By Larry C. Johnson, Sonar21 | 22 October 2024
Well, it was Shiny Happy People-time in Kazan at the opening of BRICS 2024. I wonder if any of the Russian organizers considered inviting R.E.M. to play at the opening festivities? I voiced concern last week that the West might have undertaken some violent stunt in order to tarnish or disrupt Putin’s hosting of the BRICS summit. Great! I was wrong. At least for now.
It is fascinating to watch the denial in the West about the importance of this meeting of 36 nations, with 20 heads of state in attendance, and the challenge it represents to the US dominated rules-based international order. Here is how PBS described the event:
China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi and other world leaders arrived Tuesday in the Russian city of Kazan for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies that the Kremlin hopes to turn into a rallying point for defying Western influence in global affairs.
For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the three-day meeting also offers a powerful way to demonstrate the failure of U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia over its actions in Ukraine. . . .
Observers see the BRICS summit as part of the Kremlin’s efforts to showcase support from the Global South amid spiraling tensions with the West and help expand economic and financial ties.
Proposed projects include the creation of a new payment system that would offer an alternative to the global bank messaging network SWIFT and allow Moscow to dodge Western sanctions and trade with partners.
Putin, who will hold about 20 bilateral meetings on the summit sidelines, met with Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and was scheduled to confer with Xi later in the day.
And meet they did. The session between Putin and Xi was particularly important. Note the smile on Xi’s face as Putin said the following:
For the past 75 years, Russian Chinese relations reached the level of a comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction. And we can confidently assert that they became a model of how, in the modern world, relations between states should be built. Our multifaceted cooperation is equal, mutually beneficial and of absolutely non-opportunistic nature.
Quite a contrast to the scowls on the faces of Ukrainian generals during Zelensky’s speech last week, as he announced his dead-on-arrival peace plan.
Larry C. Johnson is a former CIA officer and intelligence analyst, and former planner and advisor at the US State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. As an independent contractor, he has provided training for the US Military’s Special Operations community for 24 years.
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