TRANSFORMATION OF RUSSIA’S ECONOMIC RELATIONS WITH THE BRICS COUNTRIES

In the article, the author analyzes how Russia in 2020–2025 will transform economic relations with the BRICS countries against the backdrop of increasing sanctions, escalating conflict with the West and expanding the association to the BRICS+ format, which is turning into one of the key poles of the emerging multipolar world order. The author relies on a structural analysis of the dynamics of Russia’s trade turnover with the founders and new BRICS members, evaluates sectoral and geographical diversification, and applies an institutional analysis of energy and financial agreements to link quantitative trade trends with qualitative geopolitical shifts. The study shows that BRICS is turning from a peripheral area of cooperation into a central channel for Russia’s foreign economic reorientation, providing replacement for a significant part of Western imports, deepening energy partnership (oil, gas, nuclear and renewable energy) and stimulating the growth of settlements in national currencies, primarily in conjunction with China and India.

The analysis of relations with Brazil and South Africa reveals the expansion of niche but strategically significant cooperation.: Russia is strengthening its position as a key supplier of mineral fertilizers, energy resources, and metal products, while BRICS partners are strengthening supplies of food, agricultural raw materials, and mining products, which increases the sustainability of food and commodity chains. The work shows that the new BRICS+ members (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and others) are forming additional footholds for Russia in energy, logistics, and financial calculations, strengthening the bloc’s control over key transport corridors, and creating a foundation for diversifying export flows beyond the traditional Chinese and Indian vectors.

The author emphasizes the asymmetry of the new model: Russia is increasing its dependence on China as a key market, lender and supplier of high-tech equipment, maintains a technological gap with the developed West and faces ideological and institutional contradictions between the participants.

The paper concludes that BRICS creates a stable but technologically limited integration configuration for Russia, which serves as a “safety cushion” in trade and energy and at the same time requires the diversification of partnerships within the expanded BRICS+ and institutional deepening for long-term sustainability.

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