Brazil’s top foreign policy adviser said the West must “consider” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s security concerns and stop sliding towards a Versailles-style winner’s peace in Ukraine.
Celso Amorim, foreign minister during President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s first two terms, said the West’s bellicose stance toward Moscow There is potential for a wider conflict.
“We don’t want a third world war. Even if we didn’t, we don’t want a new cold war,” Amorim told the FT. “If you want peace, you should take into account all the concerns of the countries in the region. The only other option is a total military victory over Russia. Do you know what’s coming next? I don’t.”
Lula has been accused of maintaining “pro-Russian neutrality” despite Brazil’s formal condemnation of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He has repeatedly claimed that Kiev bears equal responsibility for the conflict as Moscow and accused Washington of “encouraging” the violence. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Brasilia last month.
Amerim said national security was one of Moscow’s main “concerns”, referring to its complaints of being “encircled” by Western powers and NATO.
“We can’t judge the situation based on the past 1.5 years. It’s been decades. (Russia has) concerns that have to be taken into account. It’s not Ukraine’s fault. Ukraine is a victim, a victim of the remnants of the Cold War.”
Since returning to the presidency for a third term in January, Lula has sought to boost Brazil’s international standing and reassert its traditional status as a nonaligned democracy. He has been a supporter of an outspoken national “peace club” to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
A meeting between Lula and Zelensky at the G7 meeting in Hiroshima earlier this month was canceled due to the late arrival of the Ukrainian president, according to Brasília.
Brazil, like other Latin American countries, has refused to send weapons to Ukraine and rejected German requests to resell it tank ammunition.
When Lula claimed last month that the US was “encouraging war”, the White House accused the Brazilian leader of “copying Russian and Chinese propaganda”. But Amorim, who has visited Kiev and Moscow in recent weeks, said Brasília was concerned about Western efforts to weaken Russia, suggesting it would only lead to greater conflict.
“I’m reminded of the situation in Germany after the First World War: the goal was to weaken Germany at (the Treaty of Versailles) and we knew what was going to happen.”
The former foreign minister denied that the legacy of America’s involvement in Latin America during the Cold War had colored Lula’s view of Washington, pointing to Brazil’s “good relations” with the US, the president’s second state visit to the US capital.
Paulo Velasco, a foreign policy professor at Rio de Janeiro State University, said Lula’s approach to the Ukraine conflict was in line with traditional Brazilian diplomacy, avoiding “extreme positions that could damage efforts to reach an understanding”.
“Brazil thinks that sanctions are rarely the best path,” he said. “They tend to isolate countries that engage in deviant behavior and undermine their trust in the international community, which is critical to reaching a peace agreement.”
Other experts point to more pragmatic considerations in Brasilia, including trade ties with Russia.
“Brazil, like the vast majority of the global South, wants to make sure that it can maintain commercial ties with Russia. Russia has always been an all-weather friend — low intensity but around the clock,” said Oliver Stuenkel, professor of international relations at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo.
Bilateral trade is worth about $10 billion, and much of the fertilizer for Brazil’s booming agribusiness sector — worth nearly 30 percent of gross domestic product — comes from Russia.
Brazil’s neutrality toward Russia enjoys broad cross-party support, a rare continuity between Lula and former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. Shortly before invading Ukraine last year, Bolsonaro visited Moscow to secure fertilizer supplies.
Neither country wanted to disrupt relations within the BRICS bloc, which also includes China, India and South Africa, Stuenkel added.
“In a world where great power competition will intensify, non-alignment is seen as a safe option. From Brazil’s point of view, the rise of China and the resurgence of Russia are actually not bad. . . That’s why (Brazil Leah) have no interest in joining (a) the Western coalition against Russia.”