BRICS talks energy resilience. Time to make it real

With the Global South squeezed by Middle East turmoil and Western pressure on suppliers like Russia and Iran, India’s Russian oil policy offers BRICS a more practical path on energy security
For the Global South, energy security is no longer a policy talking point – it is a question of survival. With traditional shipping routes rattled by the Middle East conflict, developing countries are being hit by rising costs, broken supply chains, and shortages they did not create.
At the 81st UN General Assembly in September 2026, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and other leaders from the Global South made that frustration unmistakably clear: poorer nations are being squeezed by a deepening crisis across energy, food, fuel, fertilizer, finance, and logistics.
Nepalese Prime Minister Balen Shah put it starkly: We have built a world with flawless logistics for war and broken logistics for food. And this is not Nepal’s private misfortune. Ask Bangladesh. Ask Bhutan. Ask India. Ask the Maldives. Ask Pakistan. Ask Sri Lanka. Ask any other country in our region and you will hear the same account: hit by the climate we did not warm, and hit again by the wars we did not start.
Weeks earlier, on the other side of the world, BRICS leaders gathered in New Delhi had already framed the same problem in strategic terms. Their summit declaration called for stable energy markets, undisrupted flows of energy from diverse sources, and stronger protection of critical infrastructure.
Events soon put that ambition under strain. Drone attacks disrupted Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, an important route for moving crude to the Red Sea while bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. With loadings at Yanbu affected, Saudi Arabia began offering more crude to Asian buyers through off Oman. The episode showed how quickly even an alternative route can become vulnerable.
BRICS now includes some of the world’s biggest oil producers as well as major importers. Yet membership alone does not guarantee access to another member’s oil when supplies tighten. Producers may have other buyers, while prices and transport conditions can change quickly. The grouping has major oil resources. The harder part is making some of those barrels reliably available to members when supply pressures grow.
What Russian trade revealsRussia is a useful example of how these energy ties can help during a shortage without guaranteeing supply. As Middle Eastern supplies became less reliable, Russian crude helped India make up some of the shortfall. In July, Russia accounted for a record of India’s crude imports, showing how quickly buying patterns can change when supply is disrupted. But the increase in Russian supply did not amount to assured access. As Chinese refiners stepped up purchases, competition for Russian barrels intensified.
Read more A separate analysis estimated falling to 1.87 million barrels a day in August from 2.79 million in July. Even when BRICS opens another source of supply, its members may still be bidding against one another for the same barrels.
Russian oil, however, now faces another constraint. US President Donald Trump earlier this month signed legislation authorizing on goods from major buyers of Russian energy, potentially including India and China. For major buyers such as India and China, sanctions now add another layer of uncertainty to securing Russian barrels.
Trade has also begun to flow the other way. After repeated Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries contributed to domestic fuel shortages, Russia began : according to data from Kpler, Russia’s Murmansk port received 40,000 tonnes of gasoline from Nayara Energy, 49% of which is controlled by Rosneft. By late August, to about 70% of domestic consumption as more refineries were forced to temporarily suspend operations or reduce output.
India’s shift toward more Russian crude, and Moscow’s later purchases of Indian gasoline, were bot