
The suspicions that the metastases of Nazism in Europe have become increasingly apparent are no longer mere suspicions. Understanding the underlying causes is important, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with an utterly criminal regime.

The EU is saying okay, even though we do not recognise Russia taking over the land in Ukraine, it has to stop now. You know why? It’s because Ukraine is running out of steam, and Europe is running low on money and cannot produce weapons fast enough. They need a pause in order to pump more weapons into Ukraine and to keep the war going. Let’s stop, they say, and then – they make no secret of it – immediately deploy international mobilisation forces in the territory controlled by Zelensky.

Commenting on this proposal, President Vladimir Putin said this would amount to a declaration of war on the Russian Federation. Yet they keep saying it over and over again. They are bent on perpetuating this regime with its Russophobia, laws banning the Russian language, and other Nazi trappings. That would mean that many normal people would remain on the land controlled by this regime. Most of them speak Russian and want their children to receive instruction in Russian and to preserve Russian culture. Are we supposed to leave these people for Zelensky and his team to devour them?

It’s a tough call, but we are trying to explain this to our American colleagues. I hope they understand. However, it’s hard to say how this will affect their practical steps.

Finally, elections in Palestine. We mentioned Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. They are dealing with Palestine, Ukraine, and Iran. If US President Donald Trump trusts them with those missions, that is how we perceive the situation as well. But so far, nothing seems to work in any of these endeavours.
An agreement on the Strait of Hormuz in the form of the Islamabad Memorandum was reached. It offered a promise of the door to get open soon, but the door was slammed shut immediately, because the memorandum envisaged a cessation of hostilities against Lebanon, among other things. The hostilities, which matter was of fundamental importance to Iran, did not stop.

With regard to Palestine, Donald Trump’s plan has been approved, but is not making any progress. The IDF now control 72 percent of the Gaza Strip. As I understand it, no changes to this balance are being planned as of now. There is Nickolay Mladenov, the Director-General of the Board of Peace, who, in my view, is not active in any way, either.

Settlements are expanding on the other part of Palestine on the West Bank of the Jordan River. Let’s face it. If you look at the map, the latest plan – I don’t remember how many settlements there are in East Jerusalem – but if these settlements are built, and they probably will, then physically there will be no way to have a contiguous Palestinian state on the ground.

The Israeli leadership openly states there will be no Palestinian state. I understand, elections are just around the corner. Elections have an influence on many countries when they need to prepare for the voters’ casting their ballots. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich made another “compelling” statement the other day, saying that Palestinians would be better off giving up hope of ever returning to Gaza. Clearly, some kind of discussion is in the offing. I very much hope that following the elections in Israel, things will calm down, and it will be possible to make another attempt to reach some kind of common agreement.

Finally, since we are talking about elections and Palestine, I would very much hope that the various camps in Palestinian politics will try once again to unite.

Russia
Source: mid.ru


Question: I am the Ambassador of the League of Arab States. I have a question and a request. Was Ukraine discussed during the BRICS Summit in India? Will there be diplomatic talks in the UAE soon, as we’ve heard?

Conference interpreters here are working with different languages. My personal request to you is to include Arabic in the mix.

Sergey Lavrov: We will do that by all means.

Sergey Lavrov: Ukraine was not discussed at the BRICS Summit in New Delhi. In his remarks, Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, who represented Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, given that Brazil was among the countries that had expressed willingness to assist in resolving the Ukraine crisis, called for what everyone, including us, wants to happen as soon as possible. I mean talks.

President Vladimir Putin has addressed this issue more than once. He mentioned Russia’s readiness for talks during his most recent trips to the SCO Council of Heads of State in Kyrgyzstan and to the BRICS Summit in India. We are ready for talks. We have never dragged our feet on them or tried to make it hard to hold them. The first talks took place two weeks into the special military operation. The Ukrainians proposed them, and we agreed immediately. We have always preferred to talk face-to-face and to discuss problems openly, making honest efforts to find ways to resolve them. You know what happened to those talks. In April 2022, fundamental agreements were reached and initialled in Istanbul. The Ukrainians were then told not to sign them. They were told they hadn’t fought enough yet.

In 2025, Russia-Ukraine bilateral talks continued in Istanbul. The Ukrainians complained about the low level of representation claiming nothing could be decided at that level and only humanitarian issues were being discussed. After we heard these complaints, we immediately proposed significantly raising the level of the heads of the delegations and establishing three negotiating groups covering humanitarian, political, and military issues in order to discuss all aspects of the conflict, with the three groups reporting back during plenary meetings. The Ukrainians went silent and, several months later, said that they were no longer interested in holding the talks. Again, they presumably decided that they needed to defeat Russia on the battlefield.

What followed was a trilateral attempt in the UAE. Our negotiators sat down with the Ukrainians, with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in attendance. Now, when the latter were in Moscow, they reiterated that it would be good to resume the talks. We made it clear that we had never refused to hold them and that all of them had been interrupted through no initiative of ours. If our colleagues are ready, I think the talks can be resumed. We have things to say.

Since the beginning of the special military operation and the announcement of our objectives, we have not once changed our position. We are ready to seek reasonable compromises working within that framework. But we have not fundamentally changed our objectives of ensuring Russia’s security, preventing NATO from showing up on our borders, ensuring the legitimate rights of Russian and Russian-speaking people who have lived on these lands for centuries, and freeing them from the threats of Nazification and militarisation.

Look at what the West and Zelensky are saying. When the latter was asked whether he was ready for striking a compromise with President Putin, he said that the best compromise for Putin was that he was still alive. This was uttered by someone who constantly travels around Western countries and other capitals, portraying himself as a victim. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz compared our President to Adolf Hitler. They all said that Russia needed to be dealt a “strategic defeat.” True, they stopped talking about a strategic defeat. They are now begging us to stop at the line of contact. They are all perfectly aware of the fact that in August of 2025, during the Anchorage summit, we accepted the American proposal envisaging a cessation of hostilities on specific terms that were acceptable to us. The Europeans formed a large team and rushed to Washington. They “clung to the arms” of US President Donald Trump and persuaded him to take the American proposal off the table. Back then, more than a year ago, they could have ended the hostilities had they not disrupted the agreement reached in Anchorage.

Regardless of what anyone may say, there was an agreement. When you make a proposal and your proposal is accepted as is, without amendments, isn’t that what you would call an agreement? Of course it is, at least among people of integrity. So the Europeans are hardly in a position to criticise us. They are no longer talking about a strategic defeat; instead, they are asking us to stop. However, they want to bring troops into the remaining Ukrainian territory, while they will never recognise what Russia will liberate. That is not a serious approach, either.

We repeatedly said after the failure of the Istanbul agreements caused by Western interference that we would not suspend the special military operation during the talks.

Question (retranslated): Thank you for mentioning the Brazilian and Chinese initiative in this connection. Brazil supports the talks on the Ukrainian settlement. They should take into consideration the security concerns of all parties to the conflict. You said in a recent interview that if a war is forced on us, it will be a very short war. Is this a warning to those who would like to attack Russia? What should be done at the current stage to ease tensions and help create conditions for negotiations on a settlement? Some analysts mentioned the possible resumption of trilateral talks after Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Moscow.

Sergey Lavrov: I only quoted President Putin, who recently answered a question about the Europeans’ fear of Russia’s potential attack. That’s an interesting fear. Read about it. On the one hand, they write that Ukraine’s long-range terrorist attacks are turning the tide of the war, that Russia is weakening, and they need to increase pressure. On the other hand, the same people claim, all in one breath, that Russia will attack Europe in two years. Make up your mind whether you think we are weak and suffering defeat (why are you afraid then?), or you are playing games with your audience by saying that Ukraine is turning the tide of war. That’s ridiculous.

President Putin has said that there is no sense, intention or, most importantly, reason for Russia to attack Europe. However, he added that if the countries that are preparing for a war with Russia, are inciting their populations every day, and holding military exercises to attack Russia, the war will be completely different and very short. I only repeated that phrase. I think that those who are engaged in various provocations have heard it.

As for the possibility of a settlement… I have mentioned that the resumption of talks was discussed during the visit of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. We have reaffirmed that we never refuse to talk when there is a willingness and a serious intent. It can be either trilateral or bilateral talks. The Americans said that the trilateral format looked more promising to them because, as Jared Kushner said, the Americans run between the sides as mediators. We are ready for this, but we have seen this before. That format froze and was put on pause through no fault or initiative of ours.

Moreover, we are even ready for low-stakes negotiations because – this is no secret – some European countries several times proposed establishing a channel of communication without making this public knowledge. This has happened. We never rejected the idea, not even with Europeans, although there is nothing new at such confidential talks held through secret channels compared to what they state publicly on a daily basis.

You mentioned the need for a settlement that would take the interests of both sides into consideration. It is the root cause that is important to us. When the state coup was held in Ukraine in February 2014, the first thing those who organised it said was that the status of the Russian language would be changed. The next thing they did was send armed men to storm the building of the Supreme Council of Crimea, because the residents of Crimea refused to recognise the results of the coup. And when their armed men were pushed out of Crimea and Crimea held a referendum, they declared people in eastern Ukraine, who refused to recognise the results of the coup as well, were terrorists and sent a regular army against them, including combat aircraft, artillery and tanks, which bombed Lugansk and other cities. It was a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

Those who sincerely want to help should answer one questions: Did the international community react or condemn those events in any way? There was no condemnation. I have already read out to you what the Europeans said: the Ukrainian people have gained freedom. The then foreign minister of France stated after the coup: “Yanukovych has left; there has been a change of power.” I also quoted then Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, who said: “We must provide all-round assistance to the striving of the Ukrainian people for freedom.” It was a bloody coup. A year later, the Minsk agreements were signed and approved by the UN Security Council. They were sabotaged every step of the way. President of France Emmanuel Macron brought together four leaders – President of Russia Vladimir Putin, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron himself, and Vladimir Zelensky – in Paris in 2019.

They agreed that the Minsk agreements must be fulfilled and the special status of part of Donbass must be enshrined in the Ukrainian Constitution. That status included the right of the people to use the Russian language. At that time, the harassment of the Russian language in some spheres already began in the rest of Ukraine, while people in Donbass wanted to speak their native tongue. And today I thank God that the Paris agreement was not implemented. We can’t be accused of failure to reach a compromise. Our goals are perfectly clear to us now. President Putin has more than once repeated what he summarised in his address at the Foreign Ministry of Russia in June 2024.

It turns out that the biggest damage is being done by the Western sanctions. In fact, the West is committing hara-kiri. Take a look at the statistics of energy prices and where the economy of Germany and many other countries is heading. As for us, we would like to put an end to this conflict and appreciate the desire of our friends to facilitate this. If you have any more initiatives, we are ready to discuss them with your leaders.

Brazil and China have established a Group of Friends for Peace in Ukraine at the UN in New York. It is not clear why it includes France and Switzerland, which have not been acting objectively but have taken an openly hostile stance towards Russia. However, it would probably be useful if the group taught a lesson to the French and Swiss members, who I believe asked to be invited, telling them how to behave if they want to promote a Ukrainian settlement.

Question (retranslated): Thank you very much for your detailed assessment of the situation in Ukraine. How much longer is the special operation expected to continue since we are close to five years since its launch?

Sergey Lavrov: Russian President Vladimir Putin has answered this question many times. This is how wars go. A war has been unleashed against us with hands, bodies and dead bodies of Ukrainians. We are not setting any artificial goals. We are doing everything we can to minimise human losses, especially among the civilian population, but also our military personnel, who we try to preserve.

If the Americans had not backtracked from the Anchorage agreements and if Europe had not dragged them away from those agreements, we would be living without a war for a year now. This is an obvious fact. So make your own conclusions.

Everybody is comparing this conflict to our war with Germany. But back then, we had allies: the United States and Britain in the West, and China and our Korean allies in the East. Mongolia was our ally as well. Now all our past Western allies are on the other side.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio pointed out that during the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains in June 2026, they adopted some sort of a declaration condemning Russia (I don’t remember the exact details). French President Emmanuel Macron proudly said that they “buried Anchorage” and that “America is now with them.” Around the same time, speaking in Congress, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the United States could not be an intermediary because they were fully on Ukraine’s side.

Meanwhile, he recently stated that only the United States could mediate the process and they were looking for new ideas. I have a meeting planned with Marco Rubio in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. I would like to have a clearer picture of the State Department’s considerations.

Question (retranslated from French): Thank you very much for the information you have provided, which has shed useful light on the current state of affairs. We have clearly understood the complex nature of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Your Excellency, I should like to ask you two questions.
Russia has always been a country of great soul and great beauty. It is the country of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. My first question concerns precisely what Dostoevsky and Tolstoy described. Tolstoy wrote: “We are all responsible for everything.” Dostoevsky said: “Beauty will save the world.” Do you not think that today the world looks to Russia and expects the manifestation of “beauty” from Russia? A great responsibility rests upon you, and beauty will save the world.

