Bolsonaro expresses his solidarity with Putin although both ignore the Ukrainian crisis

Presidents Putin and Bolsonaro, during their meeting this Wednesday at the same table where the former received, although in a different arrangement, Macron and Scholz.Mikhail Klimentyev (AP)

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has received his Brazilian counterpart, Jair Bolsonaro, in Moscow, twenty-four hours after his announcement that he is beginning to withdraw troops from the border with Ukraine, but in their joint appearance this Wednesday they have ignored the crisis that has brought the world to the brink of war in Europe.

"We are in solidarity with the countries that want and are committed to peace," Bolsonaro said in the only reference to the matter during an intervention that ended with a handshake.

Both have coincided in extolling their trade relations - with fertilizers as the protagonists - and have promised to strengthen their collaboration in areas such as agriculture, nuclear energy, defense or the environment.

Bolsonaro has ignored the pressure from the US Administration to cancel the official trip, which responds to an invitation issued by Putin at the end of 2021. With this trip, the Brazilian achieves the photo he was looking for with a world leader to promote his disastrous international image.

And Putin, expanding the list of foreign leaders who visit him in recent weeks.

Some, in search of a negotiated solution in Ukraine, others to give him political support or third parties, to deal with bilateral issues, such as Bolsonaro or the Argentine Alberto Fernández.

The leaders of Russia and Brazil, who share a conservative and nationalist agenda in addition to their membership of the BRICS club, have met for almost two hours.

First around a small table and then at the very long table where Putin received Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, but this Wednesday he has seated his guest in a different place, which has significantly reduced the distance between they.

The message was obvious.

The Latin American agreed to take a PCR test in Moscow, unlike the leaders of France and Germany.

Everything indicates that Bolsonaro is not vaccinated.

The Russian president has highlighted that Brazil is his first trade partner in Latin America.

The Russian Customs Service estimates bilateral trade at around 4.5 billion dollars before the pandemic, a level practically recovered in 2021. It represents less than 2% of Russian exports and imports.

With the sanctions and the inflation that food suffers, the Brazilian granary is a support in Russian supermarkets.

Fertilizers are an essential part of the economic relationship.

For Brazil and its colossal agricultural sector, ensuring supply at reasonable prices is crucial now that the pandemic has disrupted global supply chains.

Brazil is, in Russian eyes, a piece in its defense of a multipolar world.

"We are interested in the independent role of Latin America and the Caribbean in the international arena and we see a central role for Brazil in the development of this important region of the world", declared the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, after the meeting that he and the Minister of Defense have had with their Brazilian counterparts.

Putin has announced the willingness of the Russian nuclear agency to build new plants in the Latin American giant.

With the hook of a lower cost, the state-owned Rosatom would like to export the world's first nuclear station, Akadémik Lomonosov, which debuted in 2019, to developing countries. It also intends to build two new Russian space debris monitoring stations in Brazil.

Before meeting with Putin, the Brazilian president, who came to the Presidency with the promise of fighting communism, began his day with a tribute to the unknown soldier of the Soviet era.

Later, in his speech before his Russian counterpart, he recalled the shared values: "Defending the (traditional) family and believing in God."

He then mentioned twice that Brazil is a power and has placed it on an equal footing with Russia, thanked his counterpart for defending Brazilian sovereignty over the Amazon and urged the Russians to invest in the largest economy in Latin America.

The worsening of the Ukrainian crisis has turned the visit into a sensitive matter for Brazil.

But Putin's controversial announcement on Tuesday that he was beginning a withdrawal has eased the tension surrounding the meeting, which coincides with the days when, according to the US, Russia was going to invade neighboring Ukraine.

Bolsonaro has been diplomatically isolated in the West since his closest ally, Donald Trump, lost the election.

This has forced him to take a better look at Russia and the alliance forged within the BRICS, which are completed by China, India and South Africa.

This Tuesday, videos circulated on Brazilian social networks that falsely attributed the merit of the withdrawal announced by Russia to the Brazilian far-right leader.

For the Brazilian, unpopular inside and outside his homeland, it is an opportunity to show that Brazil has international prominence and powerful friends.

That is a flank in which Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is far ahead of him, with whom the presidency will surely be disputed in eight months.

Brazilian diplomacy has a long tradition of neutrality, disrupted by the alliance that Bolsonaro forged with Trump.

The Brazilian took a long time to recognize Joe Biden's victory and his administration views him with mistrust.

And the relationship with the European Union is strained because its management of the Amazon accelerates the destruction of the largest tropical forest in the world.

Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS América newsletter and receive all the key information on current affairs in the region