Putin hosts a summit in a bid to show the West it can’t keep Russia off the global stage

In the coming days, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be shaking hands with multiple world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian.

They will all be in the Russian city of Kazan on Tuesday for a meeting of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, defying predictions that the war in Ukraine and an international arrest warrant against Putin would turn him into a pariah.

The alliance, which aims to counterbalance the Western-led world order, initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, but started to rapidly expand this year. Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia joined in January; Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia formally applied, and a number of others expressed a desire to be members.

Russian officials already see it as a massive success. Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said 32 countries confirmed participation, and more than 20 will send heads of state. Putin will hold around 20 bilateral meetings, Ushakov said, and the summit could turn into “the largest foreign policy event ever held” on Russian soil.

Optics and deals for the Kremlin

Analysts say the Kremlin wants both the optics of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with its global allies amid continued tensions with the West, as well as the practicality of negotiating deals with them to shore up Russia’s economy and its war effort. For the other participants, it’s a chance to amplify their voices and narratives.

“The beauty of BRICS is that it doesn’t put too many obligations on you,” says Alexander Gabuyev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “There are not that many strings attached, really, to being part of BRICS. And at