THE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN RIC-BRIC-BRICS AND THE WESTERN "HEPTAGON" ON THE WORLD STAGE E. S. POLYAKOVA, Candidate of MGIMO (U) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Keywords: RIC, BRIC/BRICS, Russia, India, China, dialogue format, global economy After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of many years of block confrontation in the world, an unacceptable trend for Russia and other regional powers, such as India and China, began to develop towards the formation of a unipolar world led by the United States and its allies. Back in 1998, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Yevgeny Primakov, during his visit to India, put forward the idea of creating a "triangle" - Russia-India-China (RIC) [1]. This concept became the core of our country's foreign policy in the new century, the transition from the pro-Western policy pursued by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation A. V. Kozyrev to the Eurasian policy of E. M. Primakov. A decade later, in his book "A World without Russia", E. M. Primakov, speaking about the RIC, explained that it was not a question of a military alliance [2]. He stressed the need for such a" geometric figure "to strengthen stability through the development of multilateral relations between its" corners", consultations on acute international issues. However, at that time, relations between China and India left much to be desired. Therefore, the implementation of the idea of E. M. Primakov was not without difficulties. China, for example, initially refused to participate in the triangle with India, while claiming that "...Beijing pursues a peaceful foreign policy, but is ready to develop diplomatic relations with all countries in the world "[3]. Delhi's reaction was also very cold (before the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in 1998). At first, the idea of cooperation in a trilateral format was promoted only by the Russian side. Thus, in October 2000, on the eve of his first visit to New Delhi, R ... Read more