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At Kazan BRICS Summit, Russia’s Eurasian Identity Looms Large

At Kazan BRICS Summit, Russia’s Eurasian Identity Looms Large


Eugene Chausovsky is Senior Director for Analytical Development and Training at the New Lines Institute

Leaders from across the globe descended upon Russia on October 22-24 for the annual BRICS summit, which has emerged as one of the premier gatherings of the non-Western world. Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the heads of state of the other founding members of BRICS – Brazil, India, China, and South Africa – in addition to high-level representatives from the group’s newest members, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Notably absent from the summit were leaders from the US or Western Europe, perhaps serving to emphasize the Kremlin’s attempts to distinguish BRICS from blocs like the G7, EU, and NATO, and, ultimately, to foster an alternative to the Western-led global order. 

Also notable was the site that Russia had chosen to host the BRICS summit – not Moscow nor St. Petersburg, but the much lesser-known city (at least to those outside of Russia) of Kazan. Located thousands of kilometers to the east of Russia’s two major cities, Kazan has emerged as Russia’s ‘third capital’ – serving as a cultural and political center for the Tatar ethnic group, as well as a regional economic hub in areas like energy, banking, and IT. The city is also perhaps the best representation of Russia’s unique blend of European and Asian characteristics that make up its ‘Eurasian’ identity. Kazan’s population is roughly evenly split between ethnic Tatars and Russians, with mosques and Orthodox churches found side-by-side throughout the city, including within the Kazan Kremlin itself. 

In many ways, Kazan serves as a microcosm of Russia’s broader identity of Eurasianism. Russia’s vast territory spans both Europe and Asia geographically, with borders that stretch from Finland and the Baltics in the west to China and North Korea in the east. Demographically, Russia consists of various ethnic and religious groups across its vast Eurasian landscape, from Orthodox Slavs (including Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians) to Muslim Tatars and Chechens to the Buddhists of Tuva and Buryatia. 

Russia’s political identity is likewise Eurasian, with major influences from both continents throughout history and up to the present day. It was the Mongols that swept from the east and upended the original Russian state of Kievan Rus in the 13th century, shifting the centre of that state from Kyiv to Moscow in the process. Three hundred years later, it was in Kazan that the Grand Duchy of Muscovy led by Ivan the Terrible broke free from the rule of the Mongol-descended Tatar Khanates. This, in earnest, began Muscovy’s transformation into the Russian Empire. Conquests throughout Europe and Asia, as well as Russia’s entrance into great power politics in the ensuing centuries brought the empire into contact (and wars) with eastern and western powers across Eurasia, from the Persians and Ottomans to Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany.

Each of these experiences contributed to the formation of Russia’s unique Eurasian identity, just as they have shaped the evolution of Russia’s domestic and foreign policy. On the domestic front, Russia has oscillated between centralised authoritarianism and periodic (albeit shortly lived) experimentations with liberalism and democracy. In the international arena, Russia has shifted between alignment with European and democratic powers to confrontation with them, depending on the geopolitical context. The Soviet Union allied itself with Western democracies in WWII, only then to serve as their primary rival throughout the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought hopes of democracy and capitalism in Russia and a permanent shift by Moscow toward the West, only to see the rise of Vladimir Putin at the turn of the century. 

Today, Russia has clearly opted for the centralisation path domestically and Moscow’s foreign policy pendulum has swung definitively away from Europe and towards Asia (or, more broadly speaking, away from the West and toward the Global South). Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 solidified its break with the West, but the reality is that this rupture had been set in motion more than a decade earlier. Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, as well as its annexation of Crimea and support of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014, were seminal events in Moscow’s pivot away from the West. They signalled that Russia would not tolerate the expansion of the EU and especially NATO into these former Soviet states, and that Putin viewed Moscow as a global power distinct from the West. 

Over the past decade, Russia’s shift away from the West and its embrace of the Asian component of its ‘Eurasian’ identity has taken on several dimensions. One such dimension is economic, as the conflict in Ukraine saw the US and EU place sanctions and other economic restrictions on Russia, which reduced trade ties between Moscow and the West. This has only accelerated since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Europe – traditionally the primary market for Russia’s oil and natural gas exports – cutting off most energy trade with Russia and diversifying to other suppliers.  

Russia, for its part, has not stood idly by, and has instead ramped up economic and especially energy ties with countries throughout the non-European parts of Eurasia. Russia has vastly expanded its economic linkages with China, and it has also beefed up trade ties with the likes of India, the Gulf states, and even NATO member Turkey. While none of these countries have directly supported Russia in the Ukrainian conflict (and some, like Turkey, oppose it), the shift in such trade ties has allowed the Russian economy to stay afloat and it has given Moscow a financial lifeline to continue funding its war in Ukraine. 

Russia’s re-orientation toward Asia has not been limited to the economic realm. It has also expanded security and military cooperation with the likes of Iran and North Korea, using arms shipments from both countries (and, most recently, North Korean troops themselves) in the war in Ukraine. China does not provide lethal weapons to Russia, but it does supply a significant amount of ‘dual-use’ technology in the face of Western restrictions, while both Moscow and Beijing have become more active in challenging the US presence in areas like the Middle East and Indo-Pacific. Russia has also expanded its security operations as far afield as Africa, which serves as a market for its arms exports and where Wagner mercenaries prop up military governments against the interests of the West.

These economic and security engagements have shaped Russia’s overall diplomatic strategy, which is to undermine the West and foster relationships – whether bilateral or multilateral – outside of the US and Europe in order to challenge the Western and especially US-led global order. Moscow has ramped up its diplomatic engagement with states throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America, particularly those that view the West sceptically. Russia’s relationship with China – with which it shares the goal of challenging and upending the US-led global system – has arguably never been closer, and both Moscow and Beijing have interests in developing parallel (if not alternative) institutions.

Which brings us back to the BRICS summit in Kazan. Not only did Russia gather world leaders outside the West, with Putin re-emphasizing the need for a “multipolar world order” and pushing initiatives like the use of local currencies and expansion of Global South trade, but it chose to do so in a city that is geographically far from Europe and serves as the epitome of Russia’s Eurasian identity. As the economic, security, and diplomatic shifts of the past decade have shown, Russia’s Eurasian identity is as functional as it is symbolic, and Kazan will continue to serve as a key barometer for this evolving identity and Russia’s broader relationship with the outside world in the months and years to come.


The opinions expressed are those of the contributor, not of the RSAA.


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