BRICS not aiming to ‘defeat the dollar’ – Kremlin

BRICS member states are not targeting the US dollar or other currencies, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti on Tuesday. According to him, the group’s members are cooperating in pursuit of their own interests.

Peskov dismissed speculation in the Western media that the participants of this week’s BRICS Summit in Kazan intend to discuss a “plan to defeat the dollar.” An article published in The Economist on Sunday claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to “build a new global financial-payments system to attack America’s dominance of global finance and shield Russia and its pals from sanctions.”

“Cooperation within BRICS is not directed against anyone or anything – neither against the dollar nor against other currencies,” Peskov stated. “It pursues the main goal of ensuring the interests of those countries that participate in this format.”

Earlier this year, the Russian Finance Ministry revealed that Russia was working on creating a settlement-and-payment infrastructure together with the central banks of BRICS member states. The new financial system – the ‘BRICS Bridge’ platform – will be designed for settlements in national currencies and will be independent of the dominance of third parties.

The BRICS Bridge could also provide member states with the opportunity to make settlements using the digital assets of central banks linked to national currencies, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has said.

Russia has also ramped up efforts to move away from the SWIFT system, since many of the country’s financial institutions were cut off from the Western financial network in 2022.

Moscow has accelerated trade with international partners using their national currencies. The trend has been increasingly supported by BRICS members, which have shifted from using the dollar and euro for trade settlements.

Major BRICS economies have already started ditching the dollar, as the weaponization of the greenback through sanctions has pushed businesses to look for alternative payment options.

As of the end of 2023, the share of national currencies in Russia’s settlements with BRICS countries jumped to 85%, up from 26% two years ago.