My second question is based on words spoken two thousand years ago that turned the world upside down. Those words tell us that we must care for those we have tamed. That, too, is a great responsibility. And so, my second question. What concrete solution do you propose to us, Your Excellency, so that we might be able to help you? And so that we might also conduct negotiations to achieve a resolution of the conflict and secure peace for the benefit of all nations? We should like to hear concrete solutions, for up to the present moment we see that negotiations are being conducted, but we have never been offered concrete solutions so that we, too, might fulfil our mission within this war. As I have said, we stand for peace; we are sons of God.

Sergey Lavrov: As for beauty, I do not know. We say that “there is no accounting for taste”. You also neglected to mention the “tear of a child”. Our great classics always observed that no war is worth one little tear of a child. I did not quite understand the second question: you spoke of responsibility for those we have tamed. That, I believe, was said by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. But there and then, having noted the existence of this phenomenon, you asked what solution we propose. Do you consider yourself tamed? I did not quite understand.

But if we set aside the belles-lettres, it seems to me that your question is what solutions should be undertaken by those who wish to help. I thought I had already given sufficiently concrete examples today. If someone believes that people who seized power through a bloody state coup, who trampled underfoot their own obligations signed the day before, people who, a year later, signed an agreement to end the war while respecting the Russian language and the rights of the Russian-speaking population, and then proudly declared that they “could not care less” about those obligations and about the UN Security Council resolution – if this, too, does not evoke any feelings in you, and if what I described about the disruption of yet another attempt to reach agreement, organised in 2019 in Paris, and then the fourth attempt in April 2022 in Istanbul, when the Ukrainians were forbidden to sign – in each of these cases Russia either supported or signed the relevant document. And each of these documents was trampled upon and torn to shreds, not by Russia. It was said here that one must strive for a settlement that takes into account the interests of all parties. I believe that the interests of the party that is governed by Western “masters” and that declares a categorical refusal to recognise the rights of Russians who refused to live in a Nazi Ukraine – how can those interests be taken into account? Should this regime be preserved on the remaining territory of Ukraine? Given that they say they will never recognise the liberated territories as Russian. So how can the interests of that party be taken into account? And you speak of the interests of both parties.

As for my advice… You know, it is the West that tells you and all our other friends from the countries of the Global South to do such and such, to withdraw your flag from a vessel used by Russia, or else sanctions will be imposed on the country, or assistance through, say, the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank will be cut off. We do not use such methods.

We hold these “round tables” with the sole aim that all our friends who are interested (and we see your interest in Ukrainian affairs) should know our position as concretely as possible, along with certain nuances, and receive answers to the questions that concern them. As for telling you what to do – that is probably something the French like to do.

Right now, President of France Emmanuel Macron has “gone off around Africa” (he will visit several countries there), and we have suspicions, based on certain facts, that he will do his utmost to dissuade our African friends from coming at the highest level to the Russia – Africa summit, which will be held in Moscow in October 2026. These are not our methods. We proceed from the premise that our interlocutors are people representing independent, sovereign countries who, having received information, determine their own position.

I mentioned, incidentally, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. That, too, is a telling point. For your attention, so that you may draw your own conclusions. In 2023, the International Monetary Fund approved a four-year assistance programme for Ukraine in the amount of $15.5 billion, which constitutes 580 percent of the national quota. Has even one country of Africa, Asia or Latin America received such loans at 580 percent of its quota? There has been nothing even remotely comparable.

And in the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine has already received (if we take the period from 2022) financing amounting to 880 percent of the quota. That is, the latest programme is for 580 percent, while in total since 2022 they have received 880 percent. Check what figures characterise your relations with the International Monetary Fund. Since February 2022, total financing for Ukraine through the IMF has amounted to $24 billion, while African countries received $15 billion in 2025. And there are very many such examples.

Through the World Bank – $80 billion. Other countries receive nothing that even comes close to such figures. And here is an example – the International Development Association. Kiev received a total of $19.5 billion, although the mandate of the International Development Association does not permit the provision of loans to states with a per capita income level above $1,300. Yet Ukraine has more than $5,000 per capita – three times more than the threshold. But the Association provides loans amounting to $20 billion. The main borrowers of the International Development Association after Ukraine are India (less than $2 billion), Indonesia ($1 billion), while Ukraine – $20 billion. Draw your conclusions!

On the whole, if we take approved projects through the World Bank and the International Development Association, Ukraine received, in addition to what I have said, $4.2 billion, while the Philippines, coming next, received a little more than $1 billion – four times less than Ukraine. But compare the populations. Indonesia received $650 million against Ukraine’s $4 billion-plus. Cambodia – $80 million, Laos – $56 million, and so on. That is interesting statistics.

When the West was cutting official development assistance because of its own financial problems, developing countries in the UN and in other structures, of course, voiced criticism and addressed appeals to the West not to do so – but where Ukraine is concerned, no appeals are needed.

Russia
Source: russiancouncil.ru

The yearlong diplomatic marathon concluded with a major BRICS summit in the Indian capital. India’s 2026 BRICS Chairship oversaw more than four hundred meetings and events involving ministers, parliamentarians, heads of agencies, officials, experts, and representatives of business and civil society, held not only in India’s largest metropolises but also in thirty cities of smaller stature (by Indian standards), such as Pune, Lucknow, Jaipur, Agra, Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Nagpur, Kochi, and many others. In 2026, India made a people-centered approach the central theme of its 2026 Chairship, seeking to demonstrate the practical benefits of BRICS not only for Indians but also for the citizens of all member states. New Delhi’s traditional focus on domestic development was also reflected in the summit’s agenda. Yet, speaking as a voice of the Global South, India did everything possible to prioritize its interests in the group’s work.

Largely thanks to India’s efforts, the agenda is expanding to include topics such as investment in innovation and youth entrepreneurship, financing for small businesses and their access to international markets, education and the development of vocational and technical skills among young people, supply chain resilience, access to critical minerals, energy security and uninterrupted energy supplies, and the protection of civilian facilities. Food security, health care, urban infrastructure development and its resilience to climate change, disaster risk reduction, and disaster response and recovery remain relevant. On artificial intelligence, which is of equal interest to all members of the group, two development paths are emerging within BRICS—one Chinese and one Indian—as reflected in the summit’s final document. In the near term, it is important to ensure that these paths complement rather than contradict each other, both in regulating this field and in working with major corporations, which is particularly challenging.

Both the BRICS summit’s Delhi Declaration, comprising 140 paragraphs across 45 pages, and a detailed report by the chair were published on the website of India’s 2026 BRICS Chairship. The report groups the initiatives and results of the group’s work over the past year under five key themes: resilience, innovation, cooperation, sustainability, and people-to-people engagements.

India seeks to strengthen ties with all the organizations in which it participates, favoring formats such as BRICS—associations without rigid commitments, where decisions are made by consensus and membership does not preclude participation in other groups. New Delhi has always valued the fact that BRICS membership imposes no onerous obligations and requires no major spending on administrative structures. India appreciates its character as an inclusive, positive platform: its broad and open agenda is based on constructive cooperation rather than confrontation. Participation in the group does not entail any loss of sovereignty or strategic autonomy for member states.

Although India is one of the founding members of BRICS, both its leadership and expert community have traditionally placed it alongside other groups, such as the G20, SCO, QUAD, and ASEAN, without singling it out in any particular way. New Delhi was cautious about the prospect of expansion. The stereotype of China’s dominant role in BRICS persisted among experts. A relatively small circle of authors covered BRICS-related issues, and until recently, discussion rarely extended beyond that circle. At the same time, India has always viewed favorably the New Development Bank, whose establishment was initiated through New Delhi’s efforts at the fourth BRICS summit in 2012, during India’s first chairship, as well as the Contingent Reserve Arrangement—the only BRICS financial mechanisms that are actually operational so far.
African Countries in BRICS: New Opportunities for Economic and Political Cooperation. RIAC Working Paper
India’s fourth chairship of the BRICS group coincides with sweeping changes on the international stage. Commentators have not only described this as “an interesting time for BRICS” but also questioned its role in international affairs. The events of 2026, above all the crisis in the Middle East, have turned the group into a forum for complex dialogue: members of the expanded BRICS involved in the crisis—Iran, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia—found themselves on opposite sides of the barricades. As chair, India had to draw on its full range of diplomatic skills while taking a sensitive approach to member state positions on the most pressing issues. The closed-door meeting of foreign ministers in May 2026, ended without a joint document. The results were limited to a statement by the chair. Nevertheless, none of the participants walked away from the forum. This fact was a major achievement for the chair and a testament to the shared interest in this format. The final Delhi Declaration, adopted by consensus on September 12, 2026, contains no one-sided assessments, including on issues sensitive to Russia. The document reflects an understanding of the need to develop more resilient, equitable, and reliable models of governance, particularly in finance, energy, logistics, and the protection of civilian infrastructure.

Thus, over the course of its twenty-year history, the club has evolved considerably, as has India’s position on BRICS. Holding the 2026 BRICS Chairship at such a turbulent and consequential moment allowed New Delhi to demonstrate the best qualities of its diplomacy and prompted Indians to view the group in a new light. Indian experts now take it more seriously, recognize its benefits for the country, and argue that the success of BRICS could change the West’s approach to global governance. For India, it is important that the group advocates improving existing mechanisms rather than creating alternative ones. BRICS traditionally prioritizes the UN, works to reform its structures and modernize other international institutions such as the WTO, and expresses support for the G20 in its final declaration.

India’s consistent position is that the world is far more complex than black and white; it is not binary. New Delhi does not like being forced to choose sides, as the West often does. It is one thing to sit at the negotiating table and discuss issues as equals, and quite another to ask for handouts and favors. BRICS is a platform for experienced players and mature civilizations that can set aside bilateral differences to address shared challenges, without allowing those differences to obstruct a unifying agenda—in the spirit of the ancient Indian principle of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” (“The whole world is one family”). This theme takes on particular resonance at a time of widespread scarcity of humanism, ethics, and morality. It is also noted that the active role of India and Russia is the key to multipolarity—both within BRICS and in Asia—and to preserving the region’s diversity and multifaceted identity; its current rise is not something new or extraordinary, but a return to the normal order of things.

Narendra Modi’s initiative to establish a BRICS Continuity and Implementation Mechanism deserves particular attention. Under India’s proposal, it would bring together the previous, current, and incoming chairs to systematically monitor the implementation of earlier decisions and refine priority ideas. It is no secret that there is no shortage of truly important and useful initiatives within BRICS; however, once they are approved by all participants, the main driving force behind their implementation remains the country that proposed them. The number of large and small BRICS projects has grown exponentially over the years, which has also drawn criticism of the group. Modi proposed creating a secure digital repository listing the coordinating party, timeline, and implementation status for each initiative. Vladimir Putin’s call for closer consideration of Russia’s initiatives announced in Kazan in 2024—including an investment platform, cross-border payments, reinsurance mechanisms, and a grain exchange—echoes Modi’s proposal. Their successful implementation requires continuity—not only time, but also joint efforts by the parties involved.

Bilateral engagement has taken on particular importance this year. Indian diplomacy is working tirelessly on all fronts, including with the U.S., Canada, and Japan. Yet the importance of relations among Russia, India, and China cannot be overstated: they form the backbone of BRICS while extending far beyond it. Contacts between the leaders of India and Russia have perhaps never been so intensive. In December 2025, Vladimir Putin made a productive visit to Delhi; in August, Putin and Narendra Modi met in Bishkek on the sidelines of the SCO summit marking the organization’s 25th anniversary. The Indian leader’s attendance in person was also significant: following another deterioration in relations with China caused by the 2020 border clashes, India held the concluding summit of heads of state virtually during its 2023 SCO Chairmanship, while Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar represented India at the July 2024 summit in Astana. Before the BRICS summit in New Delhi, Putin and Modi not only found time to meet but also visited the Russian-Indian INNOPROM exhibition, which showcased leading Russian companies and their most promising high-tech projects geared toward India. The two leaders set themselves and their governments the task of moving from continuity in relations to their accelerated development. Work has therefore intensified across all areas, particularly on the wide range of issues concerning economic, scientific, and technological cooperation. The two sides are discussing a new investment protection agreement; negotiations on an India–Eurasian Economic Union free trade area continue; and the United Aircraft Corporation is putting together a package of agreements on localizing production in India and supplying Russian-designed civilian aircraft to Indian regional airlines. Before the end of 2026, Putin and Modi will hold another round of their annual bilateral talks in Moscow.

Stability along the border is India’s primary condition for normalizing relations with China. On September 12–13, 2026, Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited India for the first time in seven years. He not only took part in the BRICS summit, standing alongside Narendra Modi in the official summit photographs, but also brought an impressive delegation of more than 400 officials and businesspeople. Key milestones on the difficult path toward improved Indian-Chinese relations included the BRICS summit in Kazan in October 2024, when signs of normalization became publicly apparent, and the SCO summit in Tianjin in September 2025, where Modi, Xi, and Vladimir Putin displayed a particularly friendly rapport. In parallel, special representatives from both sides worked with an understanding of the strategic importance of normalizing ties. Direct flights between the two countries have now resumed, and reciprocal market access and several investment projects are under discussion.

