Lavrov's BRICS-TV Interview

On Saturday 2 November 2024, Mr. Lavrov sat down with a BRICS-TV journalist and had a pleasant thirty-minute chat over the outcomes of the Kazan Summit and predictions of further accomplishments. I suggest that readers compare Lavrov’s assessment with that Pepe Escobar provided to Larry Johnson in their seventy-minute chat. IMO, readers will agree Lavrov was pleased with the Summit and BRICS’s future prospects:

Question: In 2024, Russia chaired BRICS. The key event was the summit in Kazan. What would you note if you sum up its main results, as well as the results of Russia's chairmanship as a whole?

Sergey Lavrov: The summit demonstrated the rapidly growing authority of BRICS and the desire of an increasing number of countries to join its work.

A number of States have formally applied to join as full members. The rest expressed interest in becoming partner countries. This is a new category that was agreed upon at the summit in Kazan. We have increased the number of Member States from five to ten in 2023. At this stage, it was decided to limit ourselves to the creation of a category of partner countries, to form this group so that the "new" full and "old" BRICS members work together in the new composition.

In this regard, the Russian presidency has done a lot. The work was friendly. Mutual understanding was reached on almost all major issues. There are always nuances. The adopted Declaration was agreed on the basis of a balance of interests. No one (as it happens on Western forums) tried to put pressure on anyone. We were looking for mutually acceptable formulations. They were found on all issues.

The main "pathos" of this declaration is the need to significantly increase the share of the countries of the Global South and the Global East in the mechanisms of global governance, including the UN Security Council, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.

As for the international monetary and financial system. The general opinion is based on two main conclusions. The first is to demand that developing countries, primarily the BRICS countries as the fastest-growing economies, receive the number of votes on the boards of directors of the IMF and the World Bank that would correspond to their real weight in the world economy and their share in the world gross domestic product. Now this number of votes is significantly underestimated, since the United States categorically does not want to redistribute quotas and cast its votes. At the moment, the United States has a "package" in the IMF that allows it to use the right of veto against any decisions. It's out of order.

The same is true in the WTO. For many years (at least ten years), the United States has been blocking the work of the dispute settlement body. This is exactly what the WTO was created for. Inevitable contradictions between market participants, accusations of dumping, overpricing, unjustified increase in tariffs – all this should be considered by the dispute resolution body. It is blocked, there is no quorum. The United States is not going to correct this situation.

The reform of existing institutions remains on the agenda, but at the same time – this is a common opinion and one of the most important conclusions of the BRICS work at this stage – before the final part of the Russian presidency, everyone wants to create alternative payment mechanisms: interbank settlements using national currencies, insurance mechanisms that will not be directed against the post-World War II system around the dollar as a pivot. A parallel system is needed, given that the dollar is increasingly being used as an aggressive weapon in the global economy. No one knows who will be next. No one is immune to dollar arbitrariness, given the desperate position of the United States in today's world. They feel that hegemony is slipping away (and it will not do so quickly, but for a long time), but they want to use everything, including the most forbidden tricks, to preserve it.

To insure against this, to create settlement systems and payment platforms that will not depend on such risks is now a common task. It was on the agenda of the summit in Kazan and at meetings held throughout the year between finance ministers and heads of central banks. Recommendations have already been developed. They are not yet final, but they already make it possible to start creating reliable, sustainable, long-term systems. I am confident that Brazil, as the next presidency, will continue this work.

Of course, in addition to the systemically important monetary and financial sphere serving the real economy, purely sectoral initiatives have also received support, including ours – to start preparations for the creation of a BRICS grain exchange, investment and geological platforms. This was primarily the idea of the African countries that are members of the BRICS. In addition, we have put forward two projects – to create working groups on transport and nuclear medicine. This was supported both at the BRICS meeting itself and in the adopted Declaration. When the outreach/BRICS plus summit was held on the next day of the Kazan event, all 35 participants – BRICS countries and invited guests – supported this attitude, this direction of movement, which has been developing in previous years, but has been accelerated within the framework of the Russian presidency. This happened largely because we are witnessing a sharp increase in interest in the association. It is perceived as the vanguard of the movement towards a more just world, in defense against the diktat and arbitrariness that are still widely used by the "collective West" in international relations.

