Brazil’s Bolsonaro Lends Russia ‘Solidarity’ in Meeting with ‘Friend’ Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro pose for a
Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
Frances Martel

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, praising Putin as a “friend” with “values in common” with whom he shared “solidarity.”

Bolsonaro’s warm engagement with Putin comes after weeks of Western leaders condemning Putin for amassing thousands of troops on the border with neighboring Ukraine. While the Russian military engages in exercises annually in the same area and the Ukrainian government has insisted that troop numbers were not significantly different this year from 2021, President Joe Biden and allied governments have warned on an almost daily basis of an “imminent” Russian invasion of Ukraine. In reality, the “imminent” invasion happened eight years ago, and no significant international efforts have been organized to dislodge Russian forces from occupied Crimea, Ukraine.

Russian officials announced that the annual exercises were winding down on Tuesday, claiming that troops would soon clear the area, ending the alleged crisis. Moscow’s claims remain disputed at press time.

Bolsonaro and Biden have an abysmal bilateral relationship. Biden soured ties with Brazil while still a presidential candidate, threatening to destroy the country’s economy with targeted sanctions if elected in the name of fighting climate change. Bolsonaro responded by calling Biden a “coward” and threatening to declare war on America.

The Brazilian president’s relationship with Putin has gone much more smoothly since the former’s election in 2018.

“We feel a sense of solidarity with Russia. We have good prospects for cooperation in various areas, specifically defence, oil and gas, and agriculture. Our government ministers are also holding meetings,” Bolsonaro said at the Kremlin, according to a transcript of preliminary remarks published by the Russian government. “I am confident that my visit to Moscow is a signal to the whole world that our bilateral relations have good prospects for growth.”

The Brazilian outlet UOL reported that Bolsonaro referred to Putin, a former communist KGB agent turned autocrat, as a “friend” and celebrated their “common values.”

“We share common values like the belief in God and defense of family,” Bolsonaro said at their meeting, according to UOL. “We also have solidarity with all of those who want and struggle to achieve peace.”

Putin, according to the Kremlin readout, described the meeting as the beginning of attempts by Russia to “restore relations interrupted, in one way or another,” by the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

“It is a pleasure to see you. Good afternoon. This is your first visit to our country. I hope it will be successful and pleasant,” Putin said.

The meetings appeared to be primarily directed at expanding economic ties between the two countries. The issue of Ukraine’s sovereignty made no significant appearance in the discussions. Brazil is Russia’s largest trade partner in Latin America, and Russia, unlike the United States, has prioritized expanding diplomacy in Latin America as a foreign policy goal.

In addition to meeting with Putin, Bolsonaro visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow and laid a wreath for the fallen soldiers of World War II – who, in Russia, served a communist dictatorship, a fact that the far-left Folha de Sao Paulo ribbed Bolsonaro for his attempts to brand himself the most hardline anti-communist leader in Latin America.

While the issue of Ukraine’s sovereignty did not arise on Wednesday, Brazilian social media users made the connection, jokingly crediting Bolsonaro with the news that the Russian government had allegedly begun withdrawing troops from the Ukrainian border. The Portuguese-language hashtag #BolsonaroEvitouAGuerra (“Bolsonaro prevented the war”) began trending on Twitter on Tuesday, deluged with doctored images showing Putin and Bolsonaro in various states of partying. Some of the images also featured former American President Donald Trump.

One of the most commonly shared memes was a fake Time magazine cover showing Bolsonaro as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, which Brazilian Tourism Minister Gilson Machado shared on Twitter.

Bolsonaro’s presence in Moscow appeared to normalize the Putin regime out of its current rogue state status, a service he also offered genocidal communist dictator Xi Jinping during a visit to Beijing in 2019.

Bolsonaro has falsely referred to China as a “capitalist country” and remained silent about the persecution of Christians in the country – a topic he has been vocal about elsewhere – and the genocide of the Uyghur people in East Turkistan. Brazil failed to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics despite having a small athletic presence at the event, meaning the country had little to lose in doing so.

Under former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil joined a coalition with China and Russia known as BRICS – an acronym of its member countries that also include India and South Africa. After being convicted of corruption and imprisoned, Lula was recently acquitted and allowed to run for office again, making him the likeliest frontrunner against Bolsonaro in this year’s presidential election.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

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