The declaration was made on the second day of the 16th BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan.
Moscow has trumpeted the summit as evidence that the West had failed to isolate Russia over its war against Ukraine given that it attracted heavyweights Xi Jinping, the President of China, and Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, along with a clutch of leaders from other BRICS members.
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It was thought that the Kremlin would try to use the summit to demonstrate that the BRICS members supported Russia’s war on Ukraine and its apparent broader goal of reshaping the balance of global security.
But in its declaration, the BRICS expressed their commitment to the established order, in particular the “Purposes and Principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.”
In its only mention of Ukraine, the declaration said: “We note with appreciation relevant proposals of mediation and good offices, aimed at a peaceful resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry released a press statement in response to the declaration, saying: “We believe that this text shows that Russia failed to export to the BRICS summit participants its neo-imperialist views on changing the world order and global security architecture through its aggression against Ukraine.
“Moscow’s attempts to impose the idea of an allegedly alternative position of the so-called Global South on Russian aggression against Ukraine have failed once again.”
It added that the “declaration demonstrated that the BRICS as an association does not have a single position on Russian aggression against Ukraine.”
“The BRICS summit, which Russia planned to use to divide the world, has once again demonstrated that the world majority stands with Ukraine.”
In what has been considered a further blow to Russia’s ambitions surrounding the summit, President Xi Jinping called for de-escalating the war in Ukraine, saying: “We must uphold the three key principles: no expansion of the battlefields; no escalation of hostilities; and no fanning flames, and strive for swift de-escalation of the situation.”
The US think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said the summit will also fail to get “the international community’s approval of an alternative system of international settlements that Russia wants.
Vladimir Putin has called for the establishment of an alternative to the dollar-based international payments system, claiming that the US uses its currency as a political weapon.
The ISW added that major BRICS countries, including Brazil, India, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), “opposed the transformation of BRICS into an anti-US coalition.”
The BRICS group grew out of meetings between Russia, India and China, which then began to meet more formally, eventually adding Brazil, then South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAEs. The group now accounts for 45% of the world’s population and 35% of its economy, based on purchasing power parity, though China accounts for more than half of its economic might.
