Representing 41.1% of the world’s population and 37.3% of its GDP, the bloc aims to counterbalance United States-led Western alliances.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will be shaking hands this week with multiple world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian.

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,

China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi and other global leaders have arrived in the Russian city of Kazan for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies that the Kremlin hopes to turn into a rallying point for defying the Western liberal order.

The West has dubbed you a pariah for invading Ukraine. Sanctions are aiming to cut off your country's economy from global markets. And there's an arrest warrant out for you from the International Criminal Court.

Two dozen world leaders  gathered in Russia on Tuesday for the opening of a three-day summit of the BRICS group, an alliance of emerging economies that the Kremlin hopes will challenge Western "hegemony".