Putin absent from BRICS summit in South Africa

Leaders from Brazil India and China are in Johannesburg today for the brick Summit it’s a coalition created to challenge global domination of the U.S and Western allies now one key leader is missing amid the international damnation of the war in Ukraine the cbc’s Briar Stewart is watching The Summit from

London as we wait to hear from the leaders so Breyer Russian President Vladimir Putin not there what can you tell us about that that’s right he’s not there and he was basically forced to sit this one out because if Russia’s president had flown to South Africa South African

Authorities would have been compelled to arrest him and that’s because they’re signatories to the statute that supports the international criminal court and that court has issued an arrest warrant accusing Putin of war crimes in Ukraine so this was a very contentious issue whether or not he would attend South

Africa didn’t want to officially uninvite him from coming but what he did is he delivered a video address that was played at the Forum in front of the other leaders that were there in person and what was quite striking was that when they started to play his video

Address there was a large cheer from the crowd and in fact the other leaders didn’t get cheers they got Applause but people were actually cheering the fact that Putin was speaking in this video address and and obviously Russia is part of this this five group called The Bricks which includes Brazil India

Russia and China and South Africa of course which is the host and you know while Ukraine certainly won’t be at the Forefront of the discussions Russia’s War there has has certainly put a strain on the relationships among the members now Breyer the block is hoping to expand

As we were discussing their reach as a balance to U.S and Western domination so who are they looking at to join well as I mentioned this group now has five members and a big top of the agenda item at this Summit is expansion and in fact South African officials say that

Around 40 Nations have expressed interest in joining the brics and at the top of the list you have countries like Saudi Arabia Iran you have Venezuela Argentina and there does uh appear to be some discussion and debate around just who will be invited to join the bricks

What the criteria will be how many members will be admitted and just what the whole identity of this group is because it’s not a formal Association it’s kind of a loose group of Nations and it really started as kind of a group focused on um you know their own

Economies which are rapidly growing and they wanted to have a bigger stake in global financial institutions but it really has shifted into this kind of geopolitical group and a lot of the the background talk leading up to this Summit has really been about um you know pushing for a multi-polar

World and challenging what they see is the kind of the West dominance of global Affairs and and also they really want to try to challenge the the international markets and the Reliance that they have on the American dollar thanks for this Briar that is the cbc’s bar Stewart in London

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be in Johannesburg for the summit of the BRICS economic bloc — comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — because the host country would be compelled to arrest him for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

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