Question: How would you assess the results of the implementation of one of Russia's priorities under its chairmanship – strengthening inter-parliamentary cooperation between the member states?

Sergey Lavrov: There have been several meetings between members of the legislative bodies from the BRICS countries, their supporters in the outreach format and simply from other states that have not yet established any ties with the association. For example, a session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union was held in Geneva in 2024. Russia participates in this organization. On the sidelines of the session, an event was held between BRICS parliamentarians and others interested in establishing relations with it.

The second issue in our inter-parliamentary programme is the holding of the first meeting of the heads of the international affairs committees of national parliaments in the history of BRICS. It was a BRICS Plus meeting. It will already become a permanent element of the work of our association for the coming years.

The 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum was held. This structure has existed for quite a long time. Parliamentarians from the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly were involved in the forum. The chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the head of the Tanzanian parliament, also participated. Attempts were made to criticize it, but this criticism was rejected, since the Inter-Parliamentary Union (especially its leadership) should interact with all legislative structures of the member states.

I see a good future for the parliamentary dimension. We will support it in every possible way.

Question: You have already mentioned the expansion of BRICS. It includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. What positive changes in the association have occurred in connection with their accession?

Sergey Lavrov: Authority. The "new" BRICS (as our Chinese comrades say, the "big BRICS") already produces 35% of world GDP, if we count at purchasing power parity. President of Russia Vladimir Putin referred to this figure, stressing that it is several percent higher than the share of the G7 countries in the global gross domestic product. 42% of the world's population is a serious figure, more than 30% of the land area and on average a quarter of the export of goods. It will only grow as industrial production grows rapidly in the BRICS member countries and in the states that seek unification.

As for the acceding countries. Egypt is the leader, the largest economy, the most influential country in North Africa and the Arab League (it is in Cairo that its headquarters are located).

Ethiopia is home to the headquarters of the African Union. This partner acts in two capacities: as a national partner and as a representative of the entire African Union.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a potentially economically strong state. It ranks third in terms of oil reserves in the world.

The United Arab Emirates is one of the leading logistics, trade, and re-export centers of the modern world economy. Everyone is well aware of this.

Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Muslim world. A country where two shrines of Islam are kept.

Each of these participants has its own well-deserved reputation, enjoys respect in the world and strengthens the authority of BRICS itself.

Question: Another figure after the expansion is that the total population of the countries that are members of the association has exceeded 3.2 billion people. In this regard, can we say that today BRICS influences global processes not only within the "ten", but also in the states of Asia, Africa and Latin America?

Sergey Lavrov: It affects internal processes in the sense that the population, having received information about the work of BRICS, its successes, the plans put forward by the association and which it achieves, wants to join this equal, mutually beneficial process. In elections, the population of the countries of the Global East votes mainly for politicians who promote the same slogans and declare their desire to get closer to the BRICS in one form or another.

I have already mentioned that a number of countries want full membership. This issue will be considered over the next year. But many people just want to be participants in BRICS events. There are more than thirty of them. As I have already said, the criteria for the formation of the category of "partner countries" will be agreed. The Russian presidency sent invitations to some of the states that requested to join our work after the summit in Kazan. There are more than ten such countries that enjoy consensus among the current BRICS members.

We have an agreement, as soon as we receive a response from the invited country, it will be announced that this state has joined BRICS as a partner country. We believe that they will have the opportunity to participate in all BRICS events. For sure, a separate format of meetings will be preserved, where only full members will participate, but everything else, including summits following the example of "outreach plus", meetings of foreign ministers and sectoral structures (energy, economy, trade, healthcare, culture) will be available to them. We are interested in the partner countries joining all this work. They will participate in almost all events.

Question: How is cooperation in the field of cultural and humanitarian cooperation between the BRICS countries and BRICS Plus developing now?

