Page 53 - bne magazine September 2023

bne September 2023 Eastern Europe I 53
It has been an extraordinarily complex process, helping these engineers to start a new life. It has required focus, care and discretion. These people are now out, and in a position to start something new, continuing to drive technological innovation. They will be a tremendous asset to the countries in which they land.”
Volozh went on to say that he expects some to criticise him for staying silent for more than a year and half but added there should be no questions about his stance: “I am against the war,” he said boldly.
Several high-profile western-based Kremlin critics, such as the former investment banker Bill Browder and one-
time oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, have called on Russia’s business elite to speak out against the war.
“Public figures cannot leave quietly and then sit quietly. If you have left, then
you should publicly dissociate yourself or we should be forced to suspect that you are acting on [the Kremlin’s] behalf,” Khodorkovsky said in an interview last year in his London office. “You should step up to the microphone and say that Putin is a war criminal and that what he is doing is a crime, that the war against Ukraine is a crime. Say this, and then we’ll understand that Putin doesn’t have a hold over you.” Very few of Russia’s business elite have met the call, as most of them are too
concerned with hanging on to their significant Russian assets that are still worth billions of dollars, even if valuations have been halved by the international sanctions on Russia.
Tinkov is one of the few exceptions and did speak out. As an oligarch he was included in the Western sanctions list, but in acknowledgement of his cour- age to speak out the UK rescinded those sanctions in July.
Volozh has now come out as a leading example of a top Russian businessman who is prepared to give up his fortune for the sake of his conscience.
BRICS adds six new members,
including Iran and Saudi Arabia
Ben Aris in Berlin
The five-nation BRICS club of leading developing economies announced on August 24 that it
is to add six new members, effective from the start of next year. The new member nations will be: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
At its summit in Johannesburg, the five biggest emerging markets in the BRICS group – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – represented a quarter of the world’s economy and the larger part of global GDP on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis. The group seeks to be a counterweight to the dominance of Western-led geopolitics and provide a forum where developing markets can have their interests better represented on the international geopolitical stage.
Currently emerging markets complain that while they make up nearly half the world’s population and a larger part of its productive power, the countries are under represented in the infrastructure of geopolitics, in institutions like the
IMF and World Bank and particularly on the UN Security Council where there are no permanent members from Africa or the Middle East.
China and Russia have been leading the process of creating a BRICS bloc as both nations are in conflict with the West and have been calling for a transition from the unipolar world led by the US to a multipolar world based on the principle of the equality of all countries.
Both Moscow and Beijing see the UN as the proper forum for overseeing
this multipolar world, but they are also actively promoting other organisations
such as the G20, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), Eurasian Economic Union (EUU) and other multilateral organisations not dominated by the West.
However, the BRICS members are divided on the nature of what an expanded BRICS+ group should do. Russia and China see the BRICS+ as a political entity that will actively challenge groups like the G7, whereas India and South America see the group as a way to promote commercial ties and accelerate their economic development in cooperation with the West. Brazil remains the most sceptical when
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