Despite the International Criminal Court in The Hague having issued an international arrest warrant for his detention, Putin was the centre of attention on the international stage once more after welcoming 20 heads of state to the BRICS summit of emerging economies – to show that the West’s pressure and sanctions are not working.
And his “dear friend” Xi told the Russian president that although the world was in chaos, their friendship would ‘endure’.
“At present, the world is going through changes unseen in a hundred years, the international situation is intertwined with chaos,” Xi told Putin in the Russian city of Kazan at the opening of the BRICS summit.
Putin, in turn, called Xi a “dear friend” and said the partnership with China was a force for stability in the world.
“Russian-Chinese cooperation in world affairs is one of the main stabilising factors on the world stage,” Putin said.
“We intend to further enhance coordination on all multilateral platforms in order to ensure global security and a just world order.”
Xi added that cooperation in the BRICS group was “the most important platform for solidarity and cooperation between emerging market countries and developing countries in the world today.”
Russia and China, pushing back against the perceived humiliations of the 1991 Soviet collapse and centuries of European colonial dominance of China, have sought to portray the West as decadent and in decline.
Putin and Xi have already pledged a “new era” of partnership between the two most powerful rivals of the United States, which they cast as an aggressive Cold War hegemon sowing chaos worldwide.
The heads of the Commonwealth’s largest member state, Indian Prime Minister Mr Modi, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian were among the other leaders to arrive in the city of Kazan, where the economic summit is being held.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also all landed in Kazan for the summit.
Leaders of several other countries that have shown an interest in deepening ties with BRICS are also participating, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva cancelled his trip to Russia after suffering a head injury in a fall at home on October 19. Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira is representing the country at the summit.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is also expected to attend – and meet Putin, despite widespread criticism for doing so.
BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The group started in 2006, and Brazil, Russia, India and China convened for the first BRIC summit in 2009. South Africa joined a year later.
The alliance aims to challenge the economic and political monopoly of the West. The group sets priorities and has discussions once yearly during the BRICS summit, which members take turns hosting.
The summit is the 16th held.
But this year, Putin was allowed to showboat his alliances after travelling to the West and elsewhere, which has become impossible for the Russian President.
This is because, in March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued an arrest warrant against Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegal deportation of children from Ukraine. As a result, if he stepped foot in most Western nations, he would be arrested.