India, Russia, and China serve as a crucial source of normalcy and predictability in contemporary international relations. They have also become the driving force behind economic integration within BRICS and are ready to share their experience with other participants. Trade among BRICS countries exceeded $1 trillion in 2025. Trade within BRICS is now growing faster than the global average and outpacing the group’s trade with external partners. Stronger ties between China and Russia, China and Brazil, and Russia and India have made the largest contribution. India is an important trading partner for all BRICS members and, for many, the second most important after China. BRICS countries account for 22% of India’s exports. Trade flows among India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, and other African countries are still smaller than those with China but have considerable potential for growth. The UAE will also play an important role in expanding and diversifying trade within the group, despite the current crisis in the Middle East.

Taking stock of India’s 2026 BRICS Chairship, it must be noted that the challenges only reaffirmed the value of this forum. They allowed New Delhi to demonstrate outstanding diplomatic skills and draw on its wealth of experience in handling complex situations and working with a diverse range of partners. BRICS is gradually moving from a consultative and advisory club toward more concrete, carefully developed initiatives and the creation of mechanisms to implement them.

Russia
Source: russiancouncil.ru

When the BRIC group, as it was known then, first emerged, it was greeted with amusement as another exotic variety of alphabet soup in the age of globalization. As it became a more permanent fixture, it was regarded as a poor man’s version of a global club, like a humble answer to the G7.

More recently, it has come to be feared, not least by US President Donald Trump, as a potential threat to the dominance of the American dollar. In the run-up to the 2026 BRICS summit in New Delhi, the Western media shifted its focus to the divergences within the group, essentially portraying it as something less than the sum of its parts.

However, all these interpretations miss the actual significance of BRICS, which is its role as an early model of the emerging multipolar order.

Over the past five centuries or so, roughly the period of Western global hegemony, the world order has invariably been based on the dominance of a single power, whether Spain, France, Britain or America, or a combination of powers, such as the Concert of Europe or the US-Soviet bipolar system.

Single-power hegemony remains very much alive in the West today, whether one looks at NATO, AUKUS, international financial institutions or Washington-led alliances in Asia and elsewhere. True, the European Union does not exactly fit this model, but it has NATO as its bedrock, while its members maintain strong, and unequal, relations with the United States.

What keeps these countries together isn’t merely geopolitics and geoeconomics, given they also share a broadly similar worldview, even if its liberal and conservative versions can occasionally clash rather vehemently. Taken together, they represent Western civilization, along with a handful of associates, but BRICS is a very different creature.

Its members vary enormously in population, territory, economic weight, military strength and technological and scientific capabilities and their histories aren’t as closely intertwined as those of Europe and North America, while their political systems are highly diverse and their domestic and foreign policies often point in different directions.

Most fundamentally, they represent several great civilizations, including Chinese and Confucian, Indian and Hindu, Islamic, Persian and Arab, Latin American, African and Russian. In this sense, they’re anything but like-minded, yet they reflect the diversity of humankind itself.

What BRICS obviously lacks is a leader because China, with its 1.5 billion people, the world’s largest economy in purchasing-power-parity terms and a leading position in advanced technology, isn’t the group’s boss and nor is Russia, the world’s fourth-largest economy by the same measure, and alongside the United States, a nuclear superpower.

Despite what Moscow sees as NATO waging a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, it hasn’t attempted to turn BRICS into an anti-Western bloc.

India, meanwhile, is the third major economic power in the group and has overtaken China as the world’s most populous country. It still maintains close ties with America and Western Europe while preserving and developing its historical links with Russia, even as it remains wary of China. Iran and the United Arab Emirates, for their part, find themselves on opposite sides of the ongoing war involving Iran, Israel, and the United States, but BRICS isn’t unraveling.

Chinese President Xi Jinping traveled to the Delhi summit, his first visit to India in seven years and a sign that Beijing clearly doesn’t want to give Washington an opportunity to exploit existing problems in Sino-Indian relations to stoke tensions between Asia’s two great powers.

Meanwhile, even as it lashes out against US bases in the region, Iran is reaching out to its Arab neighbors to discuss a regional security framework in the Persian Gulf.

The durability of Russo-Chinese relations since their normalization in 1989 rests not only on a convergence of fundamental interests, but also on Beijing’s and Moscow’s ability to manage their differences carefully on specific issues.

While the political philosophies of BRICS countries differ widely, they adhere to several key principles that make cooperation possible and at the top of the list is sovereignty as we see Russia, China, India, Iran and others not only preach sovereignty but seek to defend and promote it.

Closely linked to sovereignty is equality, and Russia’s Western adversaries have long sought to humiliate Moscow by portraying it as Beijing’s vassal, as if Western Europe’s kowtowing to Washington and Trump were mere politeness. In reality, Sino-Russian political relations are conducted on an equal footing and the same applies to Russia’s relations with its other BRICS partners, from Brazil and Indonesia to Egypt.

Sovereign equality also implies non-interference in other nations’ domestic politics which comes more easily to countries that don’t present themselves as models or sole guardians of universal values. Accepting others as they are, and respecting the right of other peoples to have their own institutions, is a prerequisite for genuine relations between civilizations.

There’s no need to make BRICS appear to be something it is not, it’s is not an alliance or an anti-Western coalition, and if anything, its record offers a glimpse of a different kind of world order.
This is no paradise, but It’s an order in which diversity can thrive, sovereignty is treated as sacred, differences can be managed and consensus, rather than diktat, is the guiding principle.

Decision-making is admittedly difficult and conflicts, including violent ones, are by no means excluded, but it offers a much fairer deal than an order in which one nation or group of nations can impose itself on others, lay down rules for everyone except itself, and then judge and punish those it considers offenders.
First published in the RT.com.

Qatar
Source: aljazeera.com


BRICS Pay is a decentralised digital payment system.

The central theme of the BRICS bloc of nations is to push back against the global economic dominance of Western countries. That core value was very much at the centre of this year’s 18th BRICS Summit, which took place last week in India.

At the September 12 and 13 summit in New Delhi, leaders committed to expanding local currency trading systems and cross-border payment systems by investing in BRICS Pay, an initiative of the BRICS Business Council.

“We acknowledge the work done to study the cross-border interoperability of payment and messaging channels, and the discussions on promoting trade settlements and investments using BRICS local currencies, while respecting national priorities and acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all approach,” leaders said in a joint declaration as the summit concluded.

They also encouraged the BRICS Payments Task Force (BPTF), a collaborative central bank expert platform focused on cross-border payment mechanisms, to “facilitate practical solutions for cross-border payments among BRICS countries, which are fast, low-cost, more accessible, efficient, transparent and safe”.

Manoj Kewalramani, chairperson of Bengaluru-based think tank Takshashila Institution’s Geostrategy Programme, told Al Jazeera that the declaration indicates “that the quest is not for a single system, but perhaps a suite of options that can be agreed between member states to de-risk their trade and financial dealings”.

While the New Delhi declaration did not indicate that BRICS nations aim to replace the dollar or build their own common currency, it highlights how BRICS is increasingly trying to find alternate payment systems amid geopolitical tensions and Western trade sanctions on members of the bloc, Russia and China.

If systems like BRICS Pay become fully operational, they could work as alternatives to Western payment systems like SWIFT, however.

What is BRICS Pay and how will it work?

What is BRICS Pay?

Proposed by the BRICS Business Council in 2018, BRICS Pay is a decentralised digital payment ecosystem developed to simplify payments between BRICS countries.

BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the initial members of the informal trading group. It was founded in 2006, with South Africa joining in 2010. Since then, more countries have joined – Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia.

In all, that’s 11 member countries, accounting for roughly 49 percent of the world’s population and about 40 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).

According to the BRICS Pay website, it is a “strategic infrastructure” which can also be used by “friendly states” of BRICS countries. It is also meant to offer a “compatible option” for Western payment systems like SWIFT, Visa and Mastercard, but does not intend to replace them.

The payment system was officially endorsed by the BRICS Business Council in 2024 and in August this year, before the BRICS summit in New Delhi, the group’s finance ministers and central bank officials met in Jaipur, India, to discuss advancing the project.

It is currently in pilot and phased rollout stages and is not yet globally operational for all members.
How will BRICS Pay work?

BRICS Pay will connect national payment systems of member countries to each other so international payments can be made more easily.

This will mean that trading transactions between entities or individuals in two different countries can be processed in local currencies, removing the involvement of other currencies such as the dollar.

Payments in local currencies will be settled using QR codes, digital wallets or mobile applications.

Andrey Mikhaylishin, the CEO of BRICS Pay, told India’s Asian News International (ANI) on September 12 that many countries want to use their own payment infrastructure in this way.

“For example, Russia has Mir and a Fast Payment System. India has RuPay and UPI. Furthermore, the European Union is building its own payment infrastructure, called the European Payments Initiative. The UK also wants to create and build its own infrastructure,” he noted, adding that these systems, however, do not automatically work with each other.

“BRICS Pay is a payment ecosystem that can connect national payment infrastructures and give people the ability to use them when they are travelling in countries, not only within BRICS but around the world. It’s helpful for tourists who come to the country and gives them the service of using their own domestic means of payment,” he explained.

“On the other hand, we can talk about companies and banks that need to make settlements with each other. We do that too for B2B (Business-to-business) settlements. It’s a new kind of architecture, a fully decentralised architecture for settlements between countries,” he said.

“We don’t speak about de-dollarisation,” he said.

“We give more flexibility and more types of payment options for our citizens, companies and banks. If they want to use the dollar, they can use the dollar, too,” he added.

How are international payments made currently?

While BRICS Pay has yet to become fully operational, most transactions between countries, companies and even tourists take place through Western cross-border payments like SWIFT.

SWIFT is a cooperative company under Belgian law. It is owned by up to 3,500 shareholders linked to approximately 11,000 financial institutions across the world.

The system is overseen by the G10 central banks, as well as the European Central Bank, with its lead overseer being the National Bank of Belgium.

SWIFT is essentially a network used by banks to send secure messages about transfers of money and other transactions.

So if a company in India wants to pay a company in Europe, the payment currently passes through SWIFT.

More than 11,000 financial institutions around the world use SWIFT, making it the backbone of the international financial transfer system.

While most payments are made in the US dollar, the system also includes payments in the British pound, Indian rupees, euros, and yen, among others.

However, Russia has been banned from using the system due to its war on Ukraine. In February 2022, just days after Moscow’s invasion of Kyiv began, Western nations moved to block certain Russian banks’ access to the SWIFT international payment system.

This has made it harder for Russian banks to communicate with peers internationally, even in friendly countries such as China, slowing trade and making transactions costlier.


What makes BRICS Pay appealing?

Since 2024, at the annual BRICS Summits, Russia has been pushing for alternative payment systems and promoting national currencies, in an effort to bypass Western sanctions.

Alejandro Reyes, adjunct professor in the department of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong, said that in such situations, BRICS Pay’s attractiveness is obvious.

“Russia’s experience with sanctions and the broader concerns among many emerging economies about dependence on Western-controlled financial infrastructure have created demand for alternatives,” he said.

But he stressed that BRICS is not a homogeneous bloc.

“India, Brazil, China, Russia the UAE and the other members have very different relationships with the dollar, with Western financial institutions and with one another. They also have different regulatory systems, capital controls and strategic interests,” he said.

“So the more plausible model is not a single centralised ‘BRICS payment system’, but a network of interoperable national systems, connecting mechanisms such as India’s UPI, Brazil’s Pix and other domestic payment platforms and allowing more transactions to be settled in national currencies.”
Advertisement

Could BRICS Pay replace SWIFT?

BRICS Pay has been designed to provide a parallel, interoperable channel to the Western SWIFT network and analysts say it has not been designed to replace it.

“I don’t see BRICS Pay replacing SWIFT globally in the foreseeable future. SWIFT has enormous advantages of scale, trust, standardisation, compliance infrastructure and network effects built up over decades,” Reyes said.

“But that doesn’t mean BRICS Pay is insignificant. If it develops successfully, it could gradually reduce reliance on SWIFT in particular trade corridors, especially for intra-BRICS transactions conducted in local currencies,” he explained.

“In that sense, the real challenge to SWIFT may be less that one new system displaces it and more that the international payments architecture becomes more plural and fragmented, with several networks operating alongside one another,” he added.

Have BRICS countries been using other payment systems?

Yes. BRICS countries have been using domestic payment systems.

UPI (or Unified Payments Interface) is largely used in India for retail transactions. While it is also present in other countries, including Singapore, France and the UAE, UPI is not used heavily for international trade, according to Kewalramani.

Brazil has also been using a payment system called Pix, which enables people to settle transactions through their bank accounts, while China uses Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS).
Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for the Asia Pacific at Natixis in Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera that CIPS already avoids the SWIFT system.

But she stressed that while these domestic systems within BRICS countries exist, “the key question here is whether they can be linked” through systems like BRICS Pay.