Sergey Lavrov: There were many events. They aroused wide interest and resonance. For the first time in June this summer, the BRICS Sports Games were held. They were open to everyone. The number of States parties has exceeded 80. Twenty-seven sports disciplines were represented at the BRICS Games. I am sure that we will strive to make them regular.

From humanitarian affairs. Party activity is partly a humanitarian sphere. In June of this year, the first International Inter-Party Forum was held in Vladivostok, which was attended by about 40 parties of the BRICS countries, partner countries. An inter-party movement "For the freedom of nations!" was recorded.

The goal is that the ruling parties (not only the ruling parties, but other parties can join) promote the task of eradicating the remnants of colonialism.

There are also a number of Non-Self-Governing Territories. Most importantly, colonial and neocolonial methods have not disappeared from international trade. Relations between the West and Africa are characterized by colonial methods, when raw materials are exported, and all the added value and profits from it remain with them. The forum is interesting and was well received.

The "novelties" in our chairmanship were also related to local self-government. There was a forum of cities, a municipal forum. There was an interesting discussion about how people live and how (roughly speaking) the chairmen of city councils and village councils solve their problems. A theme that comes from life.

I see many areas that will enrich our humanitarian and cultural cooperation. All BRICS countries have been invited to the Intervision International Song Contest next year. Together with colleagues from television, we decided to revive the name, which was in Soviet times and meant a music competition of the member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Intervision will become an important cultural factor for everyone, which will send a signal to humanity that it is better not to "run away to our apartments", but to live together on the same planet.

Question: "With a song for life"?

Sergey Lavrov: With a song for life.

Question: Information exchange plays a significant role in the development of partnership between the BRICS and BRICS Plus countries. In this regard, how would you assess the recent opening of the BRICS Plus information and cultural media centre in Moscow?

Sergey Lavrov: Positively. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had something to do with this. Our official representative participated in the preparation process and in the opening of this center.

In 2024, major events in the media sphere also took place. In September of this year, we held a Media Summit to coincide with the 120th anniversary of TASS. There were interesting speeches. The participants liked this communication. Of course, we will continue to use our opportunities, including those of the newly created BRICS Plus information and cultural media centre.

Question: You have already mentioned that Russia is handing over the BRICS chairmanship to Brazil. In addition to the payment system and this topic, what other discussions and results do you expect from the work of the association in 2025?

Sergey Lavrov: I think that the payment platform, settlement mechanisms and insurance mechanisms will be among the priorities of the Brazilian presidency.

At the 2023 BRICS summit in Johannesburg, President of Brazil Lula da Silva initiated the topic of the Russian presidency on alternative payment systems. It was in response to this initiative, enshrined in the Johannesburg Declaration, that finance ministers and central bank governors worked. Progress is obvious. But it is necessary to bring it to its logical end so that there are already ready-made mechanisms for use.

I have no doubt that our Brazilian colleagues will work with triple energy, given that this is the initiative of their president. I think that President Lula da Silva himself will make sure that this issue is one of the most important.

We hope (and I am sure that this will be the case) to continue working on Russian initiatives. These are the grain exchange, the investment platform, the transport group, and the nuclear medicine group. These are all purely practical things that all BRICS members are interested in. I have no doubt about that. We will actively support the Brazilians.

Of course, this philosophical basis of the association's activities will be preserved. I am referring to the general movement for the democratisation of international relations and the increasing role of developing countries and the world majority in the mechanisms of global governance. I mentioned the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO. This work will continue in parallel with the creation of our own system that is independent of external risks.

A more equitable representation of the countries of the Global South and East in the mechanisms of global governance presupposes a reform of the UN and its Security Council.

We have clearly reaffirmed our position: we support exclusively increasing the representation of Asian, African and Latin American countries. The West is already unfairly well represented there: out of fifteen members of the Security Council, six represent the West. It does not "wrestle" with any statistics regarding the population, industrial production, and size of the countries concerned. Specifically, we support India, Brazil and the African Union's collective initiative on Security Council reform.

