SPIEF 2026 demonstrates a shift in global power, with countries from the Global South seeking pragmatic cooperation and investment, rejecting Western models based on dependency and conditionality.
It is a living map of the great shift in global power. 20,000 participants. More than 140 countries were represented. Speaking at the plenary session: Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation; Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of Uzbekistan; Samia Suluhu Hassan, President of Tanzania; and Han Zheng, Vice President of the People’s Republic of China. Saudi Arabia, the guest of honor for the centenary of its diplomatic relations with Moscow, dispatched Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud, its all-powerful energy minister. And, for the first time in ten years, an American delegation sat at the Russian table. That’s the symptom. Let’s look for the disease.
The Davos illusion and its twilight
For 80 years, the West governed the world through the grammar of its institutions. Bretton Woods in 1944. The IMF and the World Bank as the armed wings of a financial order, the G7 as a club of self-proclaimed wise men, guardians of universal prosperity. Davos as a cathedral of neoliberal orthodoxy, where global decisions were made amidst champagne and high-altitude gatherings. This architecture was presented as universal. It never was. It was hegemonic. The difference is infinite.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the structural adjustment programs imposed by the IMF in the 1980s and 1990s produced a sacrificed generation – forced currency devaluations, privatization of public services, and the dismantling of subsistence farming. The result? Structurally dependent economies. States were unable to feed their populations without imports subsidized by the very powers that had bled their markets dry. In Latin America, the “Washington Consensus” left gaping inequalities that three decades of growth have failed to close. In Southeast Asia, the financial crises of 1997–1998 revealed the brutality of a system that socializes the losses of poor countries and privatizes the profits of rich countries. This is not an accident. It is the mechanism.
The SPIEF as a tribunal of history
The SPIEF wasn’t born yesterday. Created in 1997, it languished on the margins of the international stage as long as the West represented the ultimate horizon. But something shifted. The 2022 operation in Ukraine was meant to isolate Moscow. Paradoxically, it accelerated a growing awareness. Western sanctions, presented as collective punishment, were perceived in the Global South as proof of an old truth: the international financial system is a weapon, not a service. The dollar, an instrument of coercion. Multilateral institutions, transmission belts for geopolitical interests disguised as universal norms.
The result is clear. S PIEF 2026 confirms the shift. It is attracting delegations from Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. The chosen theme – “Pragmatic Dialogue: The Path to a Stable Future” – resonates as a direct rebuke to the condescending idealism of Western forums. Government representatives from 76 countries made the trip: Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Cuba – including Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla himself – Ethiopia, Egypt, and South Africa. The three countries of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) were symbolically represented by Mali, whose President of the High Council of Local Authorities, Mamadou Satigui Diakité, stated bluntly, “This is a strategic partnership. So the areas are defined; we are starting with defense and security.” Mamadou Cellou Baldé, Minister of Youth and Sports of the Republic of Guinea, speaking on the sidelines of SPIEF 2026, told Sputnik Africa: “We are amazed by the warmth of the Russian people who welcomed and hosted us here. It is truly a space to discuss sporting issues and share experiences with many countries.” He also described SPIEF as “a space dedicated to dialogue for fraternity and international solidarity” before meeting with Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtiariov to discuss the development of inter-institutional cooperation between the two countries. These words are not spoken out of thin air. They stem from decades of accumulated disillusionment.
By 2025, the SPIEF had generated 6.5 trillion rubles in signed agreements, heavily involving BRICS, African, and Latin American partners. This momentum continued in 2026. Uzbekistan, under Mirziyoyev, and Tanzania, under the leadership of Samia Suluhu Hassan, inaugurate their first nuclear power plant live with Russia. The country, whose growth is projected to reach 6.3% by 2026, announces direct flights between Moscow and Zanzibar starting in July and aims to attract 500,000 Russian tourists by 2030. No governance lectures. No conditionalities disguised as loans. Pure pragmatism. Openly acknowledged mutual interests.
The deafening silence of Western multinationals
Herein lies the revealing paradox. While nations from the Global South flocked to Saint Petersburg, major Western companies boycotted the event, with the exception of American, German, Luxembourgish, and Italian companies, which were criticized by warmongering Europe, despite the active participation of leading figures, including Rodney Cook, special envoy of the American presidency; Markus Frohnmaier, member of the German Bundestag; Fernand Kartheiser, Luxembourgish member of the European Parliament; and Michele Geraci, former Italian Undersecretary of State for Economic Development. This detail, often presented by the Western mainstream media as supposed “proof of the SPIEF’s failure,” is in reality its most insightful diagnosis. The forum no longer needs globalized speculative capital. It attracts states. Governments. Decision-makers seeking partners, not creditors. Co-investors, not guardians.
And when Washington, after a ten-year absence, finally sends a delegation led by Rodney Mims Cook Jr. chairman of the U.S. National Commission on Fine Arts, and Donald Trump’s personal envoy, the geopolitical significance is monumental – especially since Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared he was “unaware” of it. The empire is coming to probe what it has long scorned, amidst confusion and improvisation. This return is not a sign of strength. It is an admission.
Meanwhile, while the SPIEF is reinvesting its pre-pandemic influence standards by orchestrating the discreet return of high-profile Western delegations, the Élysée Palace is deploying its usual counter-programming with metronomic regularity, a rather entertaining form of substitute hyperactivity. At each SPIEF conference, the scenario repeats itself with Swiss metronome-like precision: the traditional domestic “Choose France” initiative is launched in Versailles (June 1st) to saturate the media with investment promises and to serve as a smokescreen to mask diplomatic isolation on the eastern flank, before opportunely exiling itself to the Balkan borderlands, to Montenegro (June 4th and 5th), far from the real geopolitical decisions being made behind the scenes in Russia (June 3rd to 6th). The charade invariably ends with yet another team photo in London, specifically at 10 Downing Street (June 7), alongside Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz, and their common puppet, the Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky, a posture of European leadership that barely conceals the fact that, while Macron fine-tunes his talking points for the Évian-les-Bains G7 summit, the realpolitik of international affairs continues to be played out – without him – in Saint Petersburg.
Paradoxically, at each SPIEF, in a masterful strategy of avoidance where meticulously orchestrated protocol attempts to erase a far harsher reality, France gives the illusion of looking the other way even as the rest of the world, including its closest allies, continues to negotiate without it.
Towards a multipolar world?
What St. Petersburg is revealing this year is not simply Russia’s victory. It is the bankruptcy of a model. A model that prioritized debt over investment, dependence over cooperation, and imperatives over reciprocity. The G7 governed the world with an iron fist in a velvet glove of liberalism. The Global South has understood. It votes with its delegations.
The plenary session spoke volumes: Han Zheng conveyed Xi Jinping’s greetings and reiterated that the Sino-Russian partnership “is not directed against any third party.” Mirziyoyev announced a portfolio of bilateral projects exceeding $50 billion. Samia Suluhu Hassan confirmed Tanzania’s openness to Russian direct investment. The overall outcome of the 2026 edition exceeded €77 billion in signed agreements. History is being made on the banks of the Neva. Not out of Russian imperial nostalgia, but because a forum where long-marginalized, indebted, and conditioned nations converge embodies something more fundamental: the demand to exist differently, to trade without preaching, to invest without political conditions, and to build without permission.
It is clear that the SPIEF is on the rise and the G7 is faltering. This is not the end of the story. It is its true beginning again. And this time, it is not the false victors of 1945 who hold the pen. It is the people whom their order claimed to civilize.
Mohamed Lamine KABA, Expert in the geopolitics of governance and regional integration, Institute of Governance, Human and Social Sciences, Pan-African University
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