Hong Kong
Source: www.scmp.com


Analysts say lack of movement towards a common currency reflects a more pragmatic approach to reducing reliance on US dollar

With the 11-nation Brics grouping pledging to boost cross-border payment links but making no move towards establishing a common currency, analysts said the vow marked a shift towards a more pragmatic de-dollarisation strategy rather than a retreat from the effort.
A 45-page leaders’ declaration issued on Saturday at the Brics summit in New Delhi said the group’s Payment Task Force would continue working to facilitate “fast, low-cost, more accessible, efficient, transparent and safe” cross-border payments among Brics countries.
Advertisement

However, Sudhakar Dalela, secretary of India’s Ministry of External Affairs, told a news briefing on Saturday there was “no proposal in the Brics for a Brics currency, as of now”.
Matteo Giovannini, a non-resident associate fellow at the Beijing-based Centre for China and Globalisation, said it was “less a retreat from de-dollarisation than a shift in its strategy, from trying to create a common Brics currency towards building the infrastructure that allows Brics members to reduce their reliance on the dollar in practical terms”.

“This is a much more achievable objective,” he said, citing hurdles including differences in monetary policies, exchange-rate regimes, capital controls and economic structures across Brics members as reasons for the declaration’s more “pragmatic approach.”
The declaration said the task force had also studied “cross-border interoperability of payment and messaging channels” and had held talks on using local currencies for “trade settlements and investments”.
Advertisement

The idea of a Brics currency has drawn widespread attention since Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva floated the prospect of a common trading currency in 2023. That later prompted US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 per cent tariffs on Brics countries if they moved to create a new currency or replace the US dollar.
Xu Tianchen, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said the vision of a common Brics currency “lacks the business case”.
Advertisement

He cited the absence of a single market among the 11 members of the group, the lack of a central body that could have a say in members’ policymaking – along the lines of the European Commission – and members’ differing ambitions to retain control.
“These mean a collective political union, a single market and a unified currency will all be very difficult,” Xu said.
The 11 Brics members are: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
However, analysts said efforts to reduce reliance on the US dollar were likely to continue amid mounting geopolitical tensions and concerns over the dollar-dominated financial system, although they would follow a more practical and incremental path.
Advertisement

“Each country has the incentive to bypass the dollar system,” Xu said. “So one possible way is for each country to build its local currency settlement networks and ensure interoperability within the various systems.”

Giovannini, also an AsiaGlobal Fellow at The University of Hong Kong, forecast forecast a future with greater use of national currencies for intra-Brics trade, more interoperable payment and messaging systems, and potentially deeper cooperation around settlement and financial infrastructure.

“I would expect Brics to make more progress on the plumbing of international finance than on creating a new currency,” he said. “The dollar is unlikely to be displaced in the foreseeable future, but the more important development may be the gradual creation of a parallel financial ecosystem in which the dollar is no longer the default intermediary for every transaction.”

Russia
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org

Ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit in India the CGTN news agency unveiled its poll regarding the perception of BRICS across developed and developing countries. The survey was conducted by CGTN among 12,250 respondents across 41 countries and covered major developed economies and Global South countries [1]. The methodology of the survey envisaged that “all respondents were members of the general public aged 18 and above, and the sample matches each country’s census distribution by age and gender”. While the results do not show how attitudes changed across time periods, the overall pattern of responses suggests a notable level of awareness across the global community of the role of BRICS as a bloc in the world economy.

Reflecting the rise of the BRICS bloc on the international stage the key result of the CGTN poll suggests that “more than six in 10 respondents believe BRICS has grown more influential in international affairs in recent years”. Another conclusion of the poll is that 63% of respondents provided a positive assessment of BRICS’ contribution to improving the global governance system, with respondents in 25 of the 41 countries surveyed providing approval rates of more than 60%.

Importantly, positive assessments of BRICS international role were particularly strong among the younger generation of respondents. On the question whether cooperation within the expanded BRICS helps steer the international order toward greater fairness and justice, the share of positive responses reached 61.6%, with approval exceeding 60% across all age groups under 44, and peaking at 66.6% among respondents aged 25 to 34. Reflecting the notable differences in the responses across the advanced and developing economies, approval in Global South countries exceeded the corresponding level in developed countries by 26.4 percentage points.

On the crucial issue of BRICS cooperation in the financial sphere, 65.6% of respondents positively viewed BRICS’ drive for local-currency settlement and a more diversified international monetary system, “believing it has effectively amplified the voice of Global South countries in global financial governance”. Importantly, this view was shared by more than 50% of the respondents in developed countries, which suggests that a more diversified international monetary system that provides greater optionality in terms of savings and investment may be one of the most important contributions by BRICS to global economic development from the point of view of households and individual entrepreneurs. This is partly also reflected in the fact that the issue of BRICS currency is among the most popular (if not the single most popular) BRICS-related theme across the wide strata of the global population. The recent CGTN poll is also suggestive of the centrality of the reform of the international monetary system, with this theme exhibiting one of the highest support levels from the poll’s respondents.

Other key areas of importance for BRICS from the point of view of those polled included the theme of international trade in view of the current protectionist pressures facing the bloc. Indeed, the three areas where the BRICS recognition scores were the highest included:

• helping emerging markets and developing countries support global economic recovery and trade growth;
• advancing global governance reform and strengthening the voice of emerging markets and developing countries;
• supporting international trade cooperation while opposing protectionism and unilateral sanctions.

The CGTN article that presents the results of the poll does not contain the entire list of countries that participated in the poll and accordingly the distribution between developed and developing economies. Certainly, we have witnessed in earlier international polls[2] the differences in perception across the developed and the developing world that seem to point to the lack of information about BRICS and the notable information asymmetries across countries concerning the bloc’s goals and achievements. This in turn needs to attract greater efforts from BRICS members, including within the context of the BRICS+/BRICS++ outreach exercises, in conveying the key messages regarding the bloc’s development to the international community, particularly the younger generation. With respect to the latter, a more diverse and extensive network of BRICS Universities and schools, would also go a long way towards addressing the lingering “information gaps”.

Overall, while the results of the poll may be taken with cautious optimism on how the BRICS is perceived on the international arena, there is clearly a lack of such polls in the global information space. In recent years CGTN was one of the leaders in conducting BRICS-related polls and there may be scope for a wider BRICS+ effort in this domain. Perhaps there could be a way for an alliance between the main news agencies of BRICS+ economies to provide regular “barometer polls/publications” on the attitudes concerning BRICS and its priorities across member and partner economies. Similar “barometer publication” have been launched in Africa[3] and other regional blocs. It could also be a potential path to evaluating public attitudes to some of the initiatives being explored by BRICS members in the run-up to the annual BRICS summits.

[1] https://news.cgtn.com/news/2026-09-11/Poll-Six-in-10-respondents-see-a-growing-BRICS-role-in-global-affairs-1QlyVfTowjm/index.html
[2] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/a-look-into-a-new-brics-poll/
[3] https://www.afrobarometer.org/

China
Source: www.ndb.int

On September 16 and 17, 2026, the Board of Directors (Board) of the New Development Bank (NDB) held its 52^nd Meeting at the Bank’s Headquarters in Shanghai.

Olifants Management Model Program (Stage I)

The Board approved a loan of up to USD 200 million to the Republic of South Africa for the Olifants Management Model Program (Stage I).

The Project aims to develop bulk raw and potable water infrastructure for enhancing water supply in the Mogalakwena Local Municipality (MLM) of the Limpopo Province of South Africa, in line with the objectives of the National Water and Sanitation Master Plan. The Project will address the growing water scarcity in the Limpopo Province through the construction of a bulk water supply scheme that abstracts water from the Flag Boshielo Dam on the Olifants River to feed into new water treatment facilities for supplying potable water to residents of MLM and into a raw water network for industrial users.

The Olifants Management Model Program (Stage I) contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, specifically Target 6.1 (Universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all) and Target 6.4 (Substantially increasing water-use efficiency across all sectors).

Hyderabad Elevated Corridor Project

The Board approved a loan of up to USD 395 million to the Republic of India for the Hyderabad Elevated Corridor Project.

The Project will improve urban mobility and liveability in Hyderabad, the capital of the state of Telangana and a major economic and technology hub undergoing rapid urbanisation and motorization, by easing congestion and improving connectivity on the city’s two critical arterial corridors. The Project aims to decongest key transport corridors traversing Hyderabad (National Highway-44 and State Highway-01) by implementing two elevated expressways on top of the existing roads.

The Hyderabad Elevated Corridor Project is primarily aligned with SDG 11 Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, specifically Target 11.2 (Access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems); SDG 9, Target 9.1 (Developing quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure); and SDG 3, Target 3.6 (By 2020, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents).

The Board approved the Mid-Year Forecast for CY2026, the Condensed Financial Statements of the New Development Bank for the six months ended June 30, 2026 and the Note on Capital Plan based on Financial Model Exercise.

The Board also approved the Grievance Redress Mechanism.

An update on the Bank’s robust project pipeline was provided to the Board.

The Board was briefed on the progress of membership expansion.

The Board was briefed on matters pertaining to independent evaluation, including the Corporate Level Evaluation of NDB’s Project Cycle (Sovereign Operations), the Thematic Evaluation of NDB-Financed Projects in the Energy Sector in South Africa, and the Evaluation Synthesis Report on the Use of Country Systems by NDB.

Committee Meetings

The 40^th Meeting of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee (ARC) and the 36^th Meeting of the Budget, Human Resources and Compensation Committee (BHRC) of the Board were held in the Bank’s Headquarters on September 16, 2026, and September 15, 2026, respectively.

About the New Development Bank

The New Development Bank is a multilateral development bank established in 2015 by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, with the purpose of mobilising resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in emerging markets and developing countries (EMDCs), complementing the existing efforts of multilateral and regional financial institutions for global growth and development. NDB welcomed its first non-founding members in 2021 and has since then continued to expand its membership, positioning itself as a platform for wider collaboration among EMDCs. The Bank’s membership base currently stands at ten countries.

Russia
Source: mid.ru

Question: The 2026 BRICS Summit has concluded, and China will assume the association’s chairmanship in 2027. Given that China has the largest economy among BRICS countries, what significance do you attach to this transition in terms of practical cooperation within the association? Which areas of cooperation could receive particular attention during China’s chairmanship? What does Russia expect from the development of BRICS cooperation under the Chinese chairmanship?

Maria Zakharova: The BRICS Summit held in New Delhi on September 12-13 was, without exaggeration, one of the most significant international events of the year. The participation of around 30 countries was a clear indication of the group’s growing international standing. The figures speak for themselves: today, BRICS accounts for approximately half of the world’s population, 40 percent of global GDP in purchasing power parity terms, and more than one-third of the Earth’s land area.

President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin addressed the summit. During the meetings, the BRICS leaders reviewed the results of the association’s work over the past 20 years and discussed prospects for further strengthening their strategic partnership. The key agreements reached at the summit are reflected in the final declaration, which sets out the consolidated positions of the BRICS countries on a wide range of pressing international and regional issues, as well as on the future development of BRICS.

As you rightly noted, China will assume the BRICS chairmanship next year. We expect our multilateral cooperation to maintain continuity across all key areas: politics and security, the economy and finance, and humanitarian contacts. We share the view of our Chinese friends that, as BRICS enters its third decade, the association plays an important role in global affairs by bringing together and representing the interests of the countries of the Global Majority. The expansion of BRICS membership and the introduction of the partner country category have further strengthened the group’s political and economic weight.

One of our common priorities for 2027 is to put into practice the financial and economic initiatives already agreed upon at the multilateral level. These include establishing settlement and depository infrastructure resilient to external risks, developing reinsurance mechanisms, and creating a BRICS Grain Exchange and a New Investment Platform.

I have the impression that when representatives of the West – that global “Western minority” – read these documents and declarations and listen to the speeches, they must be kicking themselves, to put it mildly. What an opportunity they have missed. They have cut themselves off from normal dialogue and taken it upon themselves to divide the world into what they call the “beautiful garden” and the “wild jungle.” They are now reaping the bitter fruits of their own decisions.

China’s vast economic and technological expertise can give fresh impetus to these efforts and open up new opportunities for the benefit of our countries.

back to top
Question: There was a meeting between two presidents, el-Sisi and Putin, in India. How, in your view, will it affect our relations in the future, especially the El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant and the Russian Industrial Zone? How would you describe Western reports against the El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant and Rosatom? And the last part, please. How would you describe seeing 10,000 young people here in one Russian city, and how it can impact the concept of a multipolar world order?

Maria Zakharova: The meeting at the highest level was held in an expanded format. In addition to the leaders of our countries, the foreign ministers were present along with representatives of the Russian Presidential Executive Office and, of course, ministers of the Russian Government. The two leaders discussed a wide range of topics during their dialogue. As you understand, the talks took place behind closed doors. But I would like to draw your attention to the fact that these contacts received high praise.

We highly value our cooperation with Egypt. It has its own intrinsic value and is deeply rooted in history. Indeed, we have been through so much in many areas of cooperation that this wealth of experience provides solid grounds for future development.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Presidential Executive Office issued an exhaustive account of this meeting. The corresponding materials are available on the Kremlin’s official website.
As concerns the Westerners’ attempts to drive a wedge between our countries, we must accept it as present-day reality. They are simply annoying flies that are trying to spoil things and cause inconvenience. We must carry on and keep developing our relations knowing that it is part of their Western mentality. It is not only a matter of today’s politics but simply mentality. Unfortunately, over the centuries of colonialism, slave trade and exploitation of other countries, they have forgotten how to do business on equal terms. They have forgotten what it means to compete. They believe they can still rule countries and peoples just like when they ruled their destinies for several centuries. They are unable to accept the very painful fact: those times are gone. The 20th century brought decolonisation and this process is about to reach its final destination in early 21st century. We will not allow neo-colonialism to gain traction and will build (both Egypt and Russia) our relations with other countries based on equality, mutual respect and taking into account each other’s interests. We will do everything to ensure that international law exists. We do not want it to be broken and replaced with a rules-based order. Because we know these rules. The rules are whoever is stronger, whoever has a bigger bludgeon is right and beyond accountability. This is not Russia’s or Egypt’s approach.

