President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) landed shortly after 16:00 (12:00 GMT) in Moscow for a short visit to his colleague Vladimir Putin, who is involved in the serious security crisis surrounding Ukraine.
Bolsonaro wore a mask as he got off the presidential Airbus at Vnukovo airport. He often despises protection against the new coronavirus. He was received by one of the country’s vice-chancellors, Sergei Ryabkov, and by the Kremlin’s Director of Protocol, Igor Bogdachev.
After hearing the Russian and Brazilian anthems on the dance floor, he went to the Four Seasons hotel, at the mouth of the Red Square. He got into his car, without stopping, at 16:45 (12:45 in BrasÃlia).
According to a member of the delegation, the president is uncomfortable with the Kremlin’s so-called “Covid bubble”, which aims to shield the Russian president from any contact with the new coronavirus. Bolsonaro famously did not get vaccinated and criticizes immunization against the disease – Putin has already received three doses of Russian Sputnik V.
In any case, Bolsonaro managed to make a supervised getaway: he won a guided tour of the Kremlin earlier in the night in Moscow, in which he dodged journalists leaving with a van on one side of the hotel.
The Four Seasons, by the way, is famous for its side facades. It is a 2014 reconstruction of the famous Hotel Moscow, legend has it that the architect presented two designs to Josef Stalin in 1932. With communist kingpin he signaled approval for both projections, and to avoid generating the dictator’s wrath he built a wing with a drier style and the other, more ornate.
At least two members of the entourage, however, went out to dinner: retired generals Augusto Heleno (Institutional Security Office) and Luiz Eduardo Ramos (Government Secretariat). The entourage also includes the presidential son Carlos, councilor for the Republicans of Rio and his father’s digital stylist.
Recent Russian visitors, such as French President Emmanuel Macron and German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz, declined to take the Russian PCR test for the detection of Sars-CoV-2, preferring a test from their country to protect their DNA data. .
The Itamaraty said that Bolsonaro would take the required exams, but did not specify whether it would be the Russians, as everything indicates.
According to the Kremlin’s sanitary protocols, Bolsonaro should stay at the hotel until Wednesday morning (16), when he will offer a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier next to the Kremlin wall. Afterwards, he meets and has lunch with Putin, with whom he will make a statement to the press after the meetings.
Meanwhile, ministers Walter Braga Netto (Defense) and Carlos França (Itamaraty) will meet with their counterparts Serguei Choigu and Serguei Lavrov, respectively. Upon arrival in Moscow, Braga Netto said that there would be no obstacles to Brazil’s relationship with NATO (Western military alliance) or Ukraine due to the visit.
This is the central polemic of the trip, moreover in line with the historical position of independence of the Itamaraty in relation to American complaints about contacts with Moscow. Politicians and diplomats criticized the “timing” of the conflict, which otherwise appears to have found a way of de-escalation on Tuesday, with the Russian president ordering some troop withdrawals from around his neighbor.
This was celebrated by bolsonaristas on social networks, who created memes about the president being “saving the world from war” and such nonsense.
Former Environment Minister Ricardo Salles posted on Twitter: “[o presidente americano Joe] Biden and the western world thanking Bolsonaro for convincing Putin to give up the invasion, talkey?!?” Then he was forced to say he was being ironic, given the accusation of fake news.
In any case, the situation on Wednesday tends to be much calmer for Bolsonaro than in previous days, when the US and NATO said that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would take place until the 20th, perhaps the 16th itself.
