West using conflicts to disrupt BRICS rise
Arce cited the recent Iran-Israel escalation and the Ukraine conflict, alleging that Western officials deliberately exaggerated threats – such as claims that Russia could attack the EU – to provoke fear and justify escalation.
'These claptrap statements that provoked the war between Russia and Ukraine are the same statements that led to mutual attacks between Israel and Iran. They follow the same logic, they want to provoke the BRICS countries to take retaliatory actions,' Arce told RT at the BRICS Summit in Brazil.
'We all understand that wars benefit one country – the US, which is the main supplier of weapons. This sector... stimulates the American economy, which is in decline. The Americans have always sought to unleash wars, because for them it is a way to solve economic problems,' Arce added.
He claimed that the US and EU realize they are losing influence and are trying to block emerging power centers.
'The BRICS countries are playing an increasingly important role… There is a clear struggle between the old stagnant bloc of the US and Europe on one side and the emerging bloc of BRICS countries on the other,' the Bolivian leader stated.
Arce said his country rejects unipolarity and promotes multilateralism.
'We no longer believe that the planet should be dominated by one country… The fact that more and more countries want to join the BRICS group is a convincing proof that the world embraces the principle of multilateralism,' the Bolivian leader stated. He added that BRICS does not make subordinates of its members, but allows them all to benefit from mutual cooperation.
BRICS was founded by Brazil, Russia, India, and China in 2006, and later added South Africa, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, the UAE, and Indonesia. At last year's summit in Kazan, the group introduced a 'partner country' status after receiving over 30 membership applications.
In their declaration at the Rio summit that started on Sunday, BRICS leaders backed a multipolar world, UN Security Council reform, and fairer global finance. They called for IMF and World Bank reforms, stronger trade among BRICS states, expanded use of local currencies, and alternative payment systems.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Russia Today
3 hours ago
- Russia Today
Get a rare glimpse into the sick minds behind the EU's warmongering
In the world of Western mainstream media political commentary, not everything is fun. In fact, mostly, things are grimly serious, the sort of seriousness that comes with solid, never-questioned self-importance. But sometimes that professional pomposity reaches a tipping point when strenuous efforts to be very earnest involuntarily produce priceless outcomes. That is the case with a recent elephantine op-ed that has surfaced in Politico under the illustrious names of Gabrielius Landsbergis and Garry Kasparov. Its one, relentlessly reiterated argument is touchingly simple as well as out of touch with the world we really live in: The EU, this fantasy goes, is too consensual, peaceful, and nice (tell the migrants drowning in the Mediterranean or traded as slaves in Libya with de facto EU support). It must become tough, decisive, and fierce, with plenty of arms and gritty oomph. Because otherwise it won't survive in a world shaped by the big bad 'global network of authoritarians' (I won't enumerate them here; it's just the usual suspects of every Centrist's fever dream) and, for good measure, terrorists, too. (Surely, the latter, at least, do no longer include Mr. Jolani, the former leader of the Al Qaeda franchise in Syria who has recently been reborn miraculously as an avatar of diversity now going by Al Sharaa?) Landsbergis is a political nepo baby, enthusiastic NATO sectarian, and the former foreign minister of Lithuania. While popular at international meet-ups of adult – so they say at least – Europeans calling US presidents 'daddy,' a 2023 poll back home in Lithuania saw him fail to breach the 2-percent threshold. If that sounds like perfect material for a blind date with Kamala Harris, Landsbergis certainly has time on his hands after losing his constituency last year and announcing he wanted to take a break from politics. No less, it seems, than his voters clearly needed a break from him. Kasparov is, by comparison with Landsbergis, at least an original phenomenon, the idiot savant of chess. A former world champion, he has now spent decades proving that one can be a chess genius and a perfect dunce in every other respect, especially politics. Since he has combined this obstinate – and almost brave, if that is the word – playing to his worst weaknesses with an equally stubborn obsession with going after Russia and its leadership he still has his fans, in the West. Together, Landsbergis and Kasparov have signed off on a gargantuan effort to produce another Long Telegram. Clearly, they are driven by a comically misplaced ambition to best American diplomat and Ur-Cold Warrior' George Kennan – a complex, dour, and vain man, but certainly no fool, as his later fall from official grace and opposition to daft Western expansionism showed – who issued the renowned call to arms against the Soviet Union in 1946/47. What early Cold War Kennan did for the US – and by extension, its postwar