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00:00 Russia and Venezuela have vowed to continue support for each other and condemned the economic
00:06 sanctions imposed upon them by the United States.
00:09 It comes during a diplomatic blitz for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is visiting
00:15 four Latin American nations, including Nicaragua as well as Cuba, where we understand he is
00:21 now, though we are yet to receive pictures from there.
00:24 To begin the trip off, he'd earlier started in Brazil on Monday, where he met with President
00:29 Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, fresh from his return from China.
00:34 For more on this, we're joined now by Pedro Abramové.
00:39 He's the director of the Open Society Foundations NGO for Latin America and the Caribbean.
00:45 Thanks so much for being with us.
00:46 Now, it's worth pointing out that before courting Beijing and Moscow, Lula had already been in
00:51 Washington and Europe.
00:53 Is he simply trying to keep everyone happy?
00:57 I think this is what Lula has done in his previous term, and it is also, I think, part
01:04 of the tradition of Brazilian diplomacy, right?
01:08 Lula has been in the US, has signed a joint statement with President Biden in February
01:14 saying that the aggression, the Russian aggression to Ukraine was deplorable.
01:21 And also, Brazil has voted, it was the only BRIC country that voted for the resolution
01:29 that condemned the Russian invasion at the UN.
01:32 But at the same time, Brazil is part of the BRICs, so has this important and strategic
01:38 partnership with China, with Russia, with India and South Africa.
01:43 So this is a continuous relationship.
01:45 So Brazil will always, I think, condemn this kind of aggression, but will never completely
01:53 break relationships with those partners.
01:56 He's also perhaps trying to show a great departure from the diplomacy of his predecessor.
02:04 Of course, I think his predecessor, who also had ties with Russia, but couldn't exactly
02:13 have a good relationship either with Beijing or Washington.
02:16 I think this is different.
02:18 It's exactly the opposite, is someone who is trying to bring back Brazil to its relevance
02:24 in the world scene by talking to different parts of a conflict and of a geopolitical
02:31 scenario.
02:32 Looking now at the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the countries that he's
02:37 choosing to visit, what do you think he's hoping to achieve?
02:41 I think that the nature of this visit, of the visit to Brazil and the other three countries,
02:48 is very different.
02:49 Of course, putting in the same trip, try to gather an idea that there is an alignment
02:55 or something like that of the region with Russia, and that's not true.
02:59 I think, of course, countries that have been suffering sanctions from the US have a reason,
03:04 I think, to align together.
03:05 I think it's one of the effect of imposing sanctions, unilateral sanctions, to other
03:12 countries is that you create this kind of alliance, as we're seeing.
03:16 But I think that with Brazil, it's a very different relationship.
03:20 It's not an anti-US meeting.
03:23 It is, again, a strategic partnership for the country.
03:26 Brazil depends on many, for example, Russian fertilizers.
03:30 That's the kind of relationship they're seeing there.
03:34 The relationship with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela is a much closer alignment, I think,
03:41 anti-US type of relationship.
03:44 Now looking at when Sergei Lavrov was in Venezuela, I read that the two countries have been looking
03:51 at hundreds of bilateral agreements.
03:53 Have we seen any developments there?
03:56 Yes.
03:57 I think there are a lot of interests in Venezuela, and I think especially after the conflict,
04:06 the truth is after the conflict, the US has established some dialogues with Venezuela
04:16 that it hadn't before.
04:18 So I think it is Russia, Venezuela now is trying to build bridges and trying to reposition
04:27 itself in the global scene in a different way.
04:30 But Russia has always had this relation, and in this case, based mainly in the oil that
04:39 Venezuela has.
04:40 So I think there is a strong relationship, economic relationship, between Russia and
04:44 Venezuela, and Lavrov is just reinforcing that, especially in a moment that there are
04:50 possibilities that Venezuela could establish new dialogues with the US.
04:53 Now coming back to Lula, him having a relationship with both the United States and Russia, he
05:01 sees himself as a potential peacemaker in Ukraine.
05:06 I think he does, and I think of course there is a distance from the conflict that is important
05:13 to establish the mediator space.
05:16 I think he needs to be careful with some of the statements.
05:20 Especially this week, the statements were seen by some people in Europe and in the US
05:26 as if he were aligning himself to Russia, which is not true.
05:33 Even yesterday he reinforced the condemnation of the Russian aggression to Ukraine.
05:39 But I think for someone who wants to be a mediator, this delicate balance between establishing
05:44 the distance, but of course recognizing the rules of international law, recognizing there
05:51 is an aggression, there is an aggressor, and someone was aggressed in this case, is very
05:57 important.
05:58 So I think if Lula wants, and I think he wants and can be a mediator, he needs to be very
06:03 careful with his statements about.
06:06 Pedro Abramové, thank you very much for that analysis.