Putin Foresees End of Dollar Hegemony With Emergence of Multipolar World

In his keynote speech at the 15th BRICS Summit (#BRICS2023), Russian President Vladimir Putin strongly painted a picture of the end of the dollar hegemony and strongly pushed for #dedollarization in order to mitigate geopolitical risks.

Due to a warrant issued for his arrest, President Putin had to skip the Summit in person and participated via videoconference. The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov stood in to represent Russia.

Since the start of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the world has been split into two camps. The Western world led by the US and NATO is backing Ukraine while the Eastern world and Africa tend to support Russia. In particular, China is the largest superpower behind Russia and Putin and Xi have met several times in person to discuss Ukraine since the war erupted.

On the other hand, India has taken a more nuanced approach, preferring to abstain at the UN Assembly vote condemning Russia. India is also buying quite a bit of oil from Russia. Traditionally, Russia has been one of the largest weapon suppliers to India, China and many African countries.

Both China and India are resorting to their respective local currencies to settle cross-border trade with Russia in order to bypass the financial restrictions imposed upon Russia which sidelined the country from SWIFT.

Therefore, Russia is unsurprisingly a strong proponent of #dedollarization since the world trading currency has been weaponized against its interests. Russia even went so far to propose the creation of a BRICS currency backed by gold as a substitute for the mighty American dollar.

However, the conflict has disrupted global supply of wheat since Ukraine and Russia are both major producers and exporters of the commodity. As a gesture of good faith, Putin announced the donation of grain to the most affected African countries and vouch that Russia has the capacity to make up for the shortfall in grain supply.

A few months before the Summit, a high-level delegation of African countries led by the AU Chair Azali Assoumani actually visited Russia to call for an end to the war as many African countries are experiencing #FoodSecurity risk as a result.

Through the BRICS Summit, Russia would like to show that is not so isolated and continues to enjoy a certain level of support from the #GlobalSouth. He recalled in the colonial past of the #GlobalNorth and exhorted the emerging market sand developing countries (#EMDC) to pick their friends wisely.