The leaders of the world’s top emerging economies have begun arriving in the western Russian city of Kazan where president Vladimir Putin will host the 16th Brics summit, the first gathering of the bloc since its expansion last year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is to host a meeting featuring China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian this week, defying predictions that the war in Ukraine and an international arrest warrant would turn him into a pariah.

After the start of a special military operation on In 2022, the West imposed numerous economic sanctions on Ukraine against Russia, blocked access to the global banking system and tried to diplomatically isolate it from the rest of the world.