The SCO summit provides Russia with a platform for developing cooperation with countries that are not involved in the sanctions policy, and can also potentially mitigate the effects of secondary sanctions. This was the opinion expressed in a commentary for TASS by Kirill Chernovol, a Researcher of the International Best Practices Analysis Department at the Gaidar Institute and Olga Ponomareva, an expert of the Foundation of Economic Policy.
Kirill Chornovol emphasized the importance of strategic documents adopted within the SCO: "For Russia, these are legally and politically significant documents that open up opportunities for specialized departments to work together on projects without regard to sanctions, i.e. from energy to ideological prevention of extremism." He also noted that SCO member countries are not included in the list of "unfriendly" states.
“The SCO summit held in Tianjin demonstrated not only the absence of Russia’s isolation as such, but also the potential for further development of cooperation within the Organization. "The humanitarian and political tracks have always been key for cooperation in the SCO, but in recent years the economic component has been growing stronger," Olga Ponomareva noted. The expert added that the economic benefits of cooperation within the SCO and BRICS can significantly, at least indirectly, compensate for the losses caused by the introduction of secondary sanctions.