Last week, Shipton, an Australian activist and the father of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, attended the BRICS summit in Kazan, where the results of Russia's chairmanship of the organisation in 2024 were summed up.
Shipton confessed he enjoyed the trip to Kazan, and his brief acquaintance with Tatarstan and Tatar culture was "surprisingly good and pleasant."
"I think, as for Russia and the BRICS, it was great seeing the skill with which Russia and China and India, each having very distinct and ancient cultures, temporized bringing those cultures together to form the BRICS, international non-western power bloc. So, in my feeling, the center of gravity in the world has moved towards the demographic, economic and cultural centers of the world," Shipton said.