By Mogomotsi Magome, JOHANNESBURG South Africa
Russian President Vladimir Putin took multiple shots at the West on the opening day of an economic summit in South Africa, using a prerecorded speech that was aired on giant screens Tuesday to rail at what he called “illegitimate sanctions” on his country and threaten to cut off Ukraine’s grain exports permanently.
Putin, the subject of an
International Criminal Court arrest warrant related to the war in
Ukraine, did not travel to Johannesburg for the summit of the
BRICS group of emerging economies. Instead, he plans to participate remotely in
the three-day meeting of the bloc that encompasses Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa.
His 17-minute speech recorded
in advance centered on the war in Ukraine and Russia’s relationship with the
West — even though South African officials had said East-West frictions should
not dominate the first in-person BRICS summit since before the COVID-19
pandemic and hoped to guide the conversation away from the deteriorating
geopolitical climate.
Sitting at a desk with a white
notebook in front of him and a Russian flag behind, Putin said a wartime deal
to facilitate Ukrainian grain shipments that is critical for the world’s food supply would not resume
until his conditions — the easing of restrictions on Russian food and
agricultural products — are met.
The West’s attempts to punish
and isolate Russia financially for sending troops into Ukraine are an
“illegitimate sanctions practice and illegal freezing of assets of sovereign
states, which essentially amounts to them trampling upon all the basic norms
and rules of free trade,” the Russian leader asserted.
Moscow pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative in
July and stepped up drone and missile attacks on the city of Odesa in southern
Ukraine, home to one of the ports the controlled passage agreement covered.
The initiative was credited
with helping reduce soaring prices of wheat, vegetable oil and other global
food commodities. Putin maintained that even with Russian exports of grain and
fertilizer being “deliberately obstructed,” his country has “the capacity to
replace Ukraine in grain, both commercially and in free aid to needy
countries,” according to an official translation of his speech at the summit.
The United States and other
Western nations have not directly targeted Russian agricultural exports, but
moves to restrict Russia’s access to international financial payment systems
under some sanctions have made it difficult for the country to get food,
fertilizer and other products to market.
“With these facts in mind,
since July 18 we have refused to extend the so-called deal,” Putin said. “We
will be ready to get back to it, but only if all the obligations to the Russian
side are truly fulfilled.”
Chinese President Xi
Jinping also brought an air of confrontation to the Johannesburg
summit, saying in a speech read on his behalf by a Chinese government minister
minutes after Putin’s address that “some country, obsessed with maintaining its
hegemony, has gone out of its way to cripple the emerging markets and
developing countries.”
“Whoever is developing fast
becomes its target of containment. Whoever is catching up, becomes its target
of obstructions,” Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said while delivering
Xi’s speech.
It was a clear reference to
the United States and the growing economic friction between the U.S. and China.
Xi is in South Africa for the
summit and met with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier Tuesday. He
didn’t attend the opening-day business forum where the other three BRICS
leaders gave their addresses in person and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov represented his country. No reason was given for the Chinese leader’s
absence.
However, Xi, Brazilian
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and
Ramaphosa were all expected to meet over dinner at a luxury estate in suburban
Johannesburg. Putin also planned to take part virtually, officials said.
The leaders were expected to
discuss the top agenda point for the three-day summit, a possible expansion of
BRICS. They are scheduled to reconvene for the summit’s main day of talks on
Wednesday.
The five BRICS countries are
already home to 40% of the world’s population and responsible for more than 30%
of global economic output, and more than 20 nations have applied to join,
according to South African officials, including Saudi Arabia,
Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign
minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi planned
to attend the summit.
The five current member
countries will have to agree on the criteria for new members before any
countries are admitted, but a bigger BRICS is seen as a policy favored by China
and Russia amid those deteriorating relations with the West.
Brazil, Russia, India and
China formed the bloc in 2009. South Africa was added in 2010.
“I am glad to note that over
20 countries are knocking on the door of BRICS. China hopes to see more joining
the BRICS cooperation mechanism,” Wang said while giving Xi’s speech.
Overall, around 1,200
delegates from the five BRICS nations and dozens of other developing countries
are in South Africa’s biggest city, and more than 40 heads of state were
expected to take part in some of the summit meetings, according to Ramaphosa.
United Nations
Secretary-General António Guterres also was expected to attend.
While summit host South Africa
has pushed back at characterizations that BRICS is taking more of an anti-West
turn under Russian and Chinese influence, it’s clearly a forum for growing
discontent in the developing world with global institutions.
That unhappiness has been
directed at bodies seen as Western-led, including the U.N., the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund, which many countries in the Global South feel
do not serve their interests.
While in South Africa’s
capital, Pretoria, earlier Tuesday for his meeting with Xi, Ramaphosa said he
was seeking “Chinese support for South Africa and Africa’s call for the reform
of global governance institutions, notably the United Nations Security
Council.”
Africa and South America have
no permanent representatives on the Security Council despite being home to
nearly 2 billion people.
The U.S. and EU will be
closely monitoring events in Johannesburg, with the long list of countries
lining up to join BRICS suggesting that the bloc’s calls for a reorganization
of the global governance structure might be hitting home with many.
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