BRICS is no longer just a slogan

The New Delhi summit showed the group is becoming more practical: from trade and payment systems to transport and strategic autonomy By Mishel Bychkova, vice president at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in MoscowThe 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi took place at a moment when the group is clearly outgrowing its original format as a club of several major emerging economies and gradually becoming a platform capable of shaping debates over global trade, international finance and the political architecture of the world order.The countries gathered around the same table have very different relations with the West, compete with one another in a number of areas and yet increasingly share an interest in expanding their strategic autonomy. For Russia, this is especially important, because BRICS gives Moscow an opportunity to deepen economic ties with the largest non-Western powers, develop settlement mechanisms less vulnerable to sanctions and demonstrate that attempts to politically isolate the country have not kept it from engaging in high-level international diplomacy.It was against this backdrop that Russian President Vladimir Putin articulated Moscow’s interpretation of the changes...