At the top of the Moskovskij Komsomolets home page, “For the anti-vaxxer Bolsonaro, Putin abandons social distance”. The journalist describes the “unexpected reception for the unvaccinated president”, who was “greeted by the hand” and kept without the six-meter distance imposed on the “vaccinated Scholz and Macron”.
That is, “apparently the Kremlin has more confidence in the PCR tests, which Bolsonaro agreed to undergo upon arriving in the Russian Federation, than in vaccines and boosters.”
Russian coverage was, on the whole, less ironic and more substantive. Channel 1, the main network, reported at length on the visit of “one of the most controversial leaders in Latin America”, with excerpts from the press conference of both – and the persistent smiles of the Russian president, who declared himself “very happy to see him , Mr President” (below).
The financier Kommersant emphasized, with a call, that Putin accepted an invitation to come to Brazil and evaluated the meeting as constructive, also announcing a future ministerial meeting with the participation of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. The newspaper underlined the mentions of cooperation in energy and “in the space industry for peaceful purposes”.
The tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda also highlighted points of agreement, including that “Brazil allowed the construction of communication stations with Glonass”, the Russian GPS. The Profile magazine’s website pointed out, always in the same direction, that both questioned the “arms race in space” and approached about the “production of hydrocarbons”.
On the other hand, the website Neftegaz, dedicated to the energy sector, the main one in the country, provided the most extensive and, apparently, more realistic report. He highlighted that “Putin and Bolsonaro announced the expansion of Russian-Brazilian cooperation in exploration on the high seas”, but “no fundamentally new declaration was made on the issue of fertilizers”, Brazil’s greatest interest in the trip.
IN THE USA AND CHINA
About the visit, in American coverage, the Washington Post published the text “Bolsonaro embraced the US under Trump. Now he is in ‘solidarity’ with Russia”. He writes that “he did not specify in what sense Brazil showed solidarity, but his comments and the visit to Putin will certainly be interpreted as tacit support for Russia.” In short:
“He took the biggest and most powerful country in Latin America into a hug with one of America’s biggest adversaries.”
In Chinese coverage, the South China Morning Post took home Putin’s assessment that they were “constructive conversations”, and the portal Sina highlighted that “Russia and Brazil issue a declaration reaffirming their willingness to cooperate in multilateral structures such as the United Nations and on international agendas”.
