Three weeks after the invasion of Brasilia by supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the refurbished presidential palace welcomes Olaf Scholz to talk about relations with Europe, the Amazon and Ukraine. Facing him, Brazilian President Lula da Silva, in office for a month, does not bother with convolutions: “Brazil does not wish to ship ammunition which would be used in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine”, says he, on this January 30.
And he insists: “Brazil does not want any participation, even indirect, in this war.” The German Chancellor smiles yellow. Especially since three months earlier, he had was one of the first leaders to acknowledge Lula’s victory – in order to block any challenge to the poll by Bolsonaro. Olaf Scholz’s request is not exorbitant, however. That day he asks simply for Brazil, which has Leopard tanks, to deliver part of its armored missile arsenal to supply Ukraine. After the end of inadmissibility opposed by Bolsonaro the previous year for a similar request, the firm “no” of the boss of the left constitutes a new disappointment for Berlin.
In the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Brazil is trying to remain neutral, at the cost of an ambiguity that is not to everyone’s taste. “It’s a war without mercy, without pity, deplores Roberto Abdenur, who was ambassador to Washington in the 2000s. Lula is wrong not to condemn Moscow more firmly. There is at home, like yesterday at Bolsonaro, a form appeasement of Putin.” This may explain it: the master of the Kremlin holds the keys to Brazil’s food security.
Moscow is indeed the first supplier of fertilizers to this agricultural giant, one of the world’s major exporters of soybeans and beef. Thus, Putin’s country provides Brazilian agriculture with 25% of its nitrates, phosphates and other potassium compounds. This dependence on fertilizers had also prompted Bolsonaro to go to the Kremlin a few days before the invasion of Ukraine to convince Putin not to interrupt his supplies. “We are in solidarity with Russia,” dared the leader of the Brazilian far right.
But the agreement with Moscow cannot be explained simply by economic data. With Putin, Lula has forged a personal relationship that dates back to the 2000s. When the former union leader first came to power in 2003, the former KGB officer has already been in the Kremlin for three years. The two men created ties at international summits but also in Moscow (where Lula made two state visits) and in Brasilia (Putin went there twice, including once under the presidency of Dilma Rousseff). When in September 2006, behind the scenes of the UN General Assembly, the Russian leader proposed a mechanism for consultation between the emerging powers, Lula applauded. He too wants to “redesign the world order”.
Lula and Putin on September 24, 2003.
© / ALEXANDER NEMENOV / AFP
The Brics group (acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), which brings together 40% of the world’s population, was then born. “This multilateral forum, the only one where Brazil can assert itself outside of Western tutelage, is a diplomatic priority for Lula, recalls political scientist Lucas Rezende, from the Federal University of Minas Gerais. This explains his desire to keep good relations with Moscow.” In doing so, “Lula is no exception to our diplomatic tradition of independence from the rest of the world, adds Carlos Gustavo Poggio, professor of international relations at Berea College in Kentucky (United States). Since the Cold War, Brazil is betting on non-alignment. Even under the dictatorship, the generals were careful not to completely align themselves with the United States”, which had nevertheless supported the 1964 putsch against the “communist danger”.
The Brazilian left retains deep anti-American sentiment
From these “years of lead”, the Brazilian left has kept a deep anti-American sentiment. “Lula cajoles his militant base for whom Vladimir Putin would constitute a bulwark against American imperialism”, explains political analyst Giuseppe Cocco. However, Brazilian diplomacy also takes care to spare the Western world. Even if it does not adhere to the sanctions, Brazil condemned the invasion of Ukraine at the UN general assembly on February 23, as it had already done under Bolsonaro.
A disappointment for the Brazilian left which expected Lula to abstain, like the other Brics countries – Russia having obviously voted against. “Lula is trying to keep the support of Westerners without losing that of Russia and the other Brics, continues political scientist Lucas Rezende, the goal of this balancing act being to qualify to attempt mediation.” A bit like in 2010, when Brazil negotiated an Iranian nuclear deal with Tehran, which was later rejected by Washington.
“I want to end the war”, trumpets Lula for whom Brazil, which has become an international pariah under Bolsonaro, “is back on the international scene”. Its head of diplomacy Mauro Vieira plans to engage the Brics in the peace efforts. “I hope he doesn’t do that, slips former ambassador Roberto Abdenur, because China and India are pro-Russian while South Africa conducted joint military exercises with Russia on the eve of the first war anniversary.
In any case, Lula seems to place Russia and Ukraine, that is to say the aggressor and the attacked, on an equal footing. In a magazine interview Time, in May 2022, the then presidential candidate accused Volodymyr Zelensky – that “guy” – of being “as responsible as Putin for the war.” On January 31 in Brasilia, the Brazilian president then dropped, facing a flabbergasted Olaf Scholz: “The invasion is a gross mistake, but no one is arguing alone, it takes two to want a fight.” At the beginning of April, finally, Lula thunders again: “Zelensky cannot want everything”, he insists, suggesting that kyiv give up Crimea to end the war. “These repeated criticisms could weaken the Brazilian president as a mediator”, fears Carlos Augusto Poggio, who is beginning to find the person concerned a bit “megalo”.
Determined to play the peacemaker, the president discreetly dispatched his emissary Celso Amorim to Putin at the end of March. This experienced diplomat, éminence grise of foreign policy during Lula I and II, then spoke in Paris with Emmanuel Bonne, the diplomatic adviser to Emmanuel Macron. The idea was to “prepare the ground”, explained Amorim for whom peace is not for tomorrow.
On April 14, Lula da Silva was received in Beijing by Xi Jinping to whom he presented his ideas for mediation. And on the 17th, he received the head of Russian diplomacy Sergey Lavrov in Brasilia. Political scientist Giuseppe Cocco concludes: “Just like the Amazon, which propels Brazil into the heart of global geopolitics, the war is a test for Lula’s international stature. He was elected in the name of democracy, and Ukraine is today the place par excellence where democracy resists.”