So, we know they will try to interfere – and not only with our cooperation in the nuclear sector. They will try to interfere anywhere they can – agriculture, manufacturing, humanitarian cooperation, and our relations with other countries as well. It is their modus operandi. Therefore, we must be ready and make sure we can prevent their malicious interference and influence.

If they are still capable of normal communication based on law, we should see it as an opportunity but still remember that every time they promise to behave properly by abiding by the law, in a couple of years they will forget about their promise and backtrack from the agreements they not only signed but put forward themselves.

The last part about cities is not quite clear to me. I suggest that we come back to it later. You can pass your question to me and I will answer it.

Russia
Source: mid.ru

Friends,

I am delighted to be back in Yekaterinburg, the heart of Eurasia, and to join the participants of the latest International Youth Festival.

Yekaterinburg has become the true youth capital of the world this week with over 190 countries - the overwhelming majority of the countries on our planet - represented at the event. Without a doubt, we hope that all of you who had not been here before have had an opportunity to get to know the city and Russia in general. We also hope that you have enjoyed the programme of events prepared for you by the organisers. At the very least, I am impressed by the way the media have been covering your work, life, and recreational activities here. Truth be told, I’ve been envious of you these past few days. I made it here at long last.

We have a great many compelling topics to discuss. Modern-day Russia is moving forward quite rapidly despite headwinds, which we will discuss later. We are taking leading positions in many areas, including the latest digital technologies. Here is a real-life example: elections to the lower house of our parliament will be held on September 18-20. You can cast your vote in just one minute from your smartphone. Such examples abound.

The pace of technological advances is just one factor shaping the modern world. Multipolarity is another key dynamic which we will review in detail today. The Global South and the Global East, the World Majority as a whole, as well as new centres of growth in Eurasia, Latin America, and Africa, are fortifying their positions. They are firmly upholding their national interests and want to manage their own natural resources independently. They are advocating the democratisation of international relations so that the peoples of the countries where these resources are located, rather than overseas territories, can benefit from what history, their ancestors, and God have given them.

The philosophy of equality, now the dominant trend, is particularly characteristic of BRICS. Its latest summit has just taken place in India’s capital, New Delhi. The countries representing very different civilisations within this association demonstrate unity in their determination to maximise opportunities for joint development and do so not at anyone’s expense or to anyone’s detriment, but for the prosperity and security of their peoples. Russia is fully committed to this approach, which is characteristic of other associations of new type, including the SCO, the CIS, the EAEU, and the CSTO.

Unfortunately, the objective process of strengthening multipolarity is running into aggressive opposition from our Western colleagues and their elites. They continue to perceive these developments as a threat to the dominance they have enjoyed for five hundred years during the periods of slavery and colonialism, and are trying to retain their waning dominance by resorting to the most unscrupulous methods, including illegal ones, such as unilateral sanctions, outright pressure, interference in internal affairs, and instigation of conflicts.

Today, two opposing trends have collided. One is represented by those who want to preserve the old world order and its old system of governance, in which a minority benefitted from the subjugation of the majority. The second is about the emergence of a more balanced and equitable world order based on the key principles of the UN Charter, above all the principle of the sovereign equality of states. Our Western colleagues have not once respected this principle throughout the history of the world. They have always regarded themselves as the main actors who call the tune. Yet life is nevertheless forcing them back to complying with the principles of the UN Charter.

The organisation itself is not in the best shape, because the goals of the Charter are not being fulfilled by all its members. If you read the Charter today, you will see that it fully meets the challenges posed by history to the process of shaping a multipolar world: the sovereign equality of states, non-interference in internal affairs, respect for sovereignty, and respect for the right of nations to self-determination. This particular right provided the international legal basis for the decolonisation process, which began in Africa in the 1960s.

These are the links in the same chain. This year alone, the West, in an effort to uphold its waning dominance, carried out an invasion of Venezuela (and abducted its lawfully elected president) and an armed aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran (and killed Iran’s Supreme Leader and members of his family). The same applies to the conflict in Ukraine, which is a direct consequence of the West’s expansionist policy. Confrontation is not our choice. President Vladimir Putin has made it clear many times.

Over decades, we sought to promote a friendly and unifying agenda with regard to our Western neighbours, including with a view to creating, across the vast space from the Atlantic to the Pacific, an architecture of peace, equal, and indivisible security, and mutually beneficial, practical cooperation. All of that is history. All of it was spurned by the West, which has not learned to interact on an equal footing. I am confident that the process of learning will continue and will play its part.

The West made its choice long ago in favour of containing Russia, including through the forceful and brazen expansion of NATO towards Russia’s borders. We often hear the EU leaders talk about the need to prepare for war with our country. This is the most popular topic in the speeches of today’s European elites and the leadership that has settled in Brussels. We have repeatedly made it clear that we have no intention of attacking Europe. Recently, President Vladimir Putin once again addressed this issue in detail, stressing that we have no interest whatsoever in doing so. However, if Europe, which never stops speaking about preparing for war against Russia, attacks the Russian Federation, it will be a completely different war. A very short one. I hope European capitals and the entities that are now trying to portray themselves as united Europe heard this warning.

This is precisely where the West’s Ukraine policy is heading. The West sticks firmly to its stance, which looks more like an ultimatum. It will never recognise the fact that Russia has allegedly seized the regions and never recognise the legitimacy of such actions. In their world, the Kiev regime, an openly Nazi regime and the only one in the world to have banned the Russian language, is a legitimate regime.
Since 2017, the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine has adopted a series of legislative acts banning the Russian language, beginning with primary, secondary, and higher education and extending the ban to all Russian-language media owned by Russian businesses and Ukrainian citizens. The cultural events in Russian, including films and concerts, have been cancelled. People get arrested for songs they upload to the internet.

Yesterday, I held a meeting with ambassadors from the World Majority countries. We meet regularly. They were interested in the latest developments in Ukraine. An ambassador from an Arab country cited Dostoevsky and Gogol about the “tear of a child” and the idea that “beauty will save the world.” He asked me what Russia could do to save the world now. We hold Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Leo Tolstoy, and many other great Russian poets and writers in high regard. They are part of the treasure trove of world literature and culture. However, if this question is asked in the context of the events in Ukraine, it would not be out of place to remind everyone that, just like Nazi Germany, Ukraine is destroying books, specifically, books in Russian. The Nazis burned them, but the Ukrainians, being less wasteful, recycle them as waste paper. All Russian-language books have been thrown out from the libraries and “put to use.”

This is the policy of the West, primarily Europe, which strives to keep an openly Nazi and Russophobic regime in power and openly discusses plans to deploy “mobilisation forces” on the territory controlled by Zelensky. In his comment, President Vladimir Putin conveyed that this would amount to Europe declaring a direct war on Russia, rather than a hybrid one.

For us, the Ukrainian settlement means accomplishing the goals that were set at the beginning of the special military operation to eliminate the underlying causes of the crisis. As I mentioned earlier, these include plans to bring NATO, including its military infrastructure, in direct proximity to our borders; the oppression of all Russians; and an official and legally enshrined state policy aimed at wiping out everything Russian, including education, the media, and culture, and even the use of Russian in everyday life. Efforts, although fairly unsuccessful, are being made to ban the Russian language. Nevertheless, Zelensky and his team continue to pursue this with a persistence that could be put to better use.
As I just pointed out, we cannot operate on the premise that the Nazi regime currently in power and its Nazi ideology and practices have been enshrined in law and are being implemented on a daily basis. Consider Zelensky kneeling before the remains of Nazis - WWII criminals - which were brought from European countries and given a ceremonious reburial, and his plans to create some kind of a pantheon of heroes, and to do so, of all places, on the hallowed grounds of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.

For us, eliminating the underlying causes and threats, and protecting the rights of the Russian people, including the right to their native language and Orthodox faith, remain absolutely clear objectives of the special military operation. I am confident that achieving the objectives set out by President Putin will not only help settle this crisis, but will also improve the situation across Eurasia, above all in its western, European part, but not only there. It will contribute to establishing an international order based on a balance of interests without claims to hegemony or dominance and on international rules.

Adapting international relations to the realities of a multipolar world which I mentioned at the top of my remarks is an objective process. The overwhelming majority of countries have a stake in seeing it succeed, although it will not happen overnight and may take an entire historical epoch.

Our allies, like-minded partners, and strategic partners, and those helping this objective process overcome the obstacles that are thrown in its path, include numerous countries around the world, primarily the CSTO, the EAEU, and the CIS member states. That also includes new global development centres such as China, India, and Brazil; the SCO and BRICS countries; and the countries of Eurasia, Latin America, and Africa. There are numerous subregional organisations and associations on these continents. Africa also has a continent-wide mechanism, the African Union; in Latin America, there is the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

Eurasia has so far lacked a continent-wide umbrella organisation, which is a historical consequence of the way the world was structured after the end of the Second World War. Nevertheless, we advocate building bridges despite the presence of occasionally significant differences between western Eurasia and eastern Eurasia.

At one point, President Putin put forward two initiatives which we have consistently advocated and promoted. The first one is to pool the efforts of all Eurasian economic integration organisations. The EAEU, ASEAN, and the SCO have already established partnerships among themselves and are launching dialogues with the League of Arab States and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf. My point is that with the participation of these already well-established and fairly successful subregional entities, as well as individual countries that are not members, we can build what we have designated as the Greater Eurasian Partnership. The idea is that this would provide a robust material foundation for the gradual and dialogue-based creation of continent-wide Eurasian security architecture for all Eurasian countries to participate.

When discussing multipolarity, we also need to build bridges between the countries from different continents, primarily the Global South. As I pointed out earlier, just like our other partners in BRICS, the SCO and other organisations, we are not rejecting relations with the West.

As President Vladimir Putin recently argued in his comment on a similar issue, it was not us who rejected the US dollar. We were willing to continue using it, if only those who issue this global currency had honoured their commitments. I remember very well the US leadership claim 20-25 year ago that the US dollar was not American property, but a global public good, and that everyone should use it regardless of the country, government, or particular company involved. So it was not us who undermined the US dollar’s widely trumpeted role. We are simply being forced into moving towards new forms of cooperation where no one can impede our efforts and payments related to servicing our trade and investment with the countries that are part of the organisations that I mentioned.

This was discussed at the most recent BRICS summit in New Delhi, where Russia’s proposals, including the creation of alternative payment platforms, settlement and depository mechanisms, and a reinsurance mechanism, as well as an investment platform, and a grain exchange, were discussed.

We are not claiming that what I just listed should replace the existing global entities that have dealt with and continue to deal with these matters under Western control. But if the West restricts access to these instruments that are essential to the functioning of the global economy, we have no choice but to create alternative ones.

We understand that amid the “multicoloured” world we are witnessing today by which I mean the large number of subregional entities in Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America, the risk of misunderstandings is increasing. Some even say that multipolarity will ultimately turn into chaos. They tell us we will all be mired in unending arguments with one another and be plotting against each other. They say the bipolar world of the Cold War era is history, but the need for order is still there. From their perspective, the ideal option is either the American model of a unipolar world where one boss run things and keeps them in order (I think the events of the past two years have shown that this way of running things will be ruinous) or, they say, we need to create Chimerica run by China-US bilateral arrangement for governing the world on the basis of established bipolar agreements.

I don’t think this model is robust. First, the People’s Republic of China is promoting a completely different philosophy of international relations and of its own role in them. Chinese President Xi Jinping has put forward four, or perhaps even five, global initiatives on ways to ensure security in the world, to reform the global governance system and to address many other urgent international issues. Russia is participating in promoting these initiatives, and we know for certain that the PRC remains fully committed to multipolarity and polycentrism.

I would like to close by saying a few words about how we interact with our partners in the humanitarian sphere. Projects that reflect a new approach to cultural ties, sport, and some other areas are important to us.

The Games of the Future, which have now been held for the third time and bring together e-sports and traditional sporting disciplines stand out among these initiatives. The same team must show on a computer screen how well it can score goals and then go out onto the field and do so for real. This is a very interesting and promising initiative.

Let me also mention the Intervision International Song Contest. Held in the Russian Federation in 2025, it was a success. The next one will take place in Saudi Arabia. Political and diplomatic efforts are required to support and accompany initiatives of this kind, and I have listed just some of them. We have been working together with like-minded forces on this agenda. Future generations of diplomats will undoubtedly perpetuate many positive undertakings, which we are launching or about to launch, and I hope that this includes those of them who are in this room today.

We have always attached great importance to enabling Russia’s youth to socialise with their peers. There is a whole series of annual academic excellence competitions, skills and craftsmanship championships and reunions. The annual Young Scientists Congress has established itself as one of the central events in research and education.

