Representing 41.1% of the world’s population and 37.3% of its GDP, the bloc aims to counterbalance United States-led Western alliances.

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,

China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi and other global leaders have arrived in the Russian city of Kazan for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies that the Kremlin hopes to turn into