Sergey Ryabkov, who serves as both Deputy Foreign Minister and BRICS Sherpa, recently clarified that
“I would like to remind you that BRICS is not a military union and not a collective security organization with collective defense commitments. It has never been planned as such, and there are no plans to transform it for the purpose.”
He also confirmed that
“As far as the recent naval exercise in South Africa is concerned, BRICS members participated in it as sovereign nations. It was not a BRICS event.”
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Image: Sergei Ryabkov (CC BY 4.0)
This Armenian palazzo is the House of Receptions of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) March 15, 2023
What happens inside is quite private.
Yesterday night that included an enlightening private meeting of four of us with a quite relaxed Lavrov. pic.twitter.com/rgIIXary8y
As for the second part of what he said, this relates to the spree of false reports about January’s drills off the South African coast, which many wrongly described as “BRICS naval drills” due to those being the only countries invited to participate. As was explained here,
“South Africa allowed this false perception to spread as a symbolic act of defiance against Trump given his hatred of BRICS and to signal to the domestic audience that their country has friends across the world amidst its tensions with the US.”
Ryabkov is one of Russia’s top diplomats, its point man for BRICS, and a potential replacement for Lavrov whenever he retires, so his words about Russian foreign policy carry immense weight. This is especially relevant as regards BRICS, the portrayal of which within Russia’s “global media ecosystem” has hitherto been inordinately shaped by the soft power approach known as “Potemkinism”, or the creation of alternative realities for strategic purposes.
Sputnik arguably allowed Pepe to pass off as fact his speculation about BRICS eventually merging with the SCO for precisely this reason since the perceived authority associated with declaring this on one of Russia’s publicly financed international media flagships would lead to many assuming that it’s true. After Ryabkov’s official clarification that no such plans exist nor ever have, however, it’s very possible that this aspect of “Potemkinism” – the creation of alternative realities about BRICS – might soon end.
That might not be an arbitrary decision, but a strategic one given the context. Trump threatened 100% tariffs on BRICS states in November 2024 and again in January 2025 due to his threat perception of the group. The US has since resumed talks with Russia and even begun mediating between it and Ukraine, but Trump is infamously capricious, so he might abandon these efforts if his threat perception of BRICS is once again exacerbated. Russia therefore has an interest in preemptively assuaging his fears.
To that end, it’s even reportedly considering a limited return to the dollar system as part of a grand compromise with the US, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that any such scenario requires the US to lift its prohibition on Russia’s use of that currency and it would then have to compete with others. In any case, the takeaway is that BRICS isn’t radically de-dollarizing nor turning into a security bloc, and Russia’s latest clarification of the latter reality is likely designed to placate temperamental Trump.
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This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from the author
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