Russia wants this week's BRICS summit to showcase the rising clout of the non-Western world, but Moscow's partners from Brazil, India, China, and the Arab world are urging President Vladimir Putin to find a way to end the war in Ukraine.

The BRICS group now accounts for 45% of the world's population and 35% of its economy, based on purchasing power parity, though China accounts for over half of its economic might.

Putin, who is cast by the West as a war criminal, told reporters from BRICS nations that "BRICS does not put itself into opposition to anyone," and that the shift in the drivers of global growth was simply a fact.