BRICS signs a 140-point Delhi text and leaves Ukraine unnamed

BRICS leaders adopted the New Delhi Declaration on Saturday at Bharat Mandapam after Iran and the United Arab Emirates accepted weaker language on the war in West Asia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired the 18th summit. Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian were in the room. The text runs to about 45 pages and 140 points. Its title is "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability."

The document does three things India wanted in public. It condemns "in the strongest terms" the 22 April 2025 attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed. It records Chinese and Russian support for a larger role for India and Brazil at the United Nations, "including its Security Council." It criticises "unilateral coercive measures" and tariffs that sit outside World Trade Organization rules.

It also does one thing Russia wanted. The war in Ukraine is not named. The text speaks of "conflicts in many parts of the world" and of rising military spending. Sudan is named. Syria is named. A Lebanon ceasefire is welcomed. Attacks on UN peacekeepers are condemned. Ukraine is not. That omission is the price of a consensus rule in a club that includes both Moscow and governments that arm Kyiv's critics.

West Asia is handled with the same caution. The declaration calls for "maximum restraint," a Gaza ceasefire, unhindered aid, no forced displacement of Palestinians, a two-state solution on the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, and full UN membership for Palestine. It does not name the United States as a party to the fighting with Iran. A foreign ministers' meeting in New Delhi in May had failed to produce any joint statement on that war. Saturday's compromise was the difference between a summit with a communique and a summit without one.

The economic paragraphs tie three arguments together. First, opposition to unilateral tariffs of the kind Donald Trump has announced since early 2025. Second, resistance to carbon border charges that BRICS governments treat as disguised protection. Third, a demand for WTO reform that gives developing economies more say. The same section endorses local-currency settlement and faster cross-border payments among members. That is the practical edge of the de-dollarisation talk that has followed the group for years. It is also easier to write than to clear through the banks that still price most of the trade.

On nuclear sites the text records "serious concern" over attacks on civilian infrastructure and on peaceful facilities under IAEA safeguards. It does not assign a culprit. On critical minerals it backs "resilient" supply chains, a line that tracks India's own warning at the summit against the weaponisation of those inputs. India-led items on financial-risk cooperation, artificial intelligence and big-cat conservation were written in.

A May meeting of BRICS foreign ministers in the same city had broken up without paper. The September text exists because the hosts narrowed the verbs until every capital could live with them. That is why Pahalgam is named and Ukraine is not, why Gaza is described and the United States is not, why tariffs are condemned as a class and no member is told to change a specific duty.

Modi met Xi on the sidelines and both men spoke of "steady progress" since August 2025. Xi skipped the gala dinner. The family photograph went ahead. The declaration is the artefact the summit will be judged by. It is long, specific where India needed it to be, and silent where silence was the only way to keep eleven signatures on one page.