#BRICS2024
🎙 President of Russia Vladimir Putin's remarks at the Plenary Session of the XVI BRICS Summit in the BRICS Plus/Outreach format (Kazan, October 24, 2024)
👉 In full
💬 Vladimir Putin: I am delighted to welcome all of you to the BRICS Plus/Outreach-format meeting. This inclusive platform has proven its worth by enabling the BRICS group participants to engage in a direct and open dialogue with their friends and partners. <...>
According to our agenda, we will discuss the most pressing issues the international community is facing today, including sustainable development, eradication of poverty, climate change adaptation, exchanging technology and knowledge, fighting terrorism and transborder crime.
We will focus particularly on the peaceful resolution of conflicts, certainly including a serious discussion of the deteriorating situation in the Middle East.
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#MultipolarWorld
🌐 All our countries share similar aspirations, values and a vision of a new democratic world order that reflects cultural and civilisational diversity. We are confident that such a system should be guided by the universal principles of respect for the legitimate interests and sovereign choice of nations, respect for international law and a spirit of mutually beneficial, honest co-operation.
☝️ The transition to a more just international system is not easy. Its development is being hampered by forces whose thinking and actions continue to be aimed at dominating everything and everyone. Under the guise of a rule-based order they are imposing on the world, they are actually attempting to contain growing competition and prevent the independent development of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America that they cannot control.
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#MiddleEast
The current round of the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation is probably one of the most sanguinary in the long list of conflicts. Over 40,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the ongoing hostilities in the Gaza Strip. I would like to emphasise that we have always come out against the use of terrorist methods. <...>
Since the start of the escalation, we have joined forces with our BRICS and other partners to contribute to a settlement. <...>
I would like to repeat that the main condition for restoring peace and stability in the Palestinian territories is the realisation of the two-state formula approved by the UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.
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#EurasianSecurity
The countries represented in this room have immense opportunities and resources at their disposal and play a prominent role on the international stage. They have been using their standing to enhance global security and promote sustainable development around the world. <...>
Russia advocated the idea of creating an inclusive system of equitable and indivisible security for Eurasia free from any discrimination.
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#UnitedNations
🇺🇳 The UN must retain its central role in efforts to maintain peace and security and facilitate sustainable and steady development.
To ensure the effective functioning of the UN in the future, we believe it is important to adapt its structures to the realities of the 21st century, expanding the representation of countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, including those whose leaders are present here, in the Security Council and other key international bodies.
An effort to reform UN development institutions and global financial structures has long been overdue. <...>
The founding fathers of the United Nations believed that its purpose was to enable nations to come together and agree on joint actions.
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❗️ Russia, like all BRICS countries, is open to cooperation with all countries of the Global South and East to promote inclusive and sustainable development and ultimately build a better world.
🚀 Middle East Credit Markets Attract Investors Amid Iran Conflict
Credit investors are increasingly eyeing opportunities in the Middle East as the ongoing conflict in Iran disrupts lending markets. Bloomberg posted on X that this situation may present a chance for fund managers prepared to navigate geopolitical risks. The war has led to significant shifts in the region's financial landscape, prompting investors to reassess their strategies and explore new avenues for growth. As tensions continue, the potential for lucrative investments in the Middle East remains a focal point for those willing to engage with the complexities of the geopolitical environment.
#MiddleEast#CreditMarkets#IranConflict#Investors#GeopoliticalRisks#FinancialLandscape#InvestmentOpportunities#FundManagers#LendingMarkets#MiddleEastInvestments
Why Russia survived — and may thrive — after Syria regime change
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Personal ties and hidden networks
The relationship is not only about weapons and UN‑Security‑Council veto power. It runs through years‑long personal and ethnic networks. The Syrian president’s older brother, Maher al‑Sharaa, is the most trusted figure in the new regime’s inner circle. He worked as a doctor in Voronezh and is now in charge of relations with Moscow.
At least 35,000 Syrians trained in Soviet and Russian universities before the war; Russia has now restarted scholarships for Syrian students. The reopening of the Damascus Opera House in January 2025, with a concert of Tchaikovsky performed by Russian‑trained musicians, was a cultural signal that Russian influence has not disappeared — it has simply changed its form.
