External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will on Thursday join his counterparts from China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa in a virtual meeting of the BRICS Foreign Ministers, coming ahead of the leaders’ summit expected next month.
The leaders’ summit this year will also be held virtually, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi joining China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. This will be the first BRICS leaders’ gathering since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the grouping emerging as a valuable platform for an isolated Russia that is facing crippling sanctions from the West.
China has broadly backed Russia’s stand on Ukraine. It has blamed NATO for the crisis, and called for the “legitimate security concerns” of all countries to be respected — a position that BRICS is likely to endorse.
