‘Judging Freedom,’ 24 October: Putin, Xi and BRICS

The BRICS Summit in Kazan is now past mid-point, and the subject took at least a third of our time on air today, although what there was to discuss came mainly from the several speeches made by President Putin before the Summit began, at the start of his one-on-one talks with Indian Prime Minister Modi, with Chinese President Xi on Tuesday, and at the opening of the ‘Extended BRICS’ gala dinner last night. The actual meetings of the Summit were behind closed doors. Accordingly, the event gathered only limited coverage even on Russian television.  Nonetheless, from what was released thus far, we have learned a great deal about how BRICS will grow, in what directions it sees its major work to come and how it will indeed change the global economy and finance from the present US domination to something far more equitable for the rest of the world. I was given ample opportunity in this interview to discuss the foregoing.

At the same time, we also addressed the questions of Russia’s hard to understand positions with respect to defending Syria and what, if anything, Russia is doing to arm the Axis of Resistance forces in Yemen and Lebanon, as well as to arm Iran.  As a separate issue, we spoke about the likely presence of North Korean elite infantry in Russia, what is the purpose of it and what implications the North Korean assistance to Russia are with respect to eventual Russian armed assistance to North Korea should war break out with Seoul.

I also was given the chance to delve into the fast evolving changes in mainstream coverage of Russia and the war, most notably by looking at The Financial Times and their feature article written by the once upon a time Soros protégé Ivan Krastev.

In short there was a lot on our plate that readers – viewers may find interesting.

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