Venezuela Makes Bid to Join China-Led BRICS – with Support from Russia

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov welcomed the interest of Venezuela’s socialist Maduro regime in joining the BRICS anti-Western bloc on Wednesday in remarks given on the sidelines of the group’s foreign ministers’ meeting.

BRICS is a China-led trade and security group originally made up of Russia, China, Brazil, India, and South Africa. The bloc agreed to expand in 2023 and as of January 2024 includes Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran. Saudi Arabia is reportedly in the process of finalizing its membership.

Russia currently holds BRICS’ annual rotating chairmanship seat and will host the group’s annual summit in the Russian city of Kazan in late October. The foreign ministers of BRICS member states gathered in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, this week for a two-day ministerial meeting that will conclude on Tuesday.

From left, India’s BRICS Sherpa Dammu Ravi, Egypt’s Foreign Ministers Sameh Shoukry, South Africa’s Foreign Ministers Naledi Pandor, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Brazil’s Foregn Minister Mauro Vieira, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister Taye Atske Selassie and Iranian Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani pose for a photo on the sidelines of the meeting of BRICS foreign ministers in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, Monday, June 10, 2024. (Roman Yarovitsin/AP)

The BRICS members also invited representatives of Cuba, Belarus, Venezuela, and Turkey, all of whom have expressed interest in applying to join.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil participated in the encounter as part of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s efforts to attain “expedited” entry into the BRICS bloc in 2024 and, according to him, to support “the creation of a more equitable and multipolar world.”

Gil and his Russian counterpart conversed on the sidelines of the encounter, where the Venezuelan foreign minister reiterated the rogue socialist regime’s intention to join BRICS, which, according to Gil, “is making great efforts to build a new world order.”

“On behalf of President Nicolás Maduro, we thank you for inviting Russia today as a friend of the BRICS,” Gil said. “This is a great honor for us, an opportunity to declare our will, the will of Venezuela to join this important bloc, which is making great efforts to create a new world order based on the desire for the well-being of our peoples.”

Lavrov expressed on behalf of Russia government support for Venezuela’s interest in joining the group and added that, as chairman of the group, Russia will “contribute to the strengthening of relations.”

“We are creating financial and logistical mechanisms that are resistant to external influence and ensure the independence of our relations, progressive development and protection from illegitimate actions, primarily by Washington and its allies,” Lavrov said.

“We value our interaction in the international arena, where, in particular, within the UN framework, cooperation is actively developing on the basis of the Venezuelan initiative to create a group of friends in defense of the UN Charter,” he continued.

The statement did not explicitly state that Russia supported Venezuela becoming a member of BRICS. During his official visit to Caracas in February, however, Lavrov stated that Moscow will use its position as 2024’s BRICS chair to facilitate Venezuela’s entry into the group.

Gil and Lavrov signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday to “counteract” sanctions imposed on both countries. According to Gil, the memorandum will allow the regimes to “advance in the creation of financial and logistical mechanisms immune to external interference and strengthen our cooperation in areas such as agriculture, medicine, energy and advanced technologies.”

Maduro has repeatedly attempted to join BRICS for the larger part of the past decade, making a more prominent push during the bloc’s 2023 meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa. There, in a pre-recorded address to the bloc, Maduro offered Venezuela’s oil reserves, minerals, and other natural resources, placing them at the disposal of the China-led coalition.

In May, Maduro “forecast” that Venezuela will be granted its long-awaited BRICS membership after the upcoming July 28 sham presidential election, where Maduro will run against a group of handpicked “opposition” rivals and Edmundo González Urrutia, the only opposition candidate that the Maduro regime allowed to be on the ballot.

“God’s timing is perfect. BRICS is a new world, without hegemonism. They are the new power blocs that Commander [Hugo] Chávez dreamed of,” Maduro said at the time. “Venezuela is on the road to the entry and organic articulation of the new powers of the world, and we have outlined them very clearly.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.