Putin's Call To De-Dollarise Alarms Some At BRICS Talks

Vladimir Putin opened the expanded Brics summit last month by issuing a call for an alternative international payments system that could prevent the US using the dollar as a political weapon.

- Patrick Wintour

But the summit communique indicated that little progress had been made on this.

Speaking at the summit in the Russian city of Kazan, Putin said: "The dollar is being used as a weapon. We really see that this is so. I think that this is a big mistake by those who do this." He said that nearly 95% of trade between Russia and China is now conducted in rubles and yuan.

The move to de-dollarise has unnerved some members - notably Brazil and India - that do not want their rapidly expanding club to become solely pro-Chinese and anti-western.

Russia is working on creating a settlement and payment infrastructure that would bypass the Swift payment system based in Belgium.

The de-dollarisation initiative is probably the most concrete proposal to emerge from the summit that was remarkable for giving Putin his biggest international platform since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.