The five-nation BRICS summit is focused on whether to expand the club and how to be a counterweight to Western powers, but the meeting opened in Johannesburg on Tuesday in the shadow of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with President Vladimir V. Putin attempting to rally the members via video to Moscow’s side.
In a speech to fellow leaders of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa group, Mr. Putin blamed the West for Russia’s exit from an agreement on Ukrainian grain exports that had helped stabilize global food supplies and prices, a matter of serious concern to many developing countries, including those in the bloc.
But Mr. Putin, alone among the five heads of government, was not in South Africa, and delivered his recorded message over a giant video screen in the convention center because he is wanted for war crimes under an warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.
South Africa, which is a party to the treaty that created the court and would have been obliged to arrest him if he had traveled there, had asked him to stay away.
The war, the prospect of a major BRICS expansion and heightened tensions between China and the United States have drawn unusual attention to the summit, held amid the gleaming glass towers of Johannesburg’s business district.
Persons:
Vladimir V, Putin
Organizations:
West, International Criminal Court
Locations:
Johannesburg, Ukraine, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, United States