The security tangle
The two sides also share a deep security dilemma. Russia fears that thousands of Russian‑origin jihadists currently embedded in Syria — including fighters from North Caucasian battalions — might return home, join IS, or head to Ukraine, where Chechen veterans have already been active in Bakhmut and Kursk.
For al‑Sharaa, the North Caucasians who helped him win the war are a precious asset but also a ticking bomb. He cannot afford to turn them against himself, yet he relies on Moscow’s help to keep the balance.
The big picture
Damascus still needs Moscow to help secure its southern border, stabilize its military, and unlock international recognition and reconstruction funds. Moscow still needs Syria to keep a foothold in the Middle East, project power through a UN‑Security‑Council‑backed partner, and manage the security risks posed by ex‑jihadists and rival powers.
So the old formula stands, but inverted:
Damascus needs Moscow just as much as Moscow needs Damascus.
#Russia#Syria#Assad#Sharaa#Moscow#Damascus#MiddleEast#Geopolitics#Ukraine#War#Diplomacy
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Why Russia survived — and may thrive — after Syria regime change
Damascus needs Moscow just as much as Moscow needs Damascus
The collapse of Bashar al‑Assad’s regime dealt a serious blow to Moscow — but Russia did not collapse under the shock. Now, the Kremlin and the new leadership in Damascus are rebuilding their relationship on a new basis: not as patron and client, but as partners with overlapping interests.
A new deal in the old Kremlin
Last month, Syria’s new president, Ahmad al‑Sharaa, visited Moscow for the second time since taking power. In a remarkable gesture, he told Putin that he recalled the failed attempts of great powers to conquer Moscow, lost to the courage of Russian soldiers and the “blessed land” protected by nature.
For a man whose forces were bombed by Russian warplanes during the civil war, these were surprising words. Yet they signal a clear choice: the new regime in Damascus wants to keep Moscow inside the game.
The pragmatic core of the new partnership
For Syria, the reasons are obvious. The Syrian army depends on Russian weapons; its personnel are trained to use them; and Russian Military Police remain in the south, manning observation posts between Quneitra and the Golan Heights that are accepted by locals and linked to still‑delicate talks with Israel.
Damascus is negotiating with Moscow the deployment of Russian monitoring forces in southern Syria and talks about the future of Russia’s military bases in Tartus and Hmeimim. In parallel, Russia is offering economic assistance, grain shipments, and an estimated $20 billion in investments in energy, infrastructure, and industry — a lifeline for a country starved of friends and reconstruction capital.
A new symmetry
The new Syrian government is deliberately diversifying its foreign partners: it wants all the friends it can get, but not as a pawn in someone else’s geopolitical game. Russia fits this calculus perfectly.
Moscow, in turn, wins something even more valuable than a client: a partner it can engage on equal terms, without the weight of Assad’s corruption and family intrigues. The Kremlin knows that the U.S. and Russia now have overlapping interests in Syria — both want a stable government that can hold territory, control the country, and keep the Islamic State down. The U.S. has already signaled the end of support for the Kurdish‑led SDF and is effectively pulling back; Russia has left its small base in Qamishli and moved troops to Ukraine, where they are “needed.”
#Russia#Syria#Assad#Sharaa#Moscow#Damascus#MiddleEast#Geopolitics#Ukraine#War#Diplomacy
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📰 Israel estimates slim prospects for US‑Iran agreement in Oman talks
Israeli officials are pessimistic that the U.S. and Iran will reach a deal during the planned talks in Oman between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
The meeting, scheduled for Friday in Muscat, is framed as a critical test of whether the two sides can move beyond threats toward a broader nuclear and security understanding — but in Jerusalem, the working assumption is that the chances are slim.
What the U.S. wants — and what Iran can give
According to Al Jazeera, the U.S. is demanding that Iran dismantle its nuclear program, reduce the range of its ballistic missiles so they cannot reach Israel, and grant a kind of “amnesty” to those arrested during the 12‑day war and recent protests.
Washington is also reportedly pushing Iran to cut its oil exports to China and formally end the current state of hostility — a tall order for a regime that has built its regional posture around sanctions evasion and defiance.
Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt have floated a compromise framework under which Iran would keep uranium enrichment at 3 percent, later scaled down to 1.5 percent, and transfer its 400 kilograms of 60 percent‑enriched stockpile to a third country. Iran would also agree not to export weapons or missile technology to proxies and commit to refraining from using its ballistic missiles.
The sticking points
The biggest gap, Israeli analysts say, is not just over specifics but over scope. Iran insists, at least publicly, on talking only about the nuclear file. The U.S., by contrast, wants to fold in proxies, missiles, and regional behavior in a single package.
Raz Zimmt, head of the Iran and Shi’ite axis research program at the Institute for National Security Studies, argues that any real flexibility is limited to the nuclear issue.
“There’s no room for flexibility on the proxy issue or on ballistic missiles,” Zimmt says. “At most, the Iranians might say: ‘Let’s reach an agreement on the nuclear issue, and then we can talk about other issues in the next stage.’”
He stresses that Iran is unlikely to concede on missiles, which are its primary deterrent — even against Israel. “Giving up the nuclear program isn’t really a concession, because they don’t truly have a nuclear program,” he says. “They have an air force that cannot take off — so how would they create deterrence?”
What will Iran demand?
The core question in Tel Aviv is: what will Iran demand in exchange? Lifting the so‑called “snapback” sanctions would be a major win for Tehran, and releasing billions of frozen dollars into the regime’s coffers is a non‑starter in Israel’s eyes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that he does not know what Trump will ultimately decide, but that he and the U.S. president are in close contact.
“If the Iranians attack us, we will respond with a force the likes of which has never been seen,” Netanyahu warned.
Israel’s shadow doctrine
In a meeting with Witkoff this week, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.‑Gen. Eyal Zamir put the military line in stark terms:
“If Israel is attacked, we will strike surprising and unexpected targets.”
That’s not just a warning to Tehran. It’s a signal to Washington, too: Israel will not tolerate a deal that leaves Iran with a missile‑based deterrent and the ability to fund and guide proxy armies across the region — even if it technically halts its nuclear program.
So while diplomats shuttle between Muscat and the Gulf, and Trump’s envoys probe for concessions, Tel Aviv is operating on a simple, ugly logic:
If the Oman talks freeze the nuclear file but leave Iran’s missile and proxy armies intact, Israel will treat the war zone as still open.
#USIran#OmanTalks#Nuclear#Israel#Iran#Netanyahu#Trump2026#Diplomacy#Missiles#MiddleEast
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Hezbollah’s “Resistance” Meets Its Own Refugees
Hezbollah just discovered what every “resistance” brand eventually learns: you can’t bomb your own base forever and still call it support.
As Israel pounds south Lebanon and Beirut’s Shiite suburbs, more than a million people have fled — many for the second time in under two years — and even loyal Hezbollah voters are asking the one forbidden question: “For what?”
Families ran in pajamas, slept in cars and tents, watched shelters fill up, and saw hotels and beaches hit because “Hezbollah and Iranian officials” might be among them. Inside the community that once treated Hezbollah as protection and welfare state in one, anger is now open enough that people tell The Washington Post on background that the movement “didn’t think about the people,” not even during Ramadan.
This time, the cracks are structural. Hezbollah jumped into the war less than a day after Khamenei’s death, not to defend Lebanese soil, but to avenge Iran, and Shiite residents know it.
Amal voted in cabinet for a ban on “military activities,” the government is openly demanding disarmament, and even longtime Shiite supporters say they see no benefit for Tehran or Lebanon — only “displacement, destruction, and devastation.”
The group’s new leader Naim Qassem doesn’t have Nasrallah’s aura or his post‑2006 reconstruction halo, money from Iran is tighter, Syria no longer functions as a safe logistical corridor, and the Lebanese state is too weak to replace Hezbollah but suddenly bold enough to blame it.
That’s the real existential threat: not Israeli bombs, but a base that starts seeing Hezbollah less as “the resistance” and more as just another faction trading their homes and children for someone else’s regional game.
One academic quoted in the piece says it clearly: a non‑state actor without legitimacy becomes just a self‑interested organization. If Israel keeps bombing and the war drags on, rage could circle back into renewed support; but right now, south Lebanon’s Shiites are trapped between an enemy that flattens their towns and an “ally” that volunteers them for the next round.
