MOSCOW, August 24. /TASS/. On Thursday, the final day of the summit of the BRICS group of nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in Johannesburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin will participate in a BRICS Plus/Outreach meeting via a video linkup.

Organizers expect the meeting to become a forum of the Global South, aimed at multiplying its influence worldwide and bringing into the spotlight the need to reform the entire system of international affairs. That is why the event’s host, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, has invited 67 leaders from the Global South to participate. The South African leader has also invited 20 high-ranking officials representing multinational organizations and unions of the Global South, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Caribbean Community, the Group of Seventy Seven (G-77) and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

At the same time, South Africa views BRICS as the leader of the Global South, which spearheads the process of creating a fairer world order.

Although the Russian president is not attending the summit’s events in person and the Russian delegation is led by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Russia nevertheless participates in the scheduled activities in full. On Tuesday, August 22, Putin addressed the event’s business forum via a video linkup to share his vision of ways to develop cooperation within BRICS. He also shared his views on present-day processes in the global economy. In Putin’s opinion, the "irreversible, objective process of de-dollarization" is now gaining momentum in BRICS. He added that Russia has been steadily boosting the supplies of its fuel, food and fertilizers to Global South countries, despite the West’s attempts to hinder the deliveries.

On Wednesday, August 23, Putin participated in a plenary session of the BRICS summit. In his speech, the Russian leader underscored that the five BRICS nations are all united in the commitment to shaping a multipolar world order with genuine justice, based on the international law and the right of every nation to follow its own development model.

He emphasized that it was the attempt by some countries to preserve their global hegemony that paved the way to the deep crisis in Ukraine. Russia is grateful to its BRICS colleagues who are active in trying to achieve a just settlement by peaceful means, Putin added.

The Russian president paid special attention to creation of sustainable and safe transport routes and accelerated development of transcontinental routes such as the North-South corridor. He put forward a proposal to create a permanent BRICS transport commission, dealing with the development of logistics and transport corridors, both interregional and global.