Empowering young people to unlock their creative potential has special importance for us. There is the Diamond Butterfly, a Eurasian film award, as well as the Tavrida.Art festival in Crimea. All volunteers know about the We Stand Together international award whose mission consists of supporting major social projects.

Russian universities have been witnessing a steady increase in the number of foreign applicants on top of the Russian Government quotas. There is a new mechanism for offering grants to talented international applicants. Today, about 400,000 foreigners are studying in Russia. If among you there are those who attended our universities, I hope that you have been sharing your experience at home.
Therefore, the international environment remains in a constant flux. To anticipate any unforeseen developments, forums like this serve a very useful purpose by bringing together young and middle-age people and enabling them to engage in a free and open conversation to discuss matters they care about. I have no doubt that this festival will contribute to ensuring the wellbeing and prosperity for the entire humankind, all the people on our planet.

Question: There has been much talk lately in Russia about the upcoming election, but in Europe we are being told that there is no democracy over here. What can be expected from this election and why does it matter?

Sergey Lavrov: Any election is more than just a voting process to elect a candidate or a party. This is also when the nation expresses its will and chooses its path for the future and the way their country will develop over the next election cycle.

This election is taking place against the backdrop of a war. The so-called collective West declared it against us and has been fighting this war through its Ukrainian proxies and using them as cannon fodder by spending lavishly to supply them with weapons, munitions, and also sharing the latest technology, intelligence and satellite data. We know all this very well.

There is nothing new about the objective the West has been pursuing. It consists of inflicting yet another strategic defeat, as they call it, on Russia. You will not hear them mention this today as frequently as they used to since the very notion of strategic defeat has somewhat paled. This, however, does not change their posture in its essence. The West has been talking about supporting Vladimir Zelensky until the very end, arguing that he stands for what they call European values. This is what President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and the EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas, as well as Chancellor of Germany Friedrich Merz, President of France Emmanuel Macron and others have been saying. This, however, means only one thing: these would-be European values – and the European Union claims that Vladimir Zelensky took a stand for these values – provide for cancelling the Russian language across all spheres along with the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, while encouraging Nazi ideology and acts and promoting an all-out militarisation effort. These factors constitute the root causes of the conflict, and our special military operation is designed to address them.

Without going as far as destroying Russia – and I do think that despite all their bombastic statements there are still some smart political figures there, they want to destabilise Russia. Truth be said, there are groups of former Russian citizens who fled to the West and are now working there to create all kinds of organisations for what they call decolonising Russia, which amounts to tearing the country apart. This is an old project, which has been tried and tested a long time ago. But when the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and there were attempts to move in this direction, they failed. Today, there is an effort to revive this project. I firmly believe that they understand that they would not achieve their objectives, which does not mean that they will not try creating an unstable environment, destabilise the country so that people when casting their ballots do not answer their hearts’ calling with an understanding of the lasting challenges our country is facing. Of course, we are witnessing attempts of this nature.

There is also a second aspect to this matter. All this results from the fact that, just like in the previous years, we are witnessing attempts by the West to directly interfere with the free expression of will by our citizens during this election campaign. This has been especially apparent abroad, but there were also attempts to act this way inside Russia. When people come to the polls, they want to vote for their future, for that future to be bright, and for the social and economic situation to improve across all the regions of the Russian Federation. What they want is to live in safety and security. This is where the West took its aim. This is to say that foreign policy has been a major aspect in this election campaign and has had a decisive role in terms of what needs to be done during the election, which is scheduled to begin in just a few days. An overwhelming majority of our people, and I have been talking to many of them, understand that they need a strong country, a strong Russia to move towards better living conditions. But apart from the comfort of everyday life, most people in our country adhere to traditions and culture which have taken shape over the course of our millennial history. The overwhelming majority of Russians is not ready to give up these traditions in exchange for wooden beads of some kind, or what else the West has to offer. It is for this reason that there is an effort to revive Nazism in Europe in order to cancel the feat accomplished by our forefathers who defeated Nazism. People understand this too. Therefore, I am convinced that their hearts will guide them in this election, and that they will vote in full cognisance of continuity in the mission Russia is destined to fulfil in this world.

Question (retranslated): Uganda has opened its economy to any investments. We have created a good investment climate and investment policy. However, Russian presence is limited in Uganda. What do you think is the reason for that? Why do Russian companies not invest in Uganda? What can both countries do to fill this gap?

Sergey Lavrov: Your question concerns our cooperation with the African continent, the African Union and individual African countries. Uganda is an old partner and friend. I have been to Kampala several times and met with President Yoweri Museveni, an outstanding and one of the most experienced politicians in Africa and the world. We share our Ugandan partners’ enthusiasm for paying more attention to trade, economic and investment cooperation. Over the first few months of this year, our mutual trade increased by 70 percent. It is a very high pace, and I have no doubt that it will continue to grow.

In 2025, Kampala hosted the third meeting of the Russian-Ugandan Intergovernmental Commission on Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation. Plans have been made for joint projects in agriculture, information technologies, the industry, education and culture. There is no doubt that our partnership will gradually acquire a substantive basis, and its economic component will grow to match the high political standards of our bilateral relations at all levels.

Question: You come from the generation of diplomats who worked during the bipolar system and the unipolar period, and who are now witnessing the rise of a multipolar world. In this connection, I would like to ask you to give some advice to young professionals, young diplomats who began their career in this transition period. What do you think is the most important quality for would-be diplomats?

Sergey Lavrov: We have talked a great deal about multipolarity today. As I said, multipolarity is an objective course of history. There is no getting away from it. Take a look at the statistics of the share of the United States and other G7 countries 20 years ago and today, especially compared to the share of the global economy currently held by the BRICS countries. Those figures are poles apart, and the divide will only widen.

Regrettably, the objective process of the rise of multipolarity is being hindered. I have already mentioned this. After WWII, when the system of international governance was created (the UN, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation), our American colleagues presented it as a common good, as structures that will ensure a smooth, universally acceptable and mutually beneficial course of globalisation. They proclaimed the basic criteria of globalisation: free market forces, free competition, the inviolability of property, and so forth.

Today, all these dogmas and “sacred” ideals have been sacrificed to the idea of “punishing” those countries whose policy the West dislikes, including but not only Russia. Sanctions have also been imposed on Iran and Venezuela. Restrictions have been adopted against the People’s Republic of China and even US allies in the hope that these secondary unlawful restrictive measures will force them to reduce their cooperation with the “main culprits” for the current developments, which do not suit the Unites States. In this particular instance, Russia and Iran. But all other countries that trade with Russia and are in no way connected to bilateral problems between Russia and the West must face “punishment.” Relevant laws are being adopted, and new “bills of rights,” or more precisely, bills of economic rightlessness are being discussed.

Frankly, I believe that this means that the United States and the West as a whole can no longer compete on the basis of the rights, which they themselves introduced in international relations and which seemed to suit everyone for decades. But when some countries began to beat those who invented these rules on their home ground, they started using completely different methods. A case in point is the People’s Republic of China. But there are many other such countries.

However, American political analysts openly say now that globalisation is over. For example, professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago has stated this in a recent interview. The global economy is fragmented, and we are witnessing the regionalisation of global development. This explains the growing significance of numerous regional structures and subregional integration structures, which I mentioned in my opening remarks.

Meanwhile, while developing our policy with due consideration for these trends, trying to promote these integration processes and aligning our economic, trade and investment activities with structures that are most favourable for mutually beneficial joint projects, we are not shutting ourselves off. President Putin spoke about this as well. We are not closing ourselves off from the dollar or any structures. But these structures should reform themselves if they want to maintain their importance. I am referring to the Bretton-Woods institutions.

If the real economic, financial and trade weight of the BRICS countries were to be honestly reflected in the system of IMF quotas and voting power, BRICS would have more quotas and voting power.
The problem is that the Americans are deliberately hindering the use of objective and understandable criteria. They just “don’t feel like it.” At the WTO, our American colleagues are blocking the operation of the Dispute Settlement Body, because hundreds of China’s complaints, which are gathering dust there, will be granted as soon as that body is unblocked. The Americans simply reject candidates for vacancies in that body, and there is no quorum without them. There are many other tricky methods.

Therefore, we should rely on those who have proved their reliability. Regrettably, the West has nothing to boast about in this regard.

Question: I’m a young worker at Rosatom’s Akkyu Nuclear Power Plant. We are building the first nuclear power plant in Türkiye. A month ago, I was lucky enough to be part of the Knowledge Icebreaker 2026 educational expedition. A group of young people from 23 countries shared their experience and knowledge, solving various tasks.

Are there any global tasks that could bring young people together and create a similar international community for cooperation? And what other event formats are available now, in your opinion? You have already mentioned the Games of the Future and the Taurida today – the projects that could also become a North Pole of sorts for young people, to help them achieve their dreams and aspirations.

Sergey Lavrov: Is your question about events that could bring you together?

Question: Correct.

Sergey Lavrov: And what did you do here on Monday? I don’t quite understand.

Question: We did work together. And what about tasks? What tasks are out there that could bring people from different countries together?

Sergey Lavrov: You know, there are no tasks we would reject straight away. If we see what exactly is proposed and how it serves people’s interests, the state will support these processes. There are special programmes, and it is within the competence of the Russian Government.

This sort of forums, roundtable meetings, dialogues and panels are mainly planned with the expectation that ideas will emerge. Truth and projects are born in debate. I am certain that the organisers of this festival are keeping a log of the ideas voiced here and how we can help the youth movement to see these ideas through.

Question: Russia plays a very important part in the development of the Maldives. In 2025, we had 270,000 Russian visitors. Many Maldivians make Russia their home for higher studies in engineering, science and technology. As a small state with Russia being a big state with large industries, how can we navigate the future multilateralism, strengthening multilateralism and building a future for multipolarity? We should target to increase these 270,000 to one million over the next five years.

Sergey Lavrov: How many tourists from all countries did you get over a year?

Question: (checks his phone).

Sergey Lavrov: I could check my own phone.

Question: In 2025, we had 278,000 visitors. In 2026, we have already had 178,000 visitors. In the next five years, we are aiming to make it one million visitors from Russia. Our Foreign Minister and a delegation from the Transport Ministry visited in August to increase the travel routes from Male to Moscow. We hope to have your support in increasing the youth stake in this trend and entrepreneurship of tourism.

Sergey Lavrov: If conditions attracting Russian tourists are created, this is the most important factor. Then, our task will be to provide transport, insurance and visa opportunities.

But speaking about small and medium-sized countries and how they appear through the lens of building a multipolar world, I have already mentioned the principle enshrined in the UN Charter – namely the sovereign equality of states. The West is putting obstacles in the way of this sovereign equality.
For example, right now, Europe is hunting tankers and bulk carriers operating in the interests of the Russian Federation under the flags of other states in full compliance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The EU has come up with a term “shadow fleet.” They are developing their own bills that will justify piracy and plunder at sea in order to continue their hybrid war against Russia in this form as well.
They announce, publicly and with pride, that they have caught a vessel carrying Russian cargo under the flag of an African country, which must mean it is fake. Do you know how it happens? It’s a simple scheme. They detain a vessel. Then, the European ambassadors in the country of the flag go to this African country’s foreign ministry or the prime minister’s office to talk, quite blatantly. They say something along the lines of “Our countries are involved in an assistance programme for you that is approved by the International Monetary Fund or the World Food Programme. We will suspend this programme if you don’t revoke the flag immediately.” That is how it goes.

There must be fairness. We see multipolarity as a world where there is no blackmail, threats or sanctions hanging over small or medium-sized countries, and where these countries can be respected and be able to choose their own partners. If they want to be friends with Western, Eastern, or Southern countries, it is their right. They must have the right to choose the optimal, most suitable path for cooperation on the international arena that benefits the state, the nation, the culture, and their capablilities. The West is not willing to allow that. The elites of today will never allow that, I think. But we have patience.

Question: A question has arisen regarding the current agenda. Today, we observe that in several European states, right-wing Eurosceptic political forces are becoming increasingly active. In Germany, this includes the Alternative for Germany party; in France, the National Rally. In this regard, may I ask, can we expect a substantial change in the European foreign policy course in the near future?

Sergey Lavrov: I would place reliance solely upon myself, upon our country, upon our people, upon our capabilities, and upon those neighbours, partners, allies, and friends who have demonstrated both their reliability and their ability to honour agreements.

I would, of course, welcome the advent of nationally oriented political forces to the leadership of any given European state. For what the Brussels bureaucracy is presently engaged in – arrogating unto itself powers and prerogatives that, in essence, belong to sovereign national governments – constitutes, first and foremost, a violation of all the foundational statutes of the European Union.

However, to predicate our policy on the assumption that conservative realists will imminently come to power and that, as a result, everything will once again be harmonious in our relations – we have already traversed this path. I have commented more than once that the Russian people are multi-ethnic, patient, trusting, habitually hopeful for the best, and, indeed, often forgiving.

Ilya Muromets lay upon the stove for thirty-three years, but in the end, he did rise. We wish all our European colleagues success, success in forming governments that will uphold their national interests.
Should that occur, it will, of course, become easier to maintain contact with them, but there will be no return to the “embraces” of the 1990s, or even of the final years of the Soviet Union’s existence.

