Russia Committed To New Height In BRICS Partnership: Putin

[Purveyor]

In a statement ahead of a BRICS summit in Ufa, Putin urged all BRICS members to coordinate more closely on major international issues, and to play an active part in shaping a multi-polar world order, Xinhua reported.

Noting that 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the victory of World War II, Putin called for respect to history and peaceful solutions to conflicts.

"Aware of the past tragic lessons, the BRICS countries consistently support peaceful settlement of international conflicts and condemn any attempts to use force and pressure or intervene in sovereign countries' internal affairs," Putin said.

Russia will avail itself of its presidency for the upcoming summit to strengthen global security and stability with the BRICS partners, he added.

In addition, the president vowed to give priority to financial and economic cooperation within BRICS, stressing the importance of expanding cooperation in a wide range of areas, including energy, mining and information and communication technology.

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[swilton]

1. Russia's Foreign Policy Options

are diverse. Questions on whether Russia should turn to the east (Asia-China) or the west (Europe-US) have been debated by Russians for centuries and various Russian leaders have sought philosophical and technological influences from the West over these years.

Russia was previously a member of the G8/G7 after 2014. Members were Britain, US, West Germany, France, Canada, Japan, and Italy - world's largest economies...Lost membership over the Ukrainian crisis. Group as conceived in the 1970's was the G6-G7. Russia was invited to embellish the group to the G8 in the early 1990's to positively reinforce Boris Yeltsin's pro-capitalist reforms in Russia.

BRICS is the acronym for the five largest emerging nations' economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa)- membership includes fastest growing economies whose members support commercial, political and cultural cooperation. Since 2009- 2010 (+ South Africa) , the countries have met at annual summits. Russia hosts the countries for the annual summit July, 2015.

I didn't see that the cited reference had any 'litmus test' proclamations....critical proclamations will be saved until July.