Russia's Lavrov travels to Brazil, as Lula pushes for peace
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has arrived to the Brazilian capital as Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s pushes a diplomatic approach for peace in Ukraine that has irked both Kyiv and the West
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived to the Brazilian capital on Monday as Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s pushes a diplomatic approach for peace in Ukraine that has irked both Kyiv and the West.
The meeting between Lavrov and his Brazilian counterpart Mauro Vieira was set in March, when they held a bilateral at the summit of the Group of 20 leading economies in New Dehli. They met Monday morning and, according to the foreign ministry's website, both will meet with Lula in the afternoon.
Lula has refused to provide weapons to Ukraine while proposing a club of nations including Brazil and China to mediate peace. On Sunday, he told reporters in Abu Dhabi that two nations – both Russia and Ukraine – had decided to go to war, and a day earlier in Beijing said the U.S. must stop “stimulating” the continued fighting and start discussing peace. Earlier this month, he suggested Ukraine could cede Crimea to end the war, which the spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, rejected.
“Would you offer a Crimea-sized part of Brazil… just for tranquility’s sake? Then we’ll talk!” Belgium’s former prime minister Guy Verhofstadt said on Twitter earlier this month.
As part of his effort to end hostilities, Lula has also withheld munitions to Ukraine, even at the request of Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He has said that sending supplies would mean Brazil entering the war, which he seeks to end.
His position has apparently been appreciated in Moscow. One of roughly 50 leaked classified documents on the platform Discord that have been viewed by the AP said that, as of late February, Russia’s foreign affairs ministry supported Lula’s plan to establish a club of supposedly impartial mediators, as it “would reject the West’s ‘aggressor-victim’ paradigm.” The item cited electronic surveillance as the source.
Earlier this month, Celso Amorim, a special advisor to Brazil’s presidency and former foreign minister, took a discreet trip to Moscow, where he met with President Vladimir Putin. Vieira told reporters this month that Amorim “went to listen and to say the time has come to talk.”
Critics have argued that Brazil's position on the Ukraine war aims to avoid confronting a key supplier of fertilizer for its soybean plantations, exports from which are largely destined for China. Both Russia and China hold permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council, and Brazil for decades has sought to join them.
After his stay in Brazil, Lavrov will travel to Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.