![President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of China Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pose for a BRICS family photo during the 2023 BRICS Summit at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/opinion/2023/08/24/TELEMMGLPICT000346677935_16929080994630_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqHqEqWIQYN_HlsJ_HcWHEJKAezwuvexs_ues-aCB_TCg.jpeg?imwidth=680)
![President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of China Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pose for a BRICS family photo during the 2023 BRICS Summit at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/opinion/2023/08/24/TELEMMGLPICT000346677935_16929080994630_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqHqEqWIQYN_HlsJ_HcWHEJKAezwuvexs_ues-aCB_TCg.jpeg?imwidth=680)
On the same day that a jet reportedly carrying Wagner warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin was blown out of the skies above Russia, Vladimir Putin was preening over a Brics summit he will undoubtedly see as a diplomatic coup.
The five-country bloc has voted to admit Saudi Arabia and several other countries in an attempt to increase its influence. The argument goes that the new alignment will have sufficient weight to present an alternative power base to the American-dominated Western alliance.
If this is so, then Joe Biden’s administration will have to take much of the blame. His handling of relations with Riyadh has resulted in considerable tensions, and it is on his watch that Saudi Arabia has resumed diplomatic relations with Iran in a deal brokered by Beijing. That Riyadh will now be joining the expanded Brics alongside Tehran is a further marker of Mr Biden’s diplomatic blunders.
Nor is Saudi Arabia the only Western ally tempted to deepen relations with Beijing and Moscow. The United Arab Emirates and Egypt are also set to join the bloc in a move which is unlikely to be welcomed by Washington.
But it is also important to avoid getting ahead of ourselves in announcing the end of the Western-led order. Putin addressed the summit by video link as he faces an arrest warrant for war crimes; even his friends in South Africa found the prospect of his presence a step too far.
The past year has proved bruising for autocracies. Russia’s military is, if not a paper tiger, certainly not on par with those of Nato, while its gas blackmail has failed. Iran faces internal turmoil, and China a brewing financial crisis. The Brics, for all the hype, are no alternative to the West yet.
Brics expansion has been facilitated by the Biden administration’s blunders
Nevertheless the Western-led order is certainly not yet at its end