BRICS Unity Under Pressure as Xi, Putin and Modi Gather in New Delhi
Leaders of China, Russia, India and other BRICS club nations begin arriving in New Delhi this weekend for what was once billed as a showcase of southern hemisphere solidarity. Instead, the annual summit has become a high-stakes test of whether the bloc can hold itself together while two major wars — one in Europe, one in the Middle East — and record global energy prices pull its members in opposite directions. The contrast between the group’s founding narrative and its current reality is hard to ignore. Built on the promise of constructive dialogue among large emerging economies, BRICS has expanded in size and ambition, but its internal fault lines are increasingly visible. And this weekend, in the Indian capital, those divisions are no longer theoretical. They are sitting at the same table.
The Geopolitical Shadow Over the Indian Capital
The geopolitical backdrop to the summit is extraordinarily volatile. On one side of the room, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives as a leader defending a war in Ukraine that has reshaped Europe’s security architecture and triggered waves of Western sanctions. On the other, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains committed to a neutral, non-Western line that keeps energy imports flowing from Moscow while maintaining strategic partnerships with Washington, Tokyo and Canberra. In between, Chinese President Xi Jinping has made no secret of his support for Russia, painting the conflict as a necessary confrontation with Western hegemonic ambition. These three positions are not merely different — they are deeply incompatible in spirit. And that tension is made worse by the war in Gaza, where theBRICS member states have struggled to issue a coherent statement that balances concerns about civilian casualties with diplomatic postures toward both Israel and Iran.
The wars are not just a moral or philosophical problem for BRICS. They are a practical one. Every debate about the agenda, every draft communiqué and every photo opportunity is fought over some political minefield that one member or another would prefer to sweep under the carpet. The group has historically prided itself on non-interference and mutual respect for sovereignty — a flexible doctrine that allowed divergent members to sit together without being forced to choose sides. But that flexibility has reached its limit. When Russian missiles target Ukrainian infrastructure, when Israeli forces respond to attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah, and when Houthi rebels in Yemen disrupt shipping routes in the Red Sea, the BRICS members are asked to respond — and they increasingly cannot.
India’s position has been particularly delicate. New Delhi has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, citing its long-standing strategic partnership with Moscow, its need for military hardware and its reliance on Russian crude oil. At the same time, India has cultivated an ever-deeper relationship with the United States, joining the Quad and participating in joint military exercises and strategic dialogues that are often framed as counterweights to Chinese influence. This balancing act is a remarkable piece of diplomatic realism, but it also makes hosting the summit especially sensitive. Every time Modi stands next to Putin and Xi, he must communicate to the world that India is not aligning with an anti-Western axis, even while benefiting from the bloc’s alternative geopolitical and economic platforms. The photo of the three leaders together — Modi, Xi and Putin, side by side in New Delhi — will be scrutinized in capitals across Washington, Brussels and Tokyo. That image, perhaps more than any document signed at the summit, will define how the gathering is read on the global stage.
Energy Prices Are the New Battlefield
The second source of friction inside BRICS is much less visible but arguably more corrosive: energy. Soaring oil and gas prices, fueled by the war in Ukraine, Western sanctions and production cuts by major exporters, have created profoundly divergent economic incentives among the member nations. For Russia, those higher global energy prices have partially offset the cost of sanctions. Moscow’s revenue from oil and gas has been more resilient than many Western analysts expected. China, too, has used the situation to its advantage, quietly purchasing discounted Russian crude to fill its strategic reserves and feed its industrial engine. Indian refiners have also snapped up cheap barrels from Moscow, becoming one of the largest buyers of Russia’s seaborne oil since the full-scale invasion began. For both China and India, Russian energy has become an economic lifeline that they are in no hurry to discard.
