Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Sunday he would “continue being neutral” on the issue of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine last week, Russia’s state-run RT news outlet reported on Monday.
“We will not take sides, we will continue being neutral, and help with whatever is possible,” Bolsonaro said during a press conference on February 27 as quoted by Reuters.
The Brazilian president noted Ukraine and Russia were “practically brother nations,” adding, “a big part of Ukraine’s population speaks Russian.”
Russia’s military launched an air and ground offensive in Ukraine on February 24, three days after the Kremlin announced plans to formally recognize two Russian-backed breakaway states in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas. The developments followed one week after Bolsonaro visited Moscow from February 14-17 to hold bilateral talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The two heads of state reportedly discussed increased trade opportunities between Brazil and Russia during Bolsonaro’s visit.
Brazil belongs to an association of emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, abbreviated as BRICS. The Montevideo-based MercoPress observed the following on February 14 ahead of Bolsonaro’s in-person meeting with Putin:
Brazil is a partner in the BRICS group and Bolsonaro was confident trade opportunities lied ahead [sic], particularly in the sale of the state-run Petrobras fertilizer factory in Mato Grosso do Sul to the Russian private group Acron. Russia is the main supplier of fertilizers to Brazil’s agribusiness industry. In fact, 62% of Russias sales to Brazil is fertilizer [sic].
“Russia is among Brazil’s top 15 largest trading partners,” the Government of Brazil’s official website stated on February 16.
Bilateral trade between Russia and Brazil amounted to $7.3 billion in 2021, with most of the business based on agriculture.
“Fertilizers are the main Russian export to Brazil. Brazilian exports consist largely of soybeans, meat, coffee and sugar,” the website informed.
Bolsonaro alluded to Brazil’s trade arrangements with Russia during his February 27 press conference, saying he was “against any sanctions that could bring negative repercussions for Brazil, citing Russian fertilizers which are crucial for the country’s giant agribusiness sector,” according to Reuters.
Asked by a reporter on Sunday if he thought “Putin’s forces would carry out any mass bloodletting in Ukraine,” Bolsonaro replied, “A head of state like that of Russia does not want to undertake a massacre, anywhere.”
The Brazilian president added the claim that “in two southern regions of Ukraine, some 90% of the population wanted to ‘approximate themselves to Russia,'” referring to the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, the two Donbas region states that Moscow moved to formally recognize on February 21.