The first BRICS summit, convened at Russia's initiative in 2009, would be followed by sixteen more, the most recent being the Rio summit held on July 6 and 7, 2025. Until 2022, only one enlargement had taken place — the admission of South Africa, which turned BRIC into BRICS. From 2023 onward, however, three consecutive summits — 2023, 2024 and 2025 — transformed BRICS into BRICS+5, admitting five new member countries and introducing a new “partner country” status that now groups ni ...