Russia favors Brazil, India, and African country on UN Security Council, pointing to U.S. unipolar world view

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that he supports the expansion of the UN Security Council to include Brazil and India, as well as an African representative.

For the head of Russian diplomacy, the expansion of the entity’s main body would be a means to curb what he called the “unilateralism” of Western powers, especially the United States.

Lavrov made the remarks at a press conference alongside UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. It is the first time the UN chief has visited Moscow since the war began. His goal is to lay a foundation for negotiations that would allow for a cease-fire in the war in Ukraine.

When asked about a proposal under discussion in the UN General Assembly to abolish the veto power of the body’s permanent members, Lavrov rejected the idea of abolishing this mechanism.

The Security Council was established in 1945 and has 15 members. But only five of them have a permanent seat and the right to veto decisions and resolutions. In addition to Russia, countries such as the United States, China, France, and the United Kingdom also have this privilege.

However, Lavrov believes that UN reform should be carried out with new permanent members of the Security Council. “We want a representative from Asia, Africa, and Latin America,” he said. “India, Brazil, and an African candidate,” he clarified.

Lavrov stated that the U.S. government wants “a unipolar world” and stressed that “something must be done to prevent the pressures” that countries around the world face from Western powers and that one of those measures should be the expansion of the Security Council.

Since the war began, the Russians have criticized the Americans and Europeans in their speeches at the UN for the pressure they put on other smaller countries to vote for their resolutions.

On Tuesday, Lavrov even hinted at blackmail of other government leaders by Washington. According to him, the Americans have data on the bank accounts of these politicians and know where their children study.

While Brazil voted for the resolutions proposed by the West in the first moments of the war, it changed its stance and began to abstain from virtually all votes on texts in the UN and other organizations.

In February, during Jair Bolsonaro’s visit to the Kremlin, Moscow reiterated its support for Brazil’s candidacy for the Security Council.