Russia “is very grateful for Brazil’s position” in the Ukrainian War, marked by neutrality aimed at maintaining the flow of trade between the two countries.
That’s what Andrei Klimov, from the International Cooperation Commission of the Federation Council, the Russian Senate, said during a conversation with Brazilian journalists this Thursday (25). He is an influential foreign policy voice in the support party of Vladimir Putin’s government, United Russia.
“What your government did was very reasonable. That’s what wise countries like China and India did. Countries that don’t join sanctions [lideradas pelos EUA e Europa para punir Moscou] have economic advantages,” he said. “Today, the Chinese buy Russian gas at a price 20 times lower than the German. While one destroys your economy, the other raises his,” he said.
The Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government maintained a certain ambiguity regarding the war. He voted against the UN invasion, but did not support the harsh sanctions. According to the president, the objective was to maintain the supply of fertilizers to Brazil, a major buyer of the Russian product.
The position caused criticism in Kiev. President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Brazil is on the wrong side of history, in an interview and also in a phone conversation with Bolsonaro.
The position of the Brazilian president is shared by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), who had his name on a Ukrainian list of people who spread Russian views of the war, something later removed. The PT and his rival in the electoral race were praised for their good relationship with Putin, predictably, but Klimov avoided commenting on Brazil’s internal politics.
The director of the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dmitri Razumovski, who was following the conversation, touched on the controversy over the questioning of the electronic ballot box made by Bolsonaro by saying that he expects both candidates to respect the results of the elections. He does not speak for the Senate or the government, however.
“Both are independent and any attempt by other countries, including the US, to influence Brazilian policy has never resulted in anything. They try to analyze the situation from all sides. May both sides accept the results [em outubro]”, said.
Klimov relayed the Russian narrative to what the Kremlin calls a special military operation. He blames the West, which in 2008 invited Ukraine and Georgia to join the NATO military alliance, leading to the process in which Russia annexed Crimea and fomented civil war in the east of the neighbor six years later. The current war would be a consequence, then, of the preparation for the deployment of NATO forces along the most sensitive Russian borders, as the Kremlin defends.
Asked about the recent attacks in Crimea and the attack that killed the daughter of ultranationalist Aleksandr Dugin on Saturday (20), he said they were provocations aimed at retaliation of the same nature by Russia. “That’s not going to happen, we respect international law,” he said, unabashed.
Collaborated with Pedro Lovisi
