Bolsonaro talks with Putin and says Brazil remains “cautious”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – “Our position must be very cautious, we must when we are trying to solve a case that is serious,” said Bolsonaro at a press conference held at a military base in Guarujá, on the São Paulo coast, where the President will spend the Carnival holidays.

“No one is in favor of war anywhere in the world, and there are very serious problems for all of humanity and for our country, which is also in this context,” Bolsonaro said.

The Brazilian conservative leader failed to elaborate on his conversation with Putin, whom he officially visited a week before the military conflict broke out with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“I believe that a solution will be reached. It isn’t enough to see who is right, we need to have wisdom to avoid deepening the crisis. And I believe that a solution will emerge in the coming days or hours,” he stressed.

Despite Brazil having voted in favor of condemning Russia for the invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations Security Council, Bolsonaro has not spoken out against Putin and went so far as to disavow his vice-president General Hamilton Mourão, who harshly criticized the attacks.

“A large part of the Ukrainian population speaks Russian. They are virtually brother countries. A massacre of civilians has not been heard of for a long time, but history shows what happened since Russia lost its ‘Iron Curtain’,” he said.

The Brazilian ruler noted that the southern Ukrainian regions overwhelmingly voted in favor of independence in a referendum, a similar process which Ukraine itself has undergone.

“What Russia wants is independence for those two areas. I will not dwell on the merits of who is right or wrong, what we seek is peace at this time,” the President said, insisting that priority is to continue withdrawing Brazilian and South American citizens from Ukrainian territory.

On the impact that the war in Ukraine may have on fuel prices in Brazil, Bolsonaro said that the conflict affects all countries in that respect.

“Peace is the best path to free us from a considerable rise in fuel prices. Us and the whole world,” Bolsonaro said.

Likewise, he said that the impact could be felt in agribusiness, because as a world food production leader, Brazil depends on the import of fertilizers, with Ukraine being one of the main suppliers.

“We have fertilizers all over the country, at the Madeira River estuary we have plenty of potassium, but it is an indigenous reserve, so why don’t we exploit it? Because Brazil has been undergoing an ‘industry’ of demarcation of indigenous lands for a long time,” he noted.