We did not sever our relations with Europe; it was Europe that did so. We are now entirely self-sufficient both in terms of markets and partners, and, notwithstanding the hybrid war being waged against Russia, everything here is proceeding as favourably and positively as the circumstances permit.

Should any European state wish to resume serious dialogue, we will, first and foremost, listen to their intentions, to what they can offer, and only then will we decide whether such proposals are acceptable to us.

But I can assure you of one thing: in those spheres upon which the security of the state depends, we will not enter into, nor do we intend to enter into, any contracts or agreements with the Europeans.

Question: How can foreign students residing in Russia contribute to the development of international relations?

Sergey Lavrov: In my view, you are already doing precisely that. Contributing to the development of international relations. I have enumerated several events that are organised annually along youth lines in our country. There are a considerable number of them. I am confident that the organisers will circulate the comprehensive list of these events. We will always be pleased to welcome representatives from Pakistan, especially those who speak Russian so fluently.

Question: BRICS is undergoing significant expansion and transformation. In your opinion, what priority should the bloc pursue to ensure the realisation of tangible benefits from this expansion for the Global South?

Sergey Lavrov: There is a great deal that could be said regarding BRICS. Only recently, the presidents and other participants at the New Delhi summit addressed all aspects of BRICS activities in the most detailed manner. BRICS is an association of a new type, within which it is inconceivable – as frequently occurs in the European Union and in NATO – for the opinion of one or two countries to be disregarded, or for utterly indecent pressure to be exerted upon a state so as to compel acquiescence to a position, to put it plainly.

Such a scenario is simply unimaginable within BRICS. The association remains open to new members. Three years ago, a decision was taken to double its membership; there are now ten members, and a further dozen countries enjoy official partner status. The BRICS partner countries have this corresponding status, and an equivalent number of other states are seeking accession to the association.

At present, the new composition of BRICS has been operating for a relatively brief period, and so it was decided to wait a year or two and observe how the “ten,” together with the new institution of partner countries, will function. The Delhi summit demonstrated that the adjustment is progressing admirably. A detailed, substantive, and content-rich Declaration was adopted, addressing all the principal issues in global development, world politics, the economy, and finance. I take a very positive view of the prospects for BRICS’ future functioning.

Question: May Serbia, a country which under President Aleksandar Vucic pursues an independent foreign policy and has not imposed sanctions against Russia, be considered as a possible venue for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia?

Sergey Lavrov: Anything acceptable to the negotiating parties is possible.

Incidentally, our American colleagues, who have visited the Russian Federation once again quite recently, are proceeding from the assumption that they have proposed trilateral talks. Such a format has already taken place in the United Arab Emirates – the United States, Russia, and Ukraine. We are prepared for both bilateral and trilateral negotiations. We have never refused such dialogue.

All the negotiation processes that were initiated – commencing with the Belarusian-Turkish process in March and April 2022, which concluded in Istanbul with the scuppering of an agreement that had already been coordinated, and including subsequent bilateral Russian-Ukrainian talks in Geneva and trilateral negotiations in Abu Dhabi with American participation – all these processes were interrupted, not at our initiative. Therefore, we will await proposals, but I will confide this: we harbour no great illusions.

Question: I am a participant of the Young Diplomats’ Forum. In your view, what will international order look like in ten years and what countries or regions will play primary roles in it?

Sergey Lavrov: It seems to me that a lot has been said on this topic. I envision a more positive world order than today. I expect that Western countries will realise the need for taking their actual place in the international architecture, without trying to dominate it with their much smaller capabilities, and will agree that it is necessary to resume an equal dialogue on international stability above all things.

Frankly, I don’t know what will happen to global economy. Perhaps the de-globalisation that has already happened, the fragmentation of global economy and subsequent regionalisation of economic processes, the concentration of all key decisions and actions within subregional and regional integration structures, the emerging connections among all these structures in Eurasia, Africa and Latin America – all these factors will lay the new foundations for the international economic, financial and investment system. New payment and investment platforms will emerge, along with new exchanges, including a new grain exchange that I’ve mentioned. This is my point concerning economic development.

The West is building closed structures. All the organisations where Russia is involved welcome new members. We are willing to discuss expansion conditions. The United States and its allies are trying to build closed economic, military and political blocs in Eurasia.

Until recently, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was the widely recognised centre of dialogue on the vast Asia-Pacific space, with annual meetings for partners, including us, the Americans, the Japanese, the Koreans, and so on. It was an open format. The format still exists today but it has accepted, in priority to others, Britain, which does not promise anything good, as we all understand. Concurrently, groups of three emerge like AUKUS (the United States, the UK and Australia) that work on a nuclear submarine project, which, according to what we know, does not exactly meet the criteria of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The United States, Japan and South Korea created a group of three to conduct military exercises in this trilateral format. They have already incorporated components pertaining to nuclear weapon use and storage. There is an Indo-Pacific group of four that consists of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

There is a group called Quad that includes the United States, Australia, Japan and India. It was initially created as a purely economic group that will deal with trade, investment, expanding opportunities, and creating a more convenient infrastructure. But little by little, despite the assurances made to our Indian friends, they are starting to plant military and political components into its activity, including maritime security with respect to the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and other territories.

We are not going to create such organisations. We will do our best to ensure that nothing substitutes the genuinely universal forums on the basis of ASEAN.

It is hard to predict developments in global strategic stability within the next ten to 15 years. Our American colleagues keep proposing to resume the bilateral dialogue. We maintain some contacts, but a full-fledged dialogue requires complete normalisation of our relations.

I am not talking only about sanctions that the Trump administration has already imposed. President Trump used to say that it is Joe Biden’s war and that if he had been president it would have never happened. But now, it is this administration’s war. All the sanctions imposed by President Joe Biden have been extended by the Trump administration, without exception. A great number of new sanctions have been imposed recently, including against Lukoil, Rosneft and other Russian entities, both individuals and organisations. Russia’s diplomatic property in the United States remains seized. Visa rejections for our staff assigned to attend United Nations events continue, along with many other things.

That’s why we appreciate the fact that, first, the Trump administration, unlike the arrogant and not very reasonable Europeans, entered into a dialogue with us immediately after returning to the White House, and dialogues are useful even when positions are diametrically opposed. Second, they understand the root causes of the Ukraine conflict. I have often said this, but our dialogue is friendly and good-natured, and is not accompanied by any material changes in the situation I have described. In addition, our American colleagues insist that strategic stability should be discussed with the involvement of China. We say that this is for China to decide, but we would not protest if they joined us. We would also respectfully accept China’s position if they say that their arsenals are incomparable to tthose of the US and Russia and it’s too early for them to join this dialogue.

For our part, we tell the Americans that they, unlike Russia and China who have no alliance commitments in the military sphere, have such mutual commitments with France and Britain, which also have nuclear weapons. Therefore, any discussion on expanding the dialogue format should above all focus on their trio. But the Americans categorically reject this. There are many other circumstances, but I agree that a dialogue is long overdue.

Everyone is buzzing about the news that the United States has orbited strike weapons. We are checking this information, but it’s unclear what the situation in outer space will be in 10 to 15 years. We have long drafted a UN resolution on no first placement of weapons in outer space. The Americans say “No, how come any? Why any? Let’s agree not to deploy nuclear weapons.” They suspect us of preparing to orbit nuclear weapons. We say that we don’t have such plans. But when we talk about the need to ban the deployment of any weapons in space, that includes nuclear weapons. They refuse to accept it. This is not a very graceful negotiating position, but we are where we are. So, the situation in the world in 10 to 15 years will depend on our ability to promote the position of the Global Majority.

Question: What lies ahead for multilateral diplomacy? Many organisations are going through an existential crisis right now, and others are turning into “exclusive clubs.” How can small countries position themselves in this volatile world?

Sergey Lavrov: Frankly, I think I have spoken in detail about this. I have just now mentioned “exclusive clubs.” Attempts have been made to create such organisations in the Asia-Pacific Region. There is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (from which the Americans withdrew), a closed-type organisation. There is also the issue of artificial intelligence. Although many countries are advocating the idea of transparent development in this sphere under the UN auspices, others are establishing non-universal organisations. For example, the Americans have created Pax Silica for AI development, inviting selected countries to join it. Of course, we are monitoring this process, trying to understand how this will play out in real life, especially in light of the alarmist and anxious statements made by many companies that have AI technologies.

In June this year, the People’s Republic of China held a conference on the establishment of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference. We have joined it. It is an open-ended organisation, which recognises the central role of the UN. The process is underway.

However, you are perfectly right about the “exclusiveness” of the West’s activities on the international stage. They like to deal with many issues behind closed doors. presenting their decisions as the result of multilateral diplomacy.

As for small and medium-sized countries, I have spoken in detail about our vision of the multipolar world where everyone will take their rightful place. The use of coercive measures and blackmail against them must stop. I have cited an example when they are forced to stop their cooperation with Russia under the threat of sanctions. This must be excluded.

I don’t know how this can be done, because the West still has access to serious leverage, which should not be underestimated, and this practice will continue. But as the role of global reserve currencies weakens (those which we are used to regard as such), their influence will diminish. As BRICS, the SCO, African structures, ASEAN and its partners move towards forming real platforms for ensuring mutually beneficial trade, regardless of what the West does with its leverage, small and medium-sized countries will have additional options.

Question: The United Nations was established more than 80 years ago in a completely different world. In today’s world, what do you believe the structure of the UN should be? How should it differ, for example, from the Security Council?

Sergey Lavrov: This issue was addressed, among other matters, at the recent BRICS summit. Incidentally, Argentina was at one stage invited to join BRICS. Alongside the five states that have now acceded to the association, Argentina also received an invitation. However, at that time, the authorities in Buenos Aires adopted a different position.

Regarding UN reform, I would reiterate: in my estimation, the UN Charter is a document that is close to ideal. It must not be “broken open”. The essential point is that the principles enshrined in the Charter should be observed and respected by all. At present, this is not the case. Above all, our Western colleagues apply these principles neither in their entirety nor in their interrelation, but rather in a selective fashion.

When Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, virtually the entire West promptly recognised it and declared this to be an exercise of the right to self-determination. Yet, when, six years later, in response to the bloody coup in Kiev and the dispatch of militants to seize the Supreme Council of Crimea, the people of Crimea held a referendum on independence, we were told: no, this does not constitute any right to self-determination; here, the principle of Ukraine’s territorial integrity must supposedly be applied. The problem does not lie with the “bad” UN Charter, but rather in the dishonest application of its principles, which remain entirely relevant.

Permit me to provide an example. The UN Secretary-General and his official representatives, when commenting on Ukrainian matters, invariably declare: we support a settlement on the basis of international law, the UN Charter, and the territorial integrity of Ukraine. We ask the Secretary-General and his staff: are you familiar with the other principles of the UN Charter – have you actually read it? It enshrines the right to self-determination, and much else besides, including human rights in linguistic and religious spheres, which Ukraine has violated. They reply: no, we have considered this from all perspectives, and on this occasion, we will apply solely the principle of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Not long ago, US President Donald Trump stated his intention to annex Greenland, if you recall. At a press conference, the same UN representative was asked for his view on this. He responded that the matter should be resolved on the basis of international law, the principles of international law, the UN Charter, the principle of Denmark’s territorial integrity, and the right of the population of Greenland to self-determination. Immediately, another journalist inquired whether this same principle could be applied to the Ukraine crisis. The official hesitated for a moment, then replied: no, this is entirely different. That, in essence, is the way the UN operates.

This is the result of the most senior positions within the Secretariat – the entire Secretariat leadership – being monopolised by Western states, by NATO countries, without exception. This is unjust and unscrupulous. Two years ago, we tabled a special resolution, but the West is obstructing it. We will continue to press for a fair and honest review.

Turning to the UN Security Council, its current composition does not reflect the realities of today. I do not know what will become of the country called Great Britain. The Celts – Wales, Ireland, Scotland – are now seeking to hold referenda. We do not advocate the expulsion of any of the permanent members of the Security Council. Although, of course, the scale of the British Empire, when it first took its seat in the UN Security Council at the organisation’s founding, has, naturally, diminished to the utmost degree.
Nevertheless, the West is already more than adequately represented on the Security Council. I would even venture to say it is over-represented. Of the 15 members, six are from the West – three permanent, three non-permanent. We also include countries such as Japan and South Korea, which are regularly elected but, in practice, pursue an exclusively Western agenda.

The principal deficiency of the UN Security Council lies in the serious under-representation of the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. As you are aware, we endorse the candidatures of India and Brazil. We are convinced that, concurrently with decisions on their applications, the issue of African representation must also be addressed. We will not support any candidacies that represent the collective West in the broad sense of the term.

When will this be achieved? I hope it will not be long. The African continent has taken a sufficiently active stance. It is somewhat broader than many consider feasible, but the process is ongoing. We will, without doubt, continue to press for justice with respect to Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Question: The topic of multipolarity has come up repeatedly today. Let me try to look at it from a slightly different angle. This has long been one of Russia’s key foreign policy objectives. And we can see a multipolar, polycentric world taking shape right before our eyes. So what is Russia’s next strategic objective? What should Russia’s policy be in a world where multipolarity is already a reality?

