Foreign and Defense Ministers of Russia and Brazil to meet in Moscow

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The foreign and defense ministers of Russia and Brazil will hold their first meeting in the “2+2” format in Moscow ahead of a meeting later in the day between the leaders of the two countries, Vladimir Putin and Jair Bolsonaro.

“We are glad to welcome them to Moscow. For the first time Russian-Brazilian relations are enriched by a new format, the 2+2 format,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at the beginning of the meeting with his counterpart Carlos França, and Brazilian Defense Minister General Walter Braga Netto.

Lavrov expressed his conviction that today’s negotiations will make it possible to address in detail Russian-Brazilian interaction in foreign policy and in the security sphere.

“We are interested in the independent role of Latin America and the Caribbean in the international arena and we see the central role of Brazil in the development of that important region of the world,” he said.

Lavrov also assured that Russia highly values cooperation with Brazil on international platforms.

França, for his part, was pleased to be back in Moscow to raise relations between the two countries to a new level, something he considered especially important in the current situation in the world.

According to the Kremlin, the United States exerted pressure on the president of Brazil and also of Argentina, Alberto Fernandez, not to travel to Russia amid border tensions with Ukraine.

“But these are big countries that decide for themselves how to handle their foreign relations, with whom to establish contacts and which countries to visit,” said presidential advisor Yuri Ushakov.

Fernandez visited Moscow on the 3rd, where he held a meeting with Putin.