Being perceived by the West as a powerful yet heterogeneous “deconstructing power” and an external threat to western supremacy in global governance, the BRICS members are facing a serious “dormant threat” coming from within – economic inequalities. By asking whether inequality, like “bad cholesterol”, may silently kill the sustainability of growth by restraining access to education, health or knowledge, this article provides an assessment of the relation between the increasing inequality and rising political instability in BRICS countries. The first section of this article investigates various approaches to income and wealth inequalities, and provides a literature overview. The second section accentuates the deconstructing features of inequality in BRICS countries, which are encapsulated as the “3Ws”: weak markets, weak governments, and weak institutions. The third section looks into the inequality dynamics in BRICS members showcasing that the huge income disparities in BRICS (GINI > 0.40), combined with high food and house prices, not only fuel opportunity inequalities and growing social anger, but also lead to political instability and setbacks on the path to balanced growth. The final part presents the main conclusions.

The study attempts to analyze the implications of the war in Ukraine for the issues of development and inequalities in the BRICS block. The so-called “emerging economies” play an essential role in the global system, both in economic and political terms. The article compares the political and economic backgrounds of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, their development, the “status quo” and their future aspirations, and analyses how the war in Ukraine may change the global development scenario. It is essential after the BRICS summit in South Africa invited six new members to the group. The article is rooted in complexity theory, supported by a mixed methodology approach. We show how the given research methodology, informed by complexity theory, can furnish new insights into global sustainability. The statistical method was used to gauge the correlation-regression impact of inequalities in BRICS countries on their sustainable development. The analysis allows several conclusions to be ventured: sustainable development is closely linked to inequalities and vice versa; the war has had a significant, multidimensional impact on the development paths and inequalities in the BRICS countries, which potentially could worsen, and the war is a major shocking event that can lead to global system changes and implications which are broader than merely for the subregion.