Bolsonaro says that Lula, Dilma and Stedile together in China are a shame

Former president Jair Bolsonaro said on his Twitter account that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s trip in the company of former president Dilma Rousseff and the leader of the Landless Movement, João Pedro Stedile, is “another embarrassment for politics Brazilian foreign”. Bolsonaro specifically criticized Lula’s controversial and pro-Russian statements about the war in Ukraine.

“From China the guy [Lula] accuses the US of encouraging war. He also says that the conflict, at the moment, is only of interest to Putin and Zelensky,” Bolsonaro wrote in a post that included part of a TV Brasil video with a press conference of Lula still in China.

President Lula says in the passage selected by Bolsonaro as an embarrassment: “Another important country is the United States. In other words, the United States must stop encouraging war and start talking about peace. It is necessary that the European Union begin to talk about peace. So that we can convince Putin and Zelensky that peace is in everyone’s interest and war is only interesting for the two of them.”

The ex-president’s son, Flávio Bolsonaro, a PL senator, wrote on Twitter that Brazil has always been a partner of the United States and, because of Lula’s statements, may begin to be the target of American sanctions.

Bolsonaro was criticized for having traveled to Russia in early 2022. The former president went to Moscow before February 24, but it was already known worldwide that Russian troops were concentrated on the Ukrainian border. At the time, Bolsonaro claimed to have gone to the country to negotiate fertilizers and technology for nuclear power plants, but there was also a secret agenda to try to acquire weapons.

What are the distortions in Lula’s speeches?

Lula’s speeches have several distortions of facts. The main one is to equate Ukraine, the invaded nation, with Russia, the invading country.

At dawn on February 24, 2022, without its territory or troops having been attacked, Moscow launched bombing raids on the main cities of Ukraine. Hours later, more than 200,000 Russian fighters invaded Ukraine’s borders at multiple points. Moscow was beginning the first high-intensity conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. Casualties already exceed 300,000 combatants and civilian deaths total more than 10,000.

That is, there is not the same kind of interest in the war of the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, as suggested by Lula. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s leader, is interested in the war to keep the territories he annexed and eventually conquer more areas in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the other hand, does not want to invade Russia, but wants to free the provinces of his country that were invaded and prevent more citizens from being killed by Kremlin troops.

Thus, it is not possible to say whether Lula’s speech was motivated by lack of knowledge of the facts or whether the Brazilian president joined the disinformation campaign launched by Russia.

In one of its aspects, the version spread by the Kremlin says that Russia attacked Ukraine in a “defensive” attitude. The country claims to have acted against the expansion of NATO (Western military alliance) towards nations that Moscow believes to be its legitimate zone of influence.

But what the Russian government does not take into account is that most of the countries of Eastern Europe, which joined or asked to join NATO, acted precisely with the motivation of avoiding a Russian invasion like the one on February 24th.

Embarrassment: Bolsonaro criticized anti-US tendency in Lula’s speech

Bolsonaro criticized the inversion of values ​​in Lula’s statement about the United States and the European Union. Lula accused both of encouraging war.

The Americans and Europeans have sent weapons and financial resources to help the Ukrainian government defend their country, but they have not officially sent troops into the field.

Western weapons prevented further Ukrainian territory from being conquered by Russia and, especially anti-aircraft defenses, protected the population from systematic Russian missile and drone attacks against the country’s cities and civilian infrastructure.

In the provinces that were invaded, Russia conducted hundreds of proven extrajudicial executions and removed population from their regions, especially in actions involving thousands of children. They were separated from their families and forcibly adopted by Russians. This last accusation earned President Putin an international arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

On the other hand, American weapons production companies have profited from the conflict. That’s because the US has already sent Ukraine the equivalent of R$ 225 billion in weapons. Most of these weapons were in US stockpiles, which are now being replenished by the arms industry.

By supplying Ukraine, the US also indirectly weakens Moscow, which is one of its geopolitical rivals. The war also cools trade relations between Russia and Germany – a rapprochement between nations feared by many war theorists. But, Lula made no mention of these reasonings in her speeches.

“Lula, Dilma and Stédile together, another embarrassment for Brazilian foreign policy”

Former president Dilma Rousseff accompanied Lula on the trip to China to assume the presidency of the New Development Bank, the so-called Banco dos Brics.

Thus, she must move to China and earn a salary of around R$ 2.6 million per year. However, this is a more decorative than practical position, defined more to keep it away from the Brazilian political scene, according to government allies heard by the report, who do not belong to PT staff.

The Brics bank was created to try to stand up to Western institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but it never took off, according to analysts.

Stédile, the leader of the MST, was invited to join the delegation shortly after announcing in a video that the movement intends to resume land invasions in April. The announcement made the Agricultural Parliamentary Front request Stédile’s arrest in various instances of Justice.

MST representatives have also traveled to different countries to publicize the movement’s flags. The exact purpose of Stedile’s presence in China was not disclosed by the PT.

Russian chancellor will be received in Brazil with protests in four capitals

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will be received on his visit to Brazil starting this Monday (17th) with protests by Ukrainians, Russians against Putin and Brazilians, because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine should be one of the main issues addressed. Lula has been saying since February that he wants to create a “Peace Club” to end the conflict. However, last Friday (14), he admitted to the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV that he does not have any concrete plans to achieve peace.

Lavrov should discuss with the Brazilian government the importation of fertilizers and diesel from Russia. Russia supplies between 20% and 30% of the fertilizer consumed in Brazil. According to the newspaper The state of Sao Pauloa quarter of the 1.5 billion liters of diesel brought to Brazil in March came from Russia.

Another subject that is not on the official agenda but can be addressed is an attempt by Brazil to obtain military technology from Russia. The objective is to build the propulsion system for the Navy’s Álvaro Alberto nuclear submarine, which until now has not been obtained with the help of Western countries.

Lavrov should meet with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira at the Itamaraty Palace on Monday (17). Around 12:30 pm, the time he is scheduled to speak, a protest is expected to take place outside the palace.

The report spoke with people who intend to participate. They say they are dissatisfied with President Lula’s support for Russia on the issue of the war in Ukraine. Lula should be invited by Lavrov to travel to Russia soon and further intensify political ties with the Kremlin.

There will also be demonstrations in São Paulo, at the Russian consulate on Avenida Lineu de Paula Machado, in Butantã; in Rio de Janeiro, at the consulate on Avenida Professor Azevedo Marques, in Leblon, and at an as yet undefined location in Curitiba.

After the visit to Brazil, Lavrov should visit the dictatorships of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.