empire – Kasparov and Landsbergis would very much, desperately like to be able to do for the EU. And they have striven mightily. Yet they have strutted into the classical trap of the epigone: think of their imitation clarion call as a mix between embarrassingly poor-but-eager fan fiction, a bizarre alternative history of the EU, and a rambling and rather dull party speech masquerading as an op-ed. Yes, that is how bad it is. Indeed, the screed by the Lithuanian has-been and the chess master who went full blockhead is so self-defeatingly shoddy that it's difficult to know where to begin. So, for starters, just for a rough sense of what we are dealing with, this is a text asserting the EU systematically promotes politicians who are 'excellent negotiators.' Such as Ursula von der Leyen, we must assume? The one really in charge (although no one can coherently explain why) in the EU who has just 'negotiated' a grotesquely disadvantageous anti-'deal' – really an unconditional surrender without a fight – with the US, built on the elegantly simple principle 'You get everything, we get nothing, and we'll pay you for that as well.' This claim about the EU producing excellence at the negotiating table, is all the more curious (Is 'curious' the word? Would 'symptomatic' be better?) since Landsbergis and Kasparov do mention that recent fiasco at Trump's Turnberry Golf Berghof as well. Somehow, between the former foreign minister and the former chess champion, no one noticed the contradiction. But then again, these are the same bright minds who believe that the EU is a beacon of 'free trade.' In reality, one purpose the EU was built for – apart from suppressing national sovereignty and whatever faint elements of democracy postwar European states actually have featured – was to not allow for free trade. In reality, the EU permits something resembling free trade only when it is perceived as advantageous to its own agenda or that of specific states and pressure groups – or, of course, when it is forced to do so. In all other cases, it practices a whole plethora of protectionist policies, from the classic Common Agricultural Policy to so-called anti-dumping rules that it uses as geopolitical weapons. It also runs an enormous redistribution scheme between its member nations, something that Landsbergis from Lithuania certainly knows from its most cushy side. While not directly a trade issue, that, too, is far from the pure doctrine of free markets and invisible hands. Finally, it was, obviously, precisely the EU's – not Russia's – refusal to even consider 'free' trade for Ukraine with both itself and Russia that played a key role in triggering the original Ukraine crisis of 2013/14. More examples of painfully under-informed and under-thought (both polite expressions) statements could be added. But why torment ourselves? You get the gist: Details – though by no means minor – are not Landsbergis and Kasparov's forte. What about the grand argument then? It is not merely ignorant but positively toxic. For Kasparov and Landsbergis, it is certain that the EU and 'Putin's Russia' can never 'peacefully coexist,' and while hedging a tiny bit with regard to China, they say essentially the same about the bloc's relationship with Beijing as well. As card-carrying members of the 'daddy'-saying club, they let the US off lightly, bending themselves into submissive pretzels by, on one side, noting that it is abandoning its EU vassals and, on the other, saying that that's okay, daddy, and, anyhow, we Europeans need tough love. In effect, they paint a picture of an EU that can rely only on itself. And that is the madness of their article: They are right – even if cowardly – about the fact that it cannot rely on the US. But they are wrong, in fact, deluded, about two key things. First, they are dishonest about 'going it alone.' Because they are, of course, not ready to be consistent and encourage the EU to, in that case, actually put its own interests above the demands of the US. The obvious test here is Ukraine. If Landsbergis and Kasparov were ready to face the fact that the EU must end, instead of increase, its support for Kiev, then one could take them seriously to an extent. But the opposite is the case. Second, there is no need to 'go it alone,' and, in fact, there is no such option. If Kasparov and Landsbergis could free themselves for a moment from their ideological obsessions, they would easily realize that the way forward for the EU in a world where the US has become an even more damaging 'friend' than before is to seek normal relationships with others, in particular with China and Russia. In terms of both security and economics, these are the relationships that would allow the EU to perhaps escape decline. Yet driven by provincial phobias and petty personal grudges, Kasparov and Landsbergis miss the obvious. What is profoundly disturbing about their rant is not that it exists: someone will always be full enough of themselves to produce flimsy, atrocious ideas and mistake them for advice to share. Yet in a halfway normal environment, such things would stay on Reddit. That they are treated as worthy of a mainstream platform is a sign that, indeed, the EU has severe problems and needs radical change. Just not along the lines suggested by Landsbergis and Kasparov.
