MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolsonaro lands in Moscow for talks with Putin

Brazil will also discuss buying Russian arms

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro turned a deaf ear to the US State Department's advice and has already landed at Moscow, where he is to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin amid mounting fears of all-out war in Ukraine.

“If the Ukraine issue is on the table, it will be by Putin's decision,” Bolsonaro said.

The summit between the two heads of state is scheduled for Wednesday. Bolsonaro will also make a stopover at Budapest to hold talks with Hunagrian far-right leader Viktor Orban on his return flight.

Bolsonaro is said to be seeking foreign help to improve his image so as to stand a chance against former President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva at the Oct. 2 presidential elections.

An ally of former US President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro was pressured by the US State Department to cancel his trip, Vice President Hamilton Mourao told reporters, but he insisted on obliging to Putin's personal invitation from 2020.

Brazil is a partner in the BRICS group and Bolsonaro was confident trade opportunities lied ahead, 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.

As a “sovereign country, we are going to fight for peace in the region, we want peace but we must understand that human beings are like that...”, said Bolsonaro before boarding his flight.

According to O Globo, Bolsonaro will need to undergo five COVID-19 tests in order to meet with Putin, because Russian foreign affairs experts want to avoid an encore of the long table between the two leaders, as it happened during French President Emmanuel Macron's recent visit to Moscow.

Argentine President Alberto Fernández has asked Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to join BRICS and this issue too may be included in the agenda, Brazilian diplomatic sources pointed out.

Brazilian Presidential hopeful Sérgio Moro, a former Justice Minister under Bolsonaro, Monday said the head of state “has the incredible ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time” because “his inexplicable trip to Russia at this time puts us at odds with the entire West and is yet another uncomfortable situation for Brazilian diplomacy.”

Brazil currently holds a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council and is an extra-NATO ally of the United States. Nevertheless, the South American country will also discuss buying Russian military equipment, which accounts for Defense Minister General Walter Braga Neto's being a part of the presidential entourage, in addition to being the leading candidate to run behind Bolsonaro for the Vice Presidency.