BRICS Summit Adopts Declaration Urging Middle East Restraint
BRICS leaders opened their 18th annual summit in New Delhi on Saturday, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and rising U.S.-China tensions testing the bloc's ability to find common ground.
- 11 BRICS members now represent roughly half the world's population.
- Putin's visit is his first trip to India since the Ukraine war began four years ago.
- Xi's arrival marks his first visit to India in seven years.
- India's imports of Russian energy have reached a monthly record, the Kremlin said this week.
Why it matters: The bloc's divisions are concrete. In May, BRICS foreign ministers failed to agree on a joint statement over the Iran war, forcing India to issue a chair's summary instead. A repeat would signal the expanded grouping is too fractured to act collectively.
- Iran and the UAE — both members — sit on opposing sides of the conflict triggered by U.S.-Israeli strikes on February 28.
- Reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar and building alternatives to Western financial institutions are formal agenda items.
How 31 sources split on this story
Where they split: The core disagreement is whether BRICS can function as a unified Global South platform or whether great-power rivalries among its own members will paralyze it.
Center coverage, 19 sources: The center frames the summit as evidence of a broader reordering of global alliances, with smaller powers hedging against an unpredictable United States and India trying to manage ties with Washington, Moscow, and Beijing simultaneously.
Left coverage, 5 sources: The left frames the summit as a test of the Global South's ability to build independent institutions against Western financial dominance, with India's balancing act between Washington and its BRICS partners as the central tension.
Right coverage, 7 sources: The right frames the gathering as a high-stakes convergence of adversarial powers — Russia, China, and Iran — whose coordination poses strategic challenges to U.S. interests, with India's willingness to host them a test of where New Delhi's loyalties lie.
What’s next: Modi and Xi are scheduled to hold bilateral talks Saturday, the summit's most closely watched sideline meeting.
- Iran is seeking membership in the BRICS New Development Bank as U.S. sanctions pressure intensifies.
- Whether India can produce a joint summit declaration will serve as the immediate measure of the bloc's cohesion.
- Will Modi secure a joint statement, or will divisions over the Iran war again force a chair's summary?
- Can the Modi-Xi bilateral meeting produce concrete steps beyond the 2020 border-dispute thaw?
- Will BRICS members agree on any mechanism to reduce dollar dependence, or will competing national interests stall action?
