President Jair Bolsonaro was received this Wednesday (16) by Vladimir Putin, in Moscow, with symbolism dedicated to leaders who also met with the Russian and submitted to the strict protocol of the Kremlin against Covid-19.
Emmanuel Macron was the first guest of the Russian leader to become a supporting player in memes on social networks in which the huge 5-meter white table that separated the two heads of state was the protagonist.
Unlike Bolsonaro, who allegedly followed the protocols demanded by the Russians, Macron refused to take Russian RT-PCR tests out of fear that his DNA would be stolen. The Kremlin confirmed that Macron was kept away from Putin because he refused to take a Russian test.
The same justification was given by the German Prime Minister, Olaf Scholz, who avoided the Russian tests and received the same treatment: the leaders at opposite poles of the giant table, without interpreters by the side, in addition to distancing themselves from their pulpits and flags in the hall where speak to the press.
Between Putin, Scholz and Macron, there were no handshakes, which contrasts with the arrival of Bolsonaro, enthusiastically greeted from up close and with contact of the hands by Putin.
The Brazilian president was received in a room smaller than the room where the large white table is located, in which four chairs (two for the interpreters) are separated only by a small coffee table, also white, with a floral arrangement on top. Behind them both, a fireplace.
“Really, the feeling that I take to Brazil is more than a perfect marriage, and I also felt for the physiognomy, for what was treated even outside the official agenda with the Russian authorities and especially with President Putin, that this is also the feeling he has from Brazil,” Bolsonaro told the press after the meeting.
“I don’t give a message to anyone. Brazil is a pacifist country, and the world and several other countries have their regional problems. impasses be peaceful”, replied Bolsonaro about whether he had commented to Putin about the crisis in Ukraine.
On another occasion of the meeting, the Brazilian president also sat with the Russian president and his interpreters at an oval table similar to the large white table, but smaller, and on the sides of the furniture, not the ends.
Argentine Alberto Fernández, with whom Bolsonaro has had periodic squabbles since the Brazilian regretted the election of his neighbor in 2019, visited the Russian leader on February 3.
In the Kremlin, Fernández sat with Putin at a small table similar to the one used for Bolsonaro’s visit, in front of the same fireplace, table and flower arrangement.
Argentina was the first Western country to adopt the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, and it was with a dose of it that Fernández became the first Latin American leader to be immunized against Covid-19.
According to the Argentinian newspaper La Nación, Fernández had arrived at the Russian government headquarters after the “nth” Covid test, a protocol comparable to the previous and daily tests required of each member of the Brazilian entourage, Bolsonaro included. Fernández, however, again according to La Nación, was only able to enter the Kremlin with an interpreter, without other members of the delegation.
Bolsonaro was the only one of the visitors who wore boots instead of traditional shoes. He had already worn the shoes on a visit to the White House in 2019, then occupied by Donald Trump.
In the Kremlin hall where the leaders’ speeches are read to the press, Russian and Argentine flags were displayed interspersed, as were Brazilian flags on the occasion of Bolsonaro’s visit, and Kazakh flags, when Kasim-Jomart Tokaiev met with Putin, last Thursday (10).
Tokayev was in Russia just over a month after his country, the largest in Central Asia and a former Soviet republic, erupted in anti-government demonstrations that quickly escalated into an outbreak of armed conflict.
It was Putin who intervened, and Russian troops were sent to Kazakhstan to help quell the uprising under the guise of an old military alliance between former members of the Soviet Union.
The initiative was read as an experiment by the Russian president to secure Russia’s zone of influence in bordering countries by force, which added to the concern of Western opponents in the face of rising tensions in Ukraine, now surrounded by some 130,000 Russian troops. and retreats viewed with skepticism by rivals.
While Macron and Scholz’s visits drew worldwide attention, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a Putin ally, had already sat at the Russian’s opposite end at the giant table. But with the presence of interpreters on the side, just like when Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited on January 19.
Orbán visited the Kremlin on February 1, and drank sparkling wine with the Russian president in a room in which they were separated by a distance similar to that provided by the table. In speeches to the press, however, both were positioned at the same distance as Bolsonaro, Fernández and Tokaiev, also with flags interspersed in the background.
