Ukrainians will demonstrate against Russian Foreign Minister’s visit to Brazil

Members of the community of Ukrainians and descendants are preparing a wave of demonstrations against the visit of Russian Chancellor Sergey Lavrov to Brazil on Monday (17).

The protests are scheduled to take place at 12:30 pm in four Brazilian cities: Brasília, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba.

The demonstrators do not disapprove of Brazil maintaining trade dialogues with Russia. But they ask that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stop taking sides with Moscow in the Ukraine war under the allegation of promoting peace.

Over the last few weeks, Lula has been promoting not only an intensification of trade relations, but a political rapprochement with Russia and China, who have aligned themselves with Iran and North Korea against the United States and Europe. The PT has been adopting the discourse of the Moscow-Beijing axis of changing world geopolitics by exercising antagonism to the West.

Last Friday (14), the PT admitted that it does not have a peace plan for Ukraine, as it had been announcing since February, and accused the United States and its European allies of helping Ukraine to attack Russia. The vision swaps the roles of victims and perpetrators and is in line with a worldwide Kremlin-sponsored disinformation campaign.

According to a source linked to the organization of the protests, who asked not to be identified, the group fears that Lula’s next step will be to order the Brazilian Armed Forces to participate in joint military exercises with Russia.

The government of South Africa was the target of the same type of Russian diplomatic offensive and agreed this year to participate in naval military maneuvers coordinated by the Kremlin.

Lavrov will also visit allied dictatorships in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba

Lavrov should meet Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira and negotiate a trip for Lula to Moscow. After visiting Brasília, the senior Kremlin official is going to visit the dictatorships of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, which are Moscow’s main partners in Latin America.

“We defend the strengthening of Russian-Latin American cooperation based on mutual support, solidarity and taking into account the interests of each other”, wrote Lavrov in an article published by the Mexican magazine Buzos de la Noticia.

The action is part of an attempt by the Kremlin to find new allies in Africa and Latin America in an effort to confront the United States and the European Union.

Brazil can maintain diplomatic relations with whoever it wants, but the moment is delicate

Sought after by the report because of possible demonstrations against the Russian chancellor, the consular representative of Ukraine in São Paulo, Jorge Ribka, said he sees no problems in Brazil maintaining diplomatic relations with whoever it wants. But he said Lavrov’s visit comes at a difficult time.

“We understand that Brazil has every right and legitimacy to maintain diplomatic relations with the nations with which it does business. But the moment is complicated because the Russian aggression against Ukraine continues. We see Lavrov’s visit with strangeness and disgust,” he said. .

“We would like Brazil to continue to vote as it did in the UN Assembly disapproving the Russian invasion,” he said. At the end of February, Brazil voted in favor of a UN resolution demanding that Moscow withdraw its troops from the invaded territories in Ukraine. China, South Africa, India and Iran abstained.

But, on the same occasion, in a nod to Moscow between the lines, Brazil abstained in two secondary votes that tried to mischaracterize the main resolution against the invasion.

Lavrov brings secret cargo of 5 tons, says TV

According to TV Record’s R7 portal, the Russian chancellor is bringing in his plane a secret cargo classified as a diplomatic bag that is not subject to verification by Brazilian authorities. The press vehicle speculated that they could range from weapons belonging to Lavrov’s security team, war material to undeclared money.

Brazil currently depends on imports of fertilizers from Russia to maintain the entire agribusiness sector. This fact has been used by President Vladimir Putin to win political concessions since the beginning of the war in Ukraine last year.

The conflict also caused diesel imports to increase. After suffering economic sanctions from the G-7, the group of the largest economies on the planet, Russia has been offering oil derivatives at below market prices to nations not aligned with Western powers.

In previous years, Brazil even flirted with Russia to try to obtain nuclear propulsion technology for its submarine Alvaro Alberto, which will be built in Itaguaí, according to sources linked to the Armed Forces heard by the report.

Anti-Russian demonstrations may take place at the Esplanada dos Ministérios

The Ukrainian and Ukrainian-descendant community in Brazil has more than 600,000 members. The protests are scheduled to take place when Lavrov will make his statement to the press, at 12:30 pm on Monday (17).

The main demonstration should take place in Brasilia on the Esplanada dos Ministérios, in front of the Itamaraty Palace. Members of the Russian community opposed to the regime of Vladimir Putin and the Belarusian community are also expected to participate. Besides them there will be Brazilian and Ukrainian activists.

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.