By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
Starting at 10:30 Moscow, Athens and Beirut time on Saturday morning, Dimitri Lascaris hosted the Reason2Resist podcast to discuss the Ansarallah defeat of Saudi air and ground forces at the Bab el Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea, the Saudi coastline, and Egypt’s lifeline, the Suez Canal.
Not since the British, French and Israeli forces attacked Egypt’s Sinai peninsula and the Suez Canal in July 1956, and took the shipping artery for themselves, has there been a comparable strike in the Middle East, only this time it’s the anti-imperialist forces which have won the tactical and strategic victory.
Seventy years ago, the Soviet Politburo warned it was ready to intervene on the Arab side with naval, air, rocket, and nuclear forces. The Kremlin was backing Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s president and figurehead for Arab nationalism throughout Middle East, for control of the Canal.
A week ago on September 1, President Vladimir Putin warned that “the collective West, for its part, was assigned a specific definition in the Soviet era, which remains current to this day – the sharks of imperialism…if anyone attempts to drag us down the food chain and devour us, to consume us, they would be well advised to expect their teeth to be broken. And Russia stands ready to do precisely that, despite the insatiable appetites and ever-sharpening teeth of these sharks.”
Beware of imperialist sharks dressed in tuna fish suits, and vice versa — the podcast warns.
The discussion ran for just over an hour, concluding at 11:40 Moscow time. At that time the BRICS leaders, including Putin, President Xi Jinping of China, President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran, and Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince representing the United Arab Emirates were meeting to finalize their statement of agreement and sink their differences.
At 13:50 Moscow time (16:20 Delhi time), the Kremlin released the statement. Titled “the New Delhi Declaration: Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, it runs for 140 paragraphs and over 54 pages in Russian. The official English-language version was published by the Indian External Affairs Ministry.
Read this final BRICS document in retrospect now of the podcast discussion of the shark paragraphs. These were identified and quoted as Paragraphs 19, 25 and 26 of the document which had been negotiated by the BRICS foreign ministers last May, along with what were footnoted then as “member reservations”. Indian officials were reporting there were still arguments over the wording of these provisions in the overnight and morning hours before the summit leaders convened in the early afternoon, local time.
In the outcome, Paragraph 19 of May 15, 2026, opposing Trump Administration war sanctions against Russia and Iran, secondary sanctions against India, China and other states trading with Iran and Russia, and President Donald Trump’s personal tariff wars, has turned into Paragraph 22 of the final BRICS communiqué. There has been no significant change.
Paragraph 25 of the May version, discussed in the podcast, has now turned into Paragraph 33 without significant modification of meaning. The BRICS attack on Israel’s genocide has been preserved.
Paragraph 26 of the May document had supported “unifying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under the Palestinian Authority, and reaffirmed the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State of Palestine. They called on the international community to support the Palestinian Authority in undergoing reforms to fulfil the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for independence and statehood.” This wording was an unusual intervention in internal Palestinian politics in support of the Fatah faction and the head of the Palestine National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas been received officially many times in Moscow; Hamas officials were received in Moscow in October 2023, just after the Gaza war began, and in January 2024.
Abbas had been promoted by the UAE in the May BRICS foreign ministers’ document. But because this was hostile towards Hamas, Iran opposed it. Iran has now succeeded in removing the paragraph altogether.
In May Russian negotiators had agreed to drop references to the Ukraine war which had been included in last year’s BRICS summit agreement. In the multiple references to terrorism in the new BRICS agreement, India included specific identification of the Pakistan-backed attack in Kashmir in April 2025, which triggered Operation Sindoor, India’s short and successful war against Pakistan. However, there was no Russian mention of Ukrainian war terrorism nor Iranian mention of Israeli and US war terrorism.
The Russians joined the Iranians in attacking Israeli, Turkish, and American occupation of Syria since December 2024: “[Para 31] They urged Syria to firmly oppose all forms of terrorism and extremism and take concrete actions to respond to concerns of the international community about terrorism. They further reaffirmed the necessity of the withdrawal of occupying forces from Syria.”
There was no expression of BRICS solidarity with Iran in its defence against the US, Israeli and Gulf sheikh attacks. Days earlier on September 1, that had been agreed in the declaration of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit meeting in Kyrgyzstan “condemning the military strikes on the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran…[and] reaffirming their support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Putin had also expressed Russian solidarity in his meeting with Pezeshkian at the SCO summit. He said then: “Russia is standing in full solidarity with the people of Iran. We admire your courage and resilience in your fight for your national interests. Please convey my regards and words of sincere support to Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei… During this difficult period, we try to render the necessary support to you. We have discussed your needs with you and continue to provide the goods and commodities you require.”
Sources in Delhi deny that hostility between Iranian and Indian officials since Modi and Foreign Minister Subramanyam Jaishankar declared themselves on Israel’s side in the war last February, has continued into the Delhi meetings. “The Iranians are very comfortable with the Indians”, one source has claimed. The Indian media have published a picture of Modi holding Pezeshkian’s hand in a Delhi photo op.
Modi’s communiqué after meeting Pezeshkian in Delhi revealed that he is withholding the solidarity with Iran he had agreed to when he signed the SCO declaration. In Jaishankar’s version of the new meeting with Iran’s president, the war against Iran was described as “challenging circumstances”. This communiqué repeated India’s support for the code phrase, “safeguarding freedom of navigation and commerce, and the safety and well-being of seafarers” — that’s the US and NATO line against Iran on the Strait of Hormuz.
Leave a Reply