Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in India on Friday for talks ahead of an 11-member BRICS summit dominated by conflict and economic challenges, with the leaders of China and Iran set to attend.
The two-day summit, which will start on Saturday, will focus on the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as global trade turbulence and oil markets. Putin, who helped Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi navigate the energy crisis sparked by the Iran war, has not visited India since last December. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is also expected on Friday. Meanwhile, Saturday will mark Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first visit to India since 2019. United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi are also expected to attend.
“One should engage in debate and friendship only with the virtuous, and nothing whatsoever with the unvirtuous,” Modi wrote Friday on social media.
BRICS was created in 2009 as a forum for major emerging economies seeking greater influence in institutions dominated by Western powers. It has since expanded and now includes Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—three countries with sharply differing positions on the war launched by the United States and Israel in February. In May, BRICS foreign ministers failed to agree on a joint statement at a meeting in New Delhi amid divisions over the Middle East conflict and the bloc’s response to the U.S.–Israeli campaign against Iran.
The summit will test whether an expanded BRICS can reconcile its members’ competing interests and present a unified position on the Iran and Ukraine wars, with the failure to reach consensus in May highlighting the bloc’s growing internal constraints. Xi’s first visit to India since 2019 will also be an important test of the tentative India–China rapprochement after years of border tensions, with any progress on their disputed frontier, trade ties, or high-level diplomatic engagement offering the clearest indication of whether the thaw can develop into a more durable strategic reset. (AFP+EIR)
