HAVANA, December 26. /TASS/. The invitation extended to Cuba to join BRICS as a partner country highlights its prestigious role in the Global South, Russian Ambassador to Havana Viktor Koronelli said.

"The invitation to join the BRICS family as a partner state, which will take effect in January 2025, reflects Cuba’s prestige among countries in the Global South," the Russian diplomat told Cuban weekly Opciones in an interview. He expressed confidence that the status of a partner country would benefit Cuba in many ways. Among other things, it would provide "access to cooperation and trade mechanisms in one of the most influential centers of the new world that we currently see taking shape," the ambassador argued. According to him, new opportunities will now open up for Cuba to cooperate with nations "that are jointly building a multipolar, more just and representative world in which there is no place for such neocolonial practices as sanctions, but rather mutual respect and understanding."

"As time has passed, it has become clear that gambles by Washington and its allies and their plans to isolate Russia and weaken its economy have completely failed," Koronelli noted. "The BRICS summit in Kazan showed that countries in the Global South have not been fooled <…> and are ready to cooperate with our country on a wide range of issues, including in economy and trade," he continued.

Commenting on Cuba’s participation in another integration association, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the ambassador recalled that the Caribbean republic remains the only Latin American and Caribbean country to have the status of an observer state at the EAEU. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel for the first time took part in a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in Moscow in May. "We coincide in the opinion that Cuba could become a bridge between the Latin American region and the EAEU," Koronolli emphasized.

BRICS Summit in Kazan

The 16th BRICS summit, which was the key event of Russia’s chairmanship in the association, was held in Kazan on October 22-24. The Cuban president could not come as he was personally spearheading efforts to restore the country’s power grid and repair the damage done by Hurricane Rafael at that time. He dispatched the foreign minister for the BRICS Summit.

On December 23, Kremlin Aide Yury Ushakov said that one of the significant results of the BRICS Summit in Kazan was the creation of the BRICS partner country category — thirteen countries were offered this status. Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan have already confirmed their readiness to become BRICS partners, Ushakov said, adding that from January 1, 2025, "they will officially acquire the status.".