Russia – A BRIC Country?

Abstract:

Since the 2009 BRIC/SCO summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia has increasingly identified itself as a BRIC country. At that time, president Medvedev expressed dissatisfaction with the transatlantic system of rotating the IMF chairmanship between the EU and the USA, the status of the dollar as a world currency, and the discrepancy between share of votes in the IMF and actual financial contributions. The now former Russian president noted then that the ‘BRIC summit should create conditions for a more just world order [...]’.

Also, President Vladimir Putin has mooted ideas about a shifting world order, indicating that Russia should meet the ‘Asia century’ by cultivating exten- sive relations to China and by balancing US unipolarity.2 Statements aside, several questions are evident: Is Russia, in fact, a BRIC country? Does it have the resources and the desire to play a role in what the Russian media have called ‘a constellation of letters’?