But the same high prices have devastated other BRICS members. South Africa, already struggling with severe electricity shortages and an aging coal-fired grid, has felt the strain of rising global energy costs. Egypt, new to the expanded BRICS membership, is reeling from currency depreciation and record inflation, much of it tied to global food and fuel price spikes. Brazil, despite its own energy resources, is watching domestic consumers face inflation pressures that complicate the economic picture for its government. These countries do not see the energy crisis as a geopolitical windfall. They see it as a threat to their economic stability, and they are increasingly frustrated by members who profit from the very instability that punishes everyone else.
The energy price problem also cuts into one of BRICS’s most celebrated initiatives: de-dollarization and alternative financial systems. The group has long called for reducing reliance on the US dollar in international trade and supporting payment mechanisms that bypass Western-dominated institutions like SWIFT. Yet the practical reality is messy. China is pushing the yuan as a reserve currency and settlement option, but its own capital controls and the lack of a fully convertible currency limit its appeal. Russia, cut off from much of the global financial system, has been the most enthusiastic about alternative mechanisms, but it is also the most dependent on informal networks and bilateral trade deals. India, meanwhile, is wary of any mechanism that would give China a dominant role. Energy trade, the very area where alternative payment systems are most needed, has become the place where the group’s lofty visions are tested and found incomplete.
The result is an uncomfortable form of interdependence. The member states need each other for energy security, mineral access and market access, but they are also competing for the same resources and financing. When high prices help Moscow and hurt the global south, the notion that BRICS speaks with one voice becomes harder to defend. The shared economic grievances against the West that originally gave the group its cohesion are increasingly replaced by the unequal distribution of costs and benefits among the members themselves. That is a harder problem to solve, because the enemy is no longer just outside the room — it can be sitting a few seats away.
New Delhi’s High-Wire Act
Hosting the summit was always going to be a double-edged sword for India. On one hand, New Delhi relishes the chance to show itself as a leader of the developing world, a bridge between the Global South and the Western security order, and a genuine alternative to Beijing’s influence. On the other hand, India is now in the position of having to welcome Putin into its capital just after his country has broadened its military cooperation with China and continued its attacks in Ukraine. For Western audiences, especially those in Washington and European capitals, the image of Modi embracing Putin is an uncomfortable one. But India has made clear it will not choose sides, and its own foreign policy logic is not hard to understand. India shares a contested border with China and has no interest in allowing Chinese power to be the sole voice of Asia. Russia remains a crucial arms supplier, an insurance policy against Beijing’s dominance, and a predictable ally at the United Nations. Discarding that relationship would be strategic self-harm.
At the same time, India is quietly reminding everyone that BRICS is not NATO and not a military alliance. It is a platform for dialogue, not a bloc with confrontational purposes. That message is useful for domestic audiences, but the world is watching more carefully. The fact that India can host a meeting with Russian and Chinese leaders while also being courted by Western capitals is a sign of the country’s rising diplomatic status, but it is also a reflection of a deeply fragmented global order. India is not just balancing between Washington and Moscow; it is trying to secure its place in a world where no single pole can dominate. Hosting BRICS allows New Delhi to demonstrate that it can engage with everyone — without paying the price that such engagement might have cost a generation ago.
But there is also a domestic political dimension. Modi’s government faces elections and has run a strong nationalist campaign that emphasizes India’s sovereignty and independence. Hosting a major international summit plays well at home, so long as it projects strength and does not produce humiliation. Yet the danger is that the summit ends with a weak joint statement, a visibly strained group photo or a diluted agenda that satisfies no one. Any appearance of failure will be seized upon by opposition parties and, more importantly, by international commentators who have long argued that BRICS is little more than a talking shop. India is betting its diplomatic credibility on the idea that it can forge consensus where others cannot. The risk is substantial.
The Expansion Dilemma and the Search for Meaning
Another tension in New Delhi is the question of expansion. The 2023 Johannesburg summit, where the bloc agreed to admit six new members — Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Argentina (though Argentina later declined) — raised the group’s profile but also raised its complexity. This weekend’s summit will likely bring further discussions about a new round of membership, with observer states and new candidates queueing up. China and Russia are enthusiastic about expansion, viewing it as a way to build an alternative coalition against Western influence. India has been more cautious. Adding more members means more voices, more competing interests and a greater risk that the bloc’s agenda becomes unmanageable.
