Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday, who blamed Western countries for making “baseless accusations” against Moscow and for trying to “Ukrainize” the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting.

Mr Lavrov “outlined Russia’s positions on the conflict in Ukraine”, the Brazilian government said in a press release on their meeting in Brasilia, which ended without a press conference.

President Lula for his part reiterated that “Brazil remains willing to cooperate in efforts to restore peace in Ukraine”, via X (the former Twitter).

Lula opposes Washington’s political isolation of Moscow since the Russian military invaded Ukrainian territory nearly two years ago and points out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Western powers are also to blame for the outbreak of armed conflict.

Sergei Lavrov participated this week in a meeting of foreign ministers of the G20 countries, organized in Rio de Janeiro, as the largest country in Latin America exercises its rotating presidency this year.

He told the Russian press earlier yesterday that “some of our Western colleagues at the G20 ministerial meeting tried (…) to make unfounded accusations against the Russian Federation and to ‘Ukrainize’ the agenda in all possible ways.”

“These efforts were not supported by developing countries, by the majority of countries in the global South,” he added.

The tension between the West and Russia was further escalated by the death in prison of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Western countries, particularly the US, have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being personally responsible for his death.

Western countries “act as prosecutors, prosecutors, judges and executioners. All this hysteria caused by Navalny’s death showed it in a convincing way,” Mr. Lavrov argued.

For his part, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who was also received this week by Lula, said that “the fact that Vladimir Putin found it necessary to launch a persecution, to poison, to imprison” Navalny shows a lot, no ” for Russia’s strength under Putin”, but “for its weakness”.

He also spoke of the “strong and palpable desire of almost all G20 members” to end “the Russian aggression and for peace to prevail”, in a way, according to him, “that will respect the rights of the Ukrainians and their future territorial integrity.” integrity”.