I would not have outlined all the aspects of our work in Kazan if I had not touched on several foreign policy topics that were voiced in the discussion and enshrined in the Declaration. Particular attention was paid to the crisis in the Middle East, the catastrophe of the Palestinian people, which is now "spilling over" to neighboring countries – Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The Declaration contains a fairly strong paragraph on the need to urgently stop this bloodshed.

They did not shy away from discussing the Ukrainian crisis. On the contrary, during the preparations for the summit and during it, we spoke about it on our own initiative, and President of Russia Vladimir Putin touched on this topic. We agreed on a fundamentally important wording in the Declaration, in which, in addition to the general reaffirmation by countries of their well-known positions expressed at the UN General Assembly and at other forums, it was emphasised that the main thing now is to look for solutions that will be based on the principles of the UN Charter in their entirety and interconnection. So far, numerous initiatives have been voiced in relation to the Ukrainian crisis (many of them are formulated with the best intentions), but none of them contains a phrase that the principles of the UN Charter should be applied not selectively, but in their entirety.

What does this mean? The West prefers to talk about Ukraine, recalling only the principle of territorial integrity and formulating it as if there are no other principles in the UN Charter. But it also contains the principle of self-determination of peoples. The UN General Assembly has decided that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states whose governments respect the principle of self-determination of peoples and therefore represent the entire population living in a given territory must be respected.

Did the racist regime that settled in Kiev after the coup d'état in 2014 represent southeastern Ukraine and Crimea, which refused to recognize the putschists ten years ago?

Most importantly, the UN Charter (before mentioning the principles of territorial integrity and self-determination of peoples) requires all UN members to respect human rights, regardless of race, gender, language and religion. The West, which shouts at every corner and on every occasion that it is a "champion of human rights", has never mentioned this in the Ukrainian crisis. The fact that the laws that have been adopted over the past ten years and which prohibit the use of the Russian language in any sphere: in education, in the media, in culture, and in everyday life, grossly violate the UN Charter, the "supporters" of the settlement do not notice and do not want to notice. Just as they "did not notice" the ban on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The Nazi regime in Kiev flagrantly violates the key principles of the Charter, and the West praises it and says that they defend "European values." They must be brought to light.

In this sense, I consider the fact that the Declaration of the Kazan Summit in relation to the Ukrainian crisis for the first time enshrined an approach that requires respect for the principles of the UN Charter in their entirety and interconnection, one of our main political achievements at this event. Moreover, given the fact that respected, influential, fast-growing and politically active countries have signed this Declaration.

You can always do something better. But we are satisfied with the way our chairmanship is going and how its culminating event – the summit meeting in Kazan – went. [My Emphasis]

Most know Brazilian President Lula didn’t attend Kazan in person but via Zoom. Pepe and others have raised a red flag over what’s transpiring in Brazil with its focus on hosting the G-20 instead of the more important BRICS Summit. Yes, BRICS survived Bolsonaro’s Brazilian presidency, but many will say today’s times are more crucial. Was Lavrov putting forth a challenge to Brazil with his praise? Honor is important in Brazilian society; IMO, Lavrov made a direct challenge to that part of Brazzil’s collective persona. Lavrov was also being all too diplomatic about the qualities of the new members. I would energetically dispute the notion that Saudi Arabia “is the leader of the Muslim world.” The last comment I have is on the interparliamentary association and the inclusion of municipalities into the BRICS integration process, for much depends on legislating at the national level agreeing with decisions made within BRICS so a harmony of action can arise. And keeping harmony flowing is one reason why no new full members were admitted as the 100% consensus method currently employed was shown by Brazil’s veto of Venezuela’s status to be an unworkable formula for the future. Likely a Secretariat will need to be organized and a majority voting system installed. Pepe goes into all that rather deeply along with the Brazil issue.

I leave you with a few images from snowy Moscow on Russia’s National Unity Day:

The monument to Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky.

Putin smiling with the flowers he’ll lay at the monument.

And the gaggle of people and media vetted to be present at the event.

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