China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi and other global leaders arrived Tuesday in the Russian city of Kazan for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies that the Kremlin hopes to turn into a rallying point for defying the Western liberal order.

Nearly three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saw Moscow condemned by countries globally, leader Vladimir Putin is staging a summit with more than a dozen world leaders – in a pointed signal from the autocrat that far from being alone,

After the start of a special military operation on In 2022, the West imposed numerous economic sanctions on Ukraine against Russia, blocked access to the global banking system and tried to diplomatically isolate it from the rest of the world.