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BRICS represents 40% of the world’s population, the SCO represents 43%, and both are growing. China and India make up more than a third of the population of the world.

antiwar.com

by Ted Snider

The US has made much of its success in isolating Russia internationally. But that boast is hard to take too seriously when Russia is growing ever closer to the two largest countries in the world. While the world has been watching the “no limits” partnership between Russia and China grow into “a relationship that probably cannot be compared with anything in the world,” Russia has been growing quietly closer to the second largest country in the world.

India has long been a close partner of Russia. In 2009, India and Russia signed the Joint Russian-Indian Declaration of Deepening and Strategic Partnership. In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Russia where the two sides agreed on a number of steps to enhance that partnership.

That partnership did not come apart under US pressure after Russia invaded Ukraine. Despite intense pressure from the US to “take a clear position” against Russia, India has refused to condemn Russia at the UN and has repeated Russia’s call to take “into account the legitimate security interests of all countries.” India has also offered Russia an escape from sanctions by swelling from a country that once imported little Russian oil to a country that now has Russia as its top supplier of oil. India imported $41.56 billion from Russia in the last fiscal year, which is about five times its previous level. Before the war, Russia was India’s eighteenth largest import partner; since the war, Russia has become India’s fourth largest import partner.

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