Sergey Lavrov: I don’t predict the future. But for us, multipolarity is not a goal in itself – it’s an objective historical process. That’s stated explicitly in Russia’s current Foreign Policy Concept, adopted in March 2023. It sets out – and endorses – making the most of the opportunities this objective process presents, in order to create more favourable conditions for our domestic development and to ensure our security more effectively, including through alliances, agreements, and organisations with our neighbours, as we’ve done recently. We’re strengthening those alliances. And we’ll do everything we can to ensure this multipolarity doesn’t lead to chaos or create confrontational relations between the poles. That will take great effort and significant diplomatic achievements. But the prerequisites for this multipolarity are still only just taking shape.

Question: Everyone is aware of the difficult times Russian-Armenian relations are going through at the moment. Now that Russia, President Putin, along with EU leaders have adopted a very clear, consistent, and resolute stance, many people in Armenia have “had their eyes opened” and realised where this catastrophe, this so-called “European integration” leads. Yet many worry that the Armenian authorities might deceive them, just as they’ve done repeatedly with both their own people and their allies. Is a warming of relations between our countries possible without Armenia clearly committing to its intentions?

Sergey Lavrov: First of all, on the aspirations of Nikol Pashinyan’s government regarding the European Union: they could deceive. And I think the EU authorities will almost certainly do it. I don't see how Armenia could end up in the European Union – an organisation where countries like Türkiye and Serbia have been queuing for decades.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić was mentioned here. I’m in regular contact with him; we have a very good relationship. He’s told quite openly and publicly: for your European prospects to move forward, you must, firstly, recognise Kosovo’s independence and, secondly, join the sanctions against Russia. That’s a classic “either-or” scenario – it’s not the multipolar world we were just discussing, which offers the freedom to choose your own path of development and your own partners.

So if the Armenian leadership believes the European Union represents Armenia’s future – well, President Putin has said repeatedly that if that’s the people’s choice, how could we possibly object? But let’s be clear: is there a real choice regarding the EU, or not? That’s why, during the meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Bishkek on the sidelines of the SCO summit, and during contacts in Moscow this past May, the discussion focused on the need to make a decision and hold a referendum. After all, the process of Armenia’s gradual transition to EU norms and standards has already begun – something Armenian officials speak about openly.

As for Prime Minister Pashinyan’s statement that they’ll hold a referendum once they fully understand that an alternative exists – he even clarified at one point what he meant: the referendum would take place once Armenia submits an application for EU membership, receives a response, and prepares a roadmap. But, with all due respect, that’s not the alternative being put to a referendum. What’s being put to a referendum is an agreement that has already taken concrete form, and practical processes are already underway. That’s the issue at hand.

We have no desire whatsoever to artificially delay the diversification processes announced by Prime Minister Pashinyan. I’ve just said that we support every country’s right to choose its own partners and path of development; however, a choice does need to be made. After all, if the process of incorporating European standards into Armenian legislation and regulatory practice has already begun, Russia would not want to subsidise Armenia’s membership – or preparations for membership – in the European Union through the vast preferential benefits the country receives within the Eurasian Economic Union. That’s a fairly obvious point. Amid all these considerations, President Putin and Prime Minister Pashinyan met in Bishkek. They agreed to hold a dedicated bilateral meeting to discuss all of this frankly.

Russia
Source: valdaiclub.com

With less than a month before the first round on October 4, Brazil’s presidential race has tightened into a genuine dogfight. Polling released in the first half of September shows current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leading every first-round scenario, with Senator Flávio Bolsonaro consolidating a solid second place. The real drama, however, lies in the almost certain second round on October 25: virtually all polling institutes place Lula and Flávio within one to two points of each other, with some giving either the current president or the senator a razor-thin edge and others a technical tie. Whatever the final tally, Brazil is heading toward its tightest election in a generation—and the two front-runners represent not just different governing styles, but two competing visions of where Brazil belongs in the world.

For decades, Brazilian foreign policy has oscillated between what scholars, drawing on anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro’s civilisational framework, describe as “Westernism” and “Autonomism”. One tradition seeks legitimacy through convergence with the Euro-Atlantic core, headed by the United States; the other insists Brazil can define its own terms of development, sovereignty, and global engagement as a leading voice of the Global South. Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro map almost perfectly onto this old fault line, and the choice voters make in October will decide which orientation prevails for at least four more years.

Lula’s platform for a fourth term explicitly frames sovereignty as the organising principle of Brazilian diplomacy. His campaign document commits Brazil to independent decision-making “without any kind of strategic subordination”, rejecting automatic alignment with any single power while deepening South-South cooperation. BRICS sits at the centre of that architecture: Lula proposes strengthening the bloc’s financial mechanisms, expanding the New Development Bank’s lending capacity, and using BRICS alongside the G20 as platforms to assert the interests of the global majority. This is continuity, not reinvention—the same logic that drove Lula’s earlier governments to help found BRICS in 2009, settle Brazil’s IMF debt as a gesture of financial sovereignty, and, during Dilma Rousseff’s tenure, champion the creation of the NDB at the 2014 Fortaleza summit. It also explains Brazil’s posture during the 2025–26 tariff standoff with Washington, when Lula publicly rejected what he characterised as an attempt to interfere in Brazil’s sovereign decisions after Trump threatened tariffs against countries aligned with BRICS.

Flávio Bolsonaro’s foreign policy instincts, by contrast, point the other way. Long before formally inheriting his father’s political movement, he positioned himself as Brasília’s most reliable interlocutor in Washington, courting figures inside the Trump administration and publicly promising that American sanctions against Brazilian officials would end the day Bolsonaro returned to the presidency. His campaign platform calls for renewed proximity to the United States and the “conservative West”, while favouring a serious push for OECD accession. Flávio has also lobbied the US Trade Representative's office to keep Brazil’s Pix payment system outside cross-border settlement arrangements associated with China and BRICS, and has floated resuming full diplomatic warmth with Benjamin Netanyahu, a marked departure from Lula’s behaviour, who has harshly criticised Israel’s operations in Gaza. None of this is entirely new: it echoes the earlier Jair Bolsonaro government’s own courtship of Trump and Netanyahu and its scepticism toward BRICS, when then-Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo, who served from 2019 to 2021, openly questioned the bloc’s value and proposed a rival “nationalist” grouping anchored in the United States and Israel.

That reservoir of goodwill toward Washington, in particular, is precisely what a Flávio Bolsonaro presidency would try to convert into strategic alignment, much as his father did between 2019 and 2022. Nowhere is that alignment more explicit than in critical minerals. At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas in March this year, Flávio Bolsonaro told an American conservative audience that Brazil could solve Washington’s dependence on Chinese rare earths, arguing the country should stop shipping raw ore abroad only to buy back finished electronics. Months later, reporting surfaced on a 22-page campaign memo, “Prosperity Partnership”, drafted by an ally and stamped with Flávio’s 2026 branding, laying out a plan to position Brazil as the primary rare-earth supplier and processing hub for the Western Hemisphere in partnership with the United States—while describing the incumbent Lula government as pro-China and geopolitically ambiguous. The vision contrasts sharply with the Lula camp’s response: legislation moving through Congress to create Terrabras, a state-led company meant to coordinate mineral exploration under Brazilian control, with local-content rules attached.

This contest over rare-earth mines has become a small but telling preview of the wider choice on the ballot. An eventual Lula victory in the next elections would keep Brazil betting that its future lies in diversification and "Autonomism”, represented by deeper ties with BRICS, a louder voice in reforming global governance institutions, and continued insistence that a country of Brazil’s size deserves to help write the rules that manage the international system. A Flávio Bolsonaro presidency would favour “Westernism”, represented by closer relations with Trump’s administration, a discourse centred on so-called “traditional values”, and scepticism of BRICS and China.

Be it as it may, Brazil’s 1988 constitution has long placed national independence as one of its main foreign policy principles. Yet, every generation has had to answer, in practice, what independence actually means. In October, more than 150 million Brazilian voters will decide that question again—and whichever way it is split, the rest of the world, from Beijing to Washington, will be watching Brazil’s answer closely. The result will say as much about the future of the Global South as it does about Brazil itself.

Russia
Source: valdaiclub.com

On September 17, 2026, the Valdai Club hosted a presentation in Moscow of the report titled "Brazil-Russia Cooperation: Strategic Guidelines for Overcoming Structural Constraints." Discussion moderator Oleg Barabanov noted that the report outlines the achievements of the dynamically developing Brazilian-Russian relationship—at both bilateral and multilateral levels—and sets out future objectives. He described the document not merely as a theoretical study but as a practical text offering feasible, realistic solutions.

Co-author Ana Lívia Esteves, lecturer at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, identified the study's primary goal as providing an analytical and practical assessment of the current state of relations between Russia and Brazil. The relationship has successfully adapted to the shocks of 2022; trade is performing well, and diplomatic ties are deepening and evolving. However, the question remains of how to move forward and advance to a new stage. "We already have a success story; now it is time to aim for new achievements," the analyst emphasized. Outlining the dynamics of the bilateral relationship, she noted that it was originally grounded not in trade, but in political affinity—particularly on the international stage and a shared desire to reform the international order. Consequently, political cooperation in international forums was long the key element of the partnership, with trade ties developing only later. Esteves believes that Brazil now faces a significant trade deficit with Russia, which will likely need to be offset by developing other aspects of the relationship, such as technology transfer and scientific cooperation.

Report co-author Marco Fernandes, Brazilian Representative at the BRICS Civil Council, Geopolitical Analyst at the online media Brasil de Fato, editor at the journal Wenhua Zongheng International, noted that this is a crucial moment for Russian-Brazilian relations, given Brazil's upcoming presidential election. He pointed out that, in light of events concerning Venezuela, the issues of sovereignty and defence have become central for Brazil. While the country previously paid little attention to these matters, events in Latin America and West Asia, combined with aggressive US behaviour, have made it clear that such an approach was mistaken. In Fernandes’s view, this creates an opportunity to expand and strengthen ties with Russia—including in the defence sector—and to step up engagement within the BRICS group. At the same time, the researcher acknowledged that Russia’s image in Brazil leaves much to be desired due to a range of historical factors, including the influence of the US, which has waged decades of propaganda campaigns—first anti-Soviet and later anti-Russian. He views this as a significant challenge that must be addressed and suggests looking to the Chinese experience for guidance on this issue.

Sergio Rodrigues dos Santos, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Federative Republic of Brazil to the Russian Federation, analyzed the report’s political recommendations. He emphasized the importance of further developing high-level political coordination as a key component of the relationship, including the continued practice of alternating bilateral meetings between the two capitals and monitoring the implementation of decisions reached at these meetings. "We need to keep pedaling our bicycle," the diplomat stated. He also noted the need for regular bilateral consultations to coordinate political stances on international issues—including disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation, and relations with NATO countries.

Addressing trade and economic ties, the ambassador pointed to their growth but acknowledged challenges arising from the fact that this expansion is driven primarily by natural resources, resulting in a trade deficit for Brazil. He noted that while this is generally offset by surpluses with other nations, any excessive imbalance would need to be brought down to an acceptable level. Rodrigues dos Santos paid particular attention to investment, noting a lag in this area. He concluded that both countries require a robust infrastructure for their bilateral trade relations. This entails addressing issues related to payments, transport, and regulatory harmonisation, as well as improving Russia’s image among Brazilians—an effort that could be aided by shared values and Brazilian society's interest in Russian culture. Overall, the diplomat believes that Brazilian-Russian relations rest on a sufficiently solid foundation to remain significant and resilient, regardless of the outcome of Brazil's upcoming elections.

Boris Perius Zabolotsky, Professor at the Federal University for the Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusophones (UNILAB), has urged against viewing the interaction between Russia and Brazil solely through a Western lens. Brazil and Russia boast a long-standing relationship, and while certain limitations exist, the two countries have recently been drawing closer. There is economic interdependence that is unlikely to be affected by potential political shifts: Brazilian agriculture relies on Russian fertilizers and diesel fuel, while Brazil serves as a crucial market for Russia, helping it circumvent Western sanctions. At the same time, structural constraints imposed by the hegemon—the United States—affect Brazil and will continue to do so, no matter which government is in power. Washington exerts pressure on regional autonomy, making the diversification of foreign ties particularly important for Brazil, Zabolotsky argues. In this context, relations with Russia and other BRICS nations are part of Brazil’s broader strategy to achieve strategic autonomy.

Valdir da Silva Bezerra, independent researcher, writer, and political analyst, sees potential for defence cooperation between Russia and Brazil. Until recently, the Brazilian military followed the Western models and doctrines, with 80 percent of its defence imports coming from the United States. Consequently, mere declarations of partnership in this area are insufficient; it is necessary to educate the Brazilian armed forces on the importance of diversifying military supplies and cooperation. Commenting on the upcoming elections, the scholar noted that the emphasis on multilateralism reflects President Lula da Silva’s personal stance, whereas his rival Flávio Bolsonaro leans more toward a pro-Western orientation and is friendly with the Trump administration. Should he win, Brazil is unlikely to withdraw from BRICS but would certainly view the group with less enthusiasm.