Russia Today
8 hours ago
- Russia Today
US is ‘done' funding Ukraine — Vance
Washington is not going to fund Ukraine anymore, US Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News on Sunday. Ukraine's European backers can buy the weapons from American producers if they want to continue supporting Kiev, and the US will be 'okay with that,' Vance added. 'But we're not going to fund it ourselves anymore,' he said. DETAILS TO FOLLOW
Russia Today
8 hours ago
- Russia Today
Why Trump wants Putin in Alaska – and not anywhere else
The choice of Alaska as the venue for the August 15, 2025, bilateral summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin carries a rare blend of symbolism. It reaches deep into the past, reflects the current geopolitical balance, and hints at the contours of future US–Russia relations. From the standpoint of historical memory, there is hardly another place in the United States that so clearly embodies the spirit of neighborliness and mutually beneficial cooperation lost during the Cold War. From 1737 until 1867, this vast, sparsely populated land was known as Russian America – a semi-exclave of the Russian Empire, separated from its Eurasian heartland yet sharing a border with another state. Tsar Alexander II's decision to sell Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million was one of the most debated diplomatic transactions of the 19th century. In St. Petersburg, it was clear: if left unattended, Alaska would likely fall into the hands of Russia's main rival at the time – the British Empire. Handing it over to Washington was not an act of weakness, but a calculated investment in future relations with a nation whose Pacific ambitions did not yet collide with Russia's. In the 20th century, this symbolic connection gained new meaning. During World War II, the city of Fairbanks – with a population of just thirty thousand – became a major hub in the Lend-Lease program, a massive US military aid effort that supplied the Soviet Union with aircraft, equipment, and materials. Alaska's airfields served as a key route for delivering American planes to the Eastern Front. Even today, Alaska remains the 'most Russian' of US states: home to Old Believers – descendants of 19th-century settlers seeking religious freedom – with functioning Orthodox churches and place names like Nikolaevsk, Voznesensk, and Upper and Lower Russian Lakes, linked by the Russian River. But the choice of Alaska is more than a nod to history; it is also a political calculation. Trump clearly has no intention of sharing the spotlight with intermediaries such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Türkiye, or Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates and one of the most influential figures in Middle Eastern politics. Both men have played high-profile roles as international brokers, but their involvement would inevitably shift the tone and priorities of the summit. Trump has chosen the most geographically remote state in the union – thousands of miles from any Euro-Atlantic capital – to underline his distance both from his Democratic opponents at home and from NATO allies who, acting in Kiev's interests, will seek to undermine any potential breakthroughs. There is also a practical side: Alaska's low population density makes it easier for security services to minimize the risk of terrorist attacks or staged provocations, while sidestepping the legal complications posed by the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant. In 2002, the United States withdrew its signature from the Rome Statute and it does not recognize the ICC's jurisdiction on its soil. There is another crucial dimension: Alaska is America's only truly Arctic region. In a world where the Trump administration has been exerting pressure on Canada and Greenland to bring them under firmer US influence, the high north is becoming a strategic theater. Russia and the United States have overlapping interests here – from developing the Northern Sea Route, which partly runs through the Bering Strait, to tapping offshore oil and gas reserves. The Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater formation in the Arctic Ocean claimed by Russia as a natural extension of its continental shelf, is a case in point. Joint Arctic projects could turn the region into one of the most prosperous in the world, but under a different scenario it could just as easily become a stage for nuclear weapons tests and air defense drills. Ukraine will loom large over the summit agenda. Western media outlets have already floated the possibility of territorial swaps – for example, the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Donetsk People's Republic in exchange for Russian concessions in the Sumy, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Nikolaev regions. Even Western analysts have called such a deal a diplomatic victory for Moscow, noting that the unoccupied territory Russia would gain would be four times the size of the areas it might cede. Alaska is a fitting place for such discussions: its own history is a vivid reminder that territorial ownership is not an immutable historical-geographic constant, but a political and diplomatic variable shaped by the agreements of great powers in specific historical moments. The summit in Alaska is more than just a meeting between two leaders. It is a return to the logic of direct dialogue without intermediaries, a reminder of historic ties, and a test of whether Moscow and Washington are willing to work together where their interests not only intersect, but could align. Alaska's story began as Russian, continued as American – and now has the chance to become a shared chapter, if both sides choose to see it as an opportunity rather than a threat.