New Delhi is particularly concerned about the membership of countries with strong ties to Beijing, such as Iran and Pakistan (which has formally applied). India has traditionally seen BRICS as a space where it can maintain parity with China, not as a forum where China’s network can launch a strategic encirclement. An enlarged BRICS, especially one that includes hostile states like Pakistan, would weaken India’s ability to use the grouping as a platform for its own interests. This is not a small bureaucratic concern. It is an existential question about what the bloc is for. Is it an economic platform for emerging markets? A political project to reshape global governance? A loose diplomatic club with no real teeth? If member states cannot answer that question, the grouping risks becoming a series of handshakes without achievements.
Then there is the issue of de-dollarization and currency governance, which has become a kind of shibboleth for the group’s more vocal members. The idea of creating a BRICS currency or at least shifting more trade settlement away from the dollar is popular among anti-Western officials and commentators. But serious economists inside member countries know that a true common currency is a pipe dream at this stage. What is possible is incremental movement: more trade in local currencies, more central bank swap lines, more developmental financing outside the traditional multilateral system. That agenda is real, but it is also technical, slow and undramatic. For the media, it is far less exciting than talk of a global challenger to the dollar. Yet the truth is that BRICS’s most meaningful achievements are likely to be modest — trade facilitation, food security arrangements, shared infrastructure finance standards — rather than a revolutionary overhaul of global capital flows.
Unity or Comfortable Disagreement?
Can the bloc hold itself together? The answer may be yes, but only in the sense that NATO held together during the Cold War — around a shared set of worries rather than a shared set of values. BRICS is not a family of like-minded countries. It is a coalition of convenience, and the conveniences are changing. Wars and energy prices are forcing members to make choices they have long sought to avoid. There has never been a BRICS summit where the threat of a weak, ambiguous final statement was greater than it is now. On issue after issue — Ukraine, Gaza, sanctions, energy, membership — the group will attempt to craft language that lets each leader return home claiming success. That is the art of diplomacy, but it is also the sign of a troubled institution.
What matters more than the communiqué is the substance of the bilateral conversations taking place on the margins. Xi and Putin will have their own meeting, likely reinforcing the Russia-China axis. Modi will hold his own discussions with Putin, trying to separate transactional cooperation on energy and defense from the moral condemnation he can no longer fully avoid. India and China will also meet at the highest level, and those discussions may matter far more to the global order than any bloc-wide declaration. In many ways, the true future of BRICS is not to be found in the group’s collective decisions, but in the bilateral relationships that operate within its shadow.
The bottom line is that BRICS has survived for nearly two decades not by solving hard problems, but by avoiding them. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, plus the energy price shock, have made avoidance impossible. The leaders gathering in New Delhi this weekend know that the old era of comfortable ambiguity has ended. They can no longer claim that BRICS is a unified voice for the Global South when its most powerful members are profiting from crises that punish its weaker members. They cannot pretend that the group is a coherent geopolitical force when its members are actively pursuing different alignments and divergent strategies.
Perhaps the best that can be expected is a managed, sustained disagreement — a summit that produces enough positive energy to continue the experiment, but not enough to erase the reality of its limits. That may not sound like much, but in a fragmented and dangerous world, the simple willingness to keep talking might itself be valuable. For the people of Ukraine, for the people of Gaza, for consumers feeling the sting of high energy prices everywhere, the BRICS summit in New Delhi will not solve immediate problems. But it will set the tone for how the world’s largest emerging economies cooperate — or fail to cooperate — during the next chapter of a disorderly global transition. And that is why, despite all the cynicism, the eyes of the world remain fixed on New Delhi this weekend.
