It is necessary to strengthen cooperation between the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the BRICS, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said after a meeting with Russian Ambassador to China Igor Morgulov. BRICS is a group of five leading emerging economies consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
"It is necessary to strengthen coordination and cooperation between the SCO countries and the BRICS countries, maintain peace and stability in the region and around the world," Wang Yi said on Monday, as quoted by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
The minister added that both China and Russia insist on promoting a multi-polar world order and do not agree with unipolar hegemony.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that most countries continue to closely cooperate with Russia despite sanctions imposed by the West in response to Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine.
According to Lavrov, the countries that want to continue to work with Moscow include Russia's allies in the Eurasian Economic Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the SCO, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), BRICS, and others.
Norwegian Defense Minister Says Country Maintains Some Contacts With Russia
Norwegian Defense Minister Bjorn Arild Gram says that, despite the situation around Ukraine, his country has retained some lines of communication with Moscow, including on the military level.
The defense minister said he expected things to return back to normal at some point and pointed out that, at this time, Oslo does not see any specific direct military threat to Norway itself.
"Contacts between our countries, of course, changed after February 24. At the same time, we have maintained some lines of communication, we cooperate in the field of fishing and we are engaged in joint rescue operations at sea. We also maintain military ties, although with much less activity," Gram said in a Sunday interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.
On Wednesday, the defense ministers of the Northern Group (Northern European Defence Policy Forum) held a meeting in Oslo to discuss implications of the conflict in Ukraine for regional security and for Finland's and Sweden's bids for NATO membership.
Since Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24, Western countries have been providing Ukraine with humanitarian, military and financial aid. In July, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store announced that Oslo would allocate 10 billion kroner (about $1 billion) to Ukraine in 2022 and 2023.
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