Putin's Expanded Brics Summit Proves He Has Friends — But Risks Buckling Under Its Own Contradictions

Russian President Vladimir Putin during the BRICS Business Forum in Moscow on October 18, 2024.AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, PoolRussia is hosting a BRICS summit this week, showing the limits of attempts to isolate it.The grouping is buoyant after ballooning from five members to nine.A larger membership, though, widens the chance of internal conflict that impedes the bloc's aims.Russia is flexing its muscles at the center of the BRICS economic bloc which seeks to rival the West.The nation is hosting a meeting of the grouping this week, the first since the group almost doubled its membership.The larger grouping gives them more weight — and is a rebuke to Western-led attempts to isolate Russia economically.It also complicates the grouping, introducing new competing interests and rivalries.Geopolitical analysts say it could dilute the group's ability to take action, and reduce it to a talking shop.Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates are the new BRICs entrants, joining earlier members Russia, India, China, Brazil, and South Africa.