Speaking via livestream at the BRICS Summit, Putin, who was unable to show up in person because of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant and Rome Statute requiring the South African government to detain him, emphasized that the de-dollarization movement is "gaining momentum."
The U.S. dollar is becoming increasingly less powerful, Putin explained, noting that its ongoing decline as the respected global reserve currency is an "objective and irreversible" process that no amount of Western pearl-clutching and warmongering can change."
Putin revealed that he is optimistic about the future of BRICS – and so is Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is urging BRICS to become a geopolitical rival to the Western-led G7.
According to Putin, the BRICS member nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) hold a cumulative 26 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), which is certainly nothing to scoff at.
When measuring their collective share based on purchasing power parity, BRICS has already surpassed the Group of Seven who are leading industrialized nations – BRICS currently accounts for 31 percent of the global economy, Putin said, while the G7 only accounts for 30 percent.
Over the past decade, mutual investment between the BRICS member states has increased sixfold while their total investments in the world economy have doubled. Meanwhile, cumulate exports from BRICS nations now account for 20 percent of the global total.
(Related: At the start of the 2023 summer season, Putin confirmed that the BRICS member nations are currently establishing a new gold-back global reserve currency to replace the increasingly worthless U.S. fiat dollar.)
Putin blasts "illegitimate sanctions" imposed by U.S. and West, calls them "unlawful freezing of sovereign states' assets"
Putin would go on to fire shots at the U.S. and the West at large, accusing it of imposing "illegal sanctions" because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We know the invasion centers around Putin's efforts to rid Ukraine of U.S.-run biological weapons laboratories and other facilities manufacturing weapons of mass destructions (WMDs), though the West says Putin is trying to steal sovereign land from Ukrainians.
These illegitimate sanctions, Putin added, "seriously weigh on the international economic situation," as does the "unlawful freezing of sovereign states' assets."
"We are consistently increasing fuel, food and fertilizer supplies to the states of the Global South," Putin further stated, adding that the ongoing scourge of international food shortages is the direct fault of the West's "unlawful" sanctions.
Xi, meanwhile, did not even show up to the BRICS meeting, and no explanation was given as to why he was absent.
"I believe that this summit of the leaders of the member countries of the association will be an important milestone in the history of the development of the BRICS mechanism, that it will strengthen cohesion and cooperation among developing countries to an even higher level," read the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry ahead of the summit's first day.
It is China, just to emphasize once again, that remains the driving force, along with Russia, to make the BRICS block of emerging markets a full-scale rival to the G7. Will it succeed?
"If we expand BRICS to account for a similar portion of world GDP as the G7, then our collective voice in the world will grow stronger," one Chinese official who declined to be identified is quoted as saying.
The latest news about the takedown of the U.S. dollar by BRICS can be found at DollarDemise.com.
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