By Vladimir Soldatkin and Guy Faulconbridge
KAZAN, Russia (Reuters) -India’s Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin on the eve of the BRICS summit that he wanted peace in Ukraine and that New Delhi was ready to help achieve a truce to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.
Putin, who ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, wants the BRICS summit to showcase the rising clout of the non-Western world after the United States and its European and Asian allies tried to isolate Russia over the war.
Russia is expecting 22 leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping who arrived on Tuesday, to attend the summit meeting of the BRICS, which accounts for 45% of the world’s population and 35% of the global economy.
Putin, who is cast by the West as a war criminal, thanked Prime Minister Modi for accepting the invitation to visit Kazan, a city on the banks of the Volga, and said Russia and India shared a “privileged strategic partnership”.
Modi thanked Putin for his “strong friendship”, praised growing cooperation and the evolution of BRICS but also said that India felt the conflict in Ukraine should be ended peacefully.
“We have been in constant touch on the subject of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine,” Modi said. “We believe that problems should be resolved only through peaceful means.”
“We fully support the early restoration of peace and stability. All our efforts give priority to humanity. India is ready to provide all possible support in the times to come,” he said, adding that he would discuss the issues with Putin.
The BRICS summit takes place as global finance chiefs gather in Washington amid war in the Middle East as well as Ukraine, a flagging Chinese economy and worries that the U.S. presidential election could ignite new trade battles.
With BRICS expanding – and a waiting list of potential members – there is anxiety among some about whether expansion will make the group unwieldy.
China and India, the top purchasers of Russian oil, have difficult relations, while there is little love lost between Arab nations and Iran.
SECURITY INTERESTS
When asked by BRICS reporters about the prospects for peace, Putin said that Moscow would not trade away the four regions of eastern Ukraine that it says are now part of Russia and that Moscow wants its long-term security interests taken into account in Europe.
Two Russian sources said that, while there was increasing talk in Moscow of a possible ceasefire agreement, there was nothing concrete yet – and that the world was awaiting the result of the Nov. 5 presidential election in the United States.
Russia, which is advancing, controls about one fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea which it seized and unilaterally annexed in 2014, about 80% of the Donbas – a coal-and-steel zone comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – and over 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
Putin said the West had now realised that Russia would be victorious, but that he was open to talks based on draft ceasefire agreements reached in Istanbul in April 2022.
On the eve of the BRICS summit, Putin met with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for informal talks that went on until midnight at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow.
BRICS
Putin has praised both Sheikh Mohammed and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who will not attend the summit in Kazan, for their mediation efforts over Ukraine.
“We are ready to make any efforts to resolve crises and in the interests of peace, in the interests of both sides,” Sheikh Mohammed told Putin.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva cancelled his trip following medical advice to temporarily avoid long-haul flights after a head injury at home.
The acronym BRIC was coined in 2001 by then-Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill in a research paper that underlined the massive growth potential of Brazil, Russia, India and China this century.
Russia, India and China began to meet more formally, eventually adding Brazil, then South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia has yet to formally join.
BRICS’ share of global GDP is forecast to rise to 37% by the end of this decade while the share accounted for by the Group of Seven major Western economies will decline to about 28% from 30% this year, according to International Monetary Fund data.
Russia is seeking to convince BRICS countries to build an alternative platform for international payments that would be immune to Western sanctions.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Dmitry Antonov, Gleb Bryanski and Marina Bobrova in Moscow; and Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Ros Russell)