Brazil’s welcome of Russian minister prompts U.S. blowback

BRASILIA, Brazil — Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday expressed gratitude to Brazil for its approach in pushing for an end to hostilities in Ukraine — an effort that has irked both Kyiv and the West, and by afternoon prompted an unusually sharp rebuke from the White House.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has refused to provide weapons to Ukraine while proposing a club of nations including Brazil and China to mediate peace.

On Sunday, Lula told reporters in Abu Dhabi that two nations — 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, and others rejected.

After meeting Brazil’s foreign minister on Monday, Lavrov told reporters in a short press conference that the West has engaged in “a rather tough struggle” to maintain its dominance in world affairs, including economics and geopolitics.

“As for the process in Ukraine, we are grateful to our Brazilian friends for their excellent understanding of this situation’s genesis. We are grateful (to them) for striving to contribute to finding ways to settle it,” Lavrov said, sitting alongside his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira.

Lula’s recent comments, particularly those ascribing any blame to Ukraine for Russia’s invasion in February 2022, run counter to the position held by the European Union, the U.S. and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And any talk of a ceasefire is viewed as an opportunity for Russia to regroup its forces for a new offensive. Zelenskyy told The Associated Press last month that a loss anywhere at this stage in the war could put Ukraine’s hard-fought momentum at risk.

Vieira, for his part, told reporters that Brazil sees sanctions against Russia as causing negative impacts for the global economy, particularly developing nations, and that Brazil supports an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine.

Following the meeting, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby blasted Brazil’s approach to the war and for its officials having met Lavrov and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in person, while thus far only speaking to Ukrainian officials by phone.

“Brazil has substantively and rhetorically approached this issue by suggesting that the United States and Europe are somehow not interested in peace or that we share responsibility for the war,” Kirby told reporters in Washington. “In this case, Brazil is parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without at all looking at the facts.”

Kirby said the Biden administration hoped Lula and others will urge the Russians “to cease the bombing of Ukrainian cities, hospitals and schools, halt the war crimes and the atrocities and, quite frankly, to pull back Russian forces from Ukraine.”

Both foreign ministers were meeting with Lula in the afternoon.

As part of his effort to end the war, Lula also has withheld munitions to Ukraine, despite a request from Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Lula has said that sending supplies would mean Brazil entering the war, which he seeks to end. His administration is seeking to simultaneously develop ties with China, Europe and the U.S. while keeping an open door to Russia.