BRICS just handed Moscow exactly what it wanted in New Delhi: normalization without accountability. The most telling frame from the summit was Putin riding in a car with Modi, all smiles, while Russian missiles still hit Ukrainian cities.
The Kremlin’s Normalization Model
India says it opposes the war and calls for diplomacy. Yet it continues large-scale energy, defense, nuclear, industrial, and trade cooperation with Russia. The Kremlin model works by achieving normal relations without removing the root cause: Russian attacks on Ukraine.
Moscow is now applying the same strategy with Washington, and BRICS is reinforcing it by showing that Russia can keep waging war while a bloc of major economies treats it like a normal partner.
A Declaration Drained of Meaning
The declaration itself is a masterclass in diplomatic blurring. The hardest internal fight was between Iran and the UAE over the Middle East war. Back in May, foreign ministers could not even produce a common position.
In New Delhi they found a compromise: the text speaks of deep concern, maximum restraint, and diplomacy, but deliberately preserves the national positions of participants. That allowed Tehran and Abu Dhabi to sign one document, and it also exposed the ceiling of BRICS. Political unity is achieved only by draining contentious issues of any meaning.
Political unity is achieved only by draining contentious issues of any meaning.
China Sets the 2027 Agenda
China is already setting the agenda for 2027. This was Xi’s first visit to India since 2019, after the border crisis of 2020. Modi talks about tranquility on the border, Xi talks about strategic long-term relations, and in parallel they discuss trade, market access, and restoring contacts.
The rivalry has not disappeared, but if this rapprochement holds, BRICS becomes significantly more functional. Xi is pushing the Greater BRICS concept:
- Integrated markets
- Stable supply chains
- Technological cooperation
- Special economic zones
- A separate BRICS AI Open Source Zone for large language models, model training, and an open AI ecosystem
China takes the presidency next year, so the shift from India’s political expansion of the Global South to China’s denser economic and technological ecosystem is already visible.
The Currency Fantasy Is Dead
Meanwhile the common currency fantasy is dead. No BRICS currency appears in the declaration.