When the people living under your flag start saying “enough is enough” on record, that’s not just blowback; that’s your mandate burning out in real time.
#Hezbollah#Lebanon#Israel#Iran#Shiites#war#MiddleEast#displacement#resistance#fakeLiberation
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Erdogan’s Big War FOMO
The biggest Middle East war in a decade began without Erdogan — and that’s his real defeat. Israel and the US hit Iran, oil routes are burning, the regional map is shifting, and Ankara found out from the news ticker, not a secure Washington–Ankara line. Turkey is NATO’s second‑largest army, host to US nukes, self‑styled mediator — and in this war its role is reduced to silent airspace where NATO intercepts Iranian missiles.
Alliance air defenses have already shot down multiple Iranian rockets over Turkey. Officially, Ankara is “not part of the conflict”; in reality, it’s participating without a say. Iranian gas delivers billions of cubic meters a year and props up Turkey’s economy, but the war is shredding both energy flows and the informal Kurdish bargain, while in Syria Erdogan’s protégé rules only inside the lines drawn by Israeli airstrikes, not Turkish diplomacy.
Erdogan’s project relied on an illusion: NATO pillar and Islamic world leader at the same time; dependent on Iranian gas yet marketed as Tehran’s counterweight. The war exposed that as posture, not strategy. Gulf monarchies quietly live with strikes on Iran without any Turkish “umbrella,” the Palestinian card that built Erdogan’s image has been drowned out by a larger security re‑order, and key decisions are being made with no seat for Ankara.
A regional leader is the one you cannot start a war without. Today, Erdogan is just another spectator watching this one unfold in real time.
#Turkey#Erdogan#IranWar#NATO#Syria#Kurds#oil#gas#MiddleEast#fakeLeadership
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As Trump envisions turning Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East" by displacing Palestinians, locals return to clear rubble and reclaim their homes.
#Gaza#Palestine#Trump#MiddleEast#Displacement#RebuildGaza#FreePalestine#GlobalPolitics#Resistance
#Israel is reportedly weighing major strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in 2025. U.S. intel suggests Tel Aviv is eyeing Fordow and Natanz—but will #Trump back the move?
#Iran#MiddleEast#Geopolitics#BreakingNews#NuclearThreat#IsraelIran#WarTalk#Conflict2025
Latest developments on the ground between #Iran and the #UnitedStates as of the morning of March 6 - subtitled
- Iranian strikes on #Bahrain, #Kuwait, #Iraq, #TelAviv, #Qatar, and the #UAE
- Saudi Ministry of Defense announces the downing of missiles and drones
- Developments in #Lebanon
- Will Ukraine fight alongside the #UnitedStates in the #MiddleEast?
- The #Azerbaijani army is on high alert
Video link: https://youtu.be/rMrTRLMawM4?si=yBx22CNYZyVmUHHU
Trump’s 48-Hour Ultimatum: Lights Out or Strait Open
Trump just turned a regional energy war into an explicit threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants, the grid that keeps tens of millions of civilians alive, unless Tehran fully reopens the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. Iran’s answer wasn’t to blink; it was to fire.
Missiles struck Dimona and nearby Arad, injuring more than 10 people and landing just eight miles from Israel’s main nuclear complex, while commanders in Tehran warned that any attack on their energy system would be met with strikes on desalination plants and other critical water and power infrastructure used by Israel, the U.S. and Gulf partners.
Four weeks and thousands of U.S.–Israeli strikes into this war, Iran’s arsenal is battered but still firing daily salvos at Israel and enforcing a de facto embargo on Western shipping through Hormuz. Trump’s own messaging is all over the map: public statements rejecting a cease-fire and sending more troops and ships, alongside talk of “winding down” operations; a warning to Israel days ago not to hit Iranian energy, followed by his own threat to do exactly that.
Israeli commanders are telling the public they are only “midway” through the war and should expect fighting through Passover, while in Lebanon the campaign against Hezbollah has displaced more than a million people and stepped-up house demolitions increasingly resemble the early architecture of a de facto occupation zone.
