President Vladimir Putin will play host to Russia’s biggest gathering of world leaders since the invasion of Ukraine and use the BRICS summit to show the US and its allies that he’s no pariah.

Russia wants the BRICS summit to showcase the rising clout of the non-Western world, but Moscow's partners from China, India, Brazil and the Arab world are urging President Putin to find a way to end the war in Ukraine.

Nearly three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saw Moscow condemned by countries globally, leader Vladimir Putin is staging a summit with more than a dozen world leaders – in a pointed signal from the autocrat that far from being alone,