Russia

       President Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin skipped this week’s summit in Rio, Brazil. While President Putin’s absence is linked to the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, no specific reasons were given for President Xi’s absence by China’s foreign ministry. Absence of both President Xi and Putin, is likely to make the outcome of the summit less significant and low profile. BRICS grouping has come a long way since its establishment as an informal grouping of four major emerging economies in 2009, to now include South Africa (2010), Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE (2024), and Indonesia (2025). Although significant, the BRICS grouping has remained inconsequential to matters related to geo-politics, with much of its attention focused on matters related to west-dominated institutions of global governance. BRICS, whose members represent more than half of world’s population, a quarter of world economy, and include three military superpowers, stopped short of…