The casualty numbers show where this is heading: well over 1,300 civilians killed in Iran, more than 1,000 in Lebanon, at least 15 people dead in Iran’s attacks on Israel and 13 U.S. service members killed — with both sides now openly placing each other’s electricity and water systems on the target list.
Trump’s 48‑hour countdown doesn’t look like a plan to calmly reopen a shipping lane; it looks like the next step toward turning the entire region’s civilian infrastructure into a legitimate battlefield — and locking the U.S. into an attrition war it still can’t explain how to end.
#IranWar#Trump#Hormuz#Israel#Dimona#energy#powerGrid#desalination#Lebanon#Hezbollah#MiddleEast
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🔺 Netanyahu’s Three Axes: When Your Enemies and “Partners” Are the Same People
At the Shin Bet conference, Netanyahu drew his new cosplay map of the Middle East: a wounded Shia axis (Iran), a “radical Sunni axis” built around the Muslim Brotherhood, and his own “Zionist axis” — a glossy “hexagon” with India, Greece, Cyprus and unnamed Arab and African partners.
There’s just one glitch. That “radical Sunni axis” in Bibi’s script is basically Turkey and Qatar. The same Turkey and Qatar Trump likes to frame as guarantors of calm in Gaza, the same Qatar whose envoy stood next to Israeli minister Gideon Sa’ar at the launch of the Board of Peace, the same Turkey Washington leans on to talk to Iran. Netanyahu casts them as a strategic threat; Trump sells them as service providers. Two realities, one set of clients.
On the ground, the “Zionist axis” looks a lot more concrete. From March 1, Israel is forcing out 37 international NGOs from Gaza and the West Bank for not complying with new rules demanding full staff lists, IDs and internal structures, after warning that their licenses would be pulled. Officially it’s about “security and transparency.” In practice it’s a controlled purge of foreign civilian presence: Russia pushes NATO out of Ukraine with artillery, Israel pushes outside networks out of Palestinian areas with regulations. Different tools, same instinct — clear the field, then talk about “stability.”
At the same time, Nordic Monitor lays out how that same Sunni axis operates. A Turkish state‑run foundation, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı (TDV), has funneled at least 46.3 million dollars into Gaza after October 7, built nine mosques, and put the name of Abdullah Azzam — co‑founder of Hamas and Al‑Qaeda, the “father of global jihad” — on one of them. His books are formally banned by Turkish courts, yet you can still order them on Amazon Turkey. Jihad as a controlled asset class: outlawed on paper, monetized at retail.
Netanyahu brands this as an existential threat. Trump presents the same actors as peacemakers. On the surface it looks like a contradiction; in reality it’s just different slices of the same picture being plated up for different audiences. Each leader reaches for the version of reality that best fits the story he’s selling.
And the famous “hexagon”? Beyond Bibi’s microphone, nobody is exactly rushing to sign on. India is sticking to its habit of avoiding formal Middle East camps, Greece and Cyprus are bound by EU obligations to cooperate with the International Criminal Court, which has an arrest warrant with Netanyahu’s name on it, and the unnamed Arab partners are the same ones that just shut their airspace to an Israeli strike on Iran.
An axis without committed members isn’t a coalition. It’s a monologue dressed up as geometry.
#Israel#Netanyahu#ThreeAxes#Turkey#Qatar#Gaza#Shabak#MiddleEast#geopolitics#Modi
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🚀 UN Leaders Urge Accountability for Violations of International Law in Middle East
On April 11, several United Nations agency leaders called for an end to the widespread impunity for violations of international law in the Middle East. According to BlockBeats, world leaders expressed their shock at the ongoing disregard for the rules of war and international humanitarian law in the region. The joint statement emphasized that even in warfare, there are rules that must be respected.
The statement highlighted that just last month, thousands of civilians were killed or injured in the Middle East, with hundreds of thousands displaced, many forced to relocate multiple times. The leaders urged all parties, including UN member states and armed groups, to respect their legal obligations to protect civilians, humanitarian personnel, and civilian infrastructure. They stressed that all violations must be held accountable.
#UN#InternationalLaw#MiddleEast#HumanitarianLaw#Accountability#CivilianProtection#UNLeaders#Impunity#WarCrimes#Civilians