Moscow, June 10 (FN Agency) The expansion of BRICS is a testament to the process of the formation of a multipolar world order where new political centers stand for equality and diversity, despite the US and its allies’ efforts to cling on to their “elusive dominance,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. “The expansion of the BRICS is a clear confirmation of the process of formation of a multipolar world order. There is the emergence of new centers for making globally significant political decisions from among the states of the global south and east, from the world’s majority states,” Lavrov said at the BRICS ministerial meeting. These are the countries seeking a transition to a more equitable world order built on the basis of “the sovereign equality of states and civilizational diversity” that “will take a whole historical epoch and will be thorny,” he added.
He also said that recent international events have “unmasked those who until recently have been vocal in their claims to an almost exclusive right of defining universal values under the guise of a rule-based order.” “The United States and its allies do not abandon their attempts to retain their elusive dominance and slow down the objective processes of multipolarity formation. Through sanctions pressure and financial blackmail, they are trying to influence the choice of development models and trade partners by sovereign states. Neither does the West disdain the use of force,” the minister said. The meeting of the BRICS foreign ministers is taking place in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod from June 10-11. Russia’s sous-sherpa for BRICS, Pavel Knyazev, estimated that about 20-25 nations were expected to attend.