Unexpectedly, at least for the national government, Vladimir Putin's influential foreign minister sent a message to Buenos Aires:
Sergei Lavrov
made it known that he wants to come to the country on an official visit,
as part of a tour of the region.
His intention is to travel to Argentina at the end of March or at the beginning of April and he made it known to the Alberto Fernández administration.
And he wants to visit
Brazil, Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela, according to
Clarín
learned
from diplomatic sources.
The last two have been strong allies of Russia even at the time of the war in Ukraine.
Lula, meanwhile, seeks to be a mediator in the war.
At the Foreign Ministry they distanced themselves from the issue and assured
Clarín
that they did not have any information about the visit.
Neither of the request for it, which this newspaper learned from very high sources.
This weekend the Russian Foreign Ministry tweeted Lavrov's statements: "Western plans to isolate Russia, to surround us with a cordon sanitaire, have failed," said the Putin official.
And then he indicated, in relation to his multiple trips and telephone conversations in recent times, two of them with Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero.
"
We are strengthening good neighborly relations with the global majority: the countries of Eurasia, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America,"
he noted.
The visit request came at a sensitive time for the Argentine government because, to begin with, after Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's meeting with Joe Biden, Alberto Fernández's team continues to try to lift the twice-postponed bilateral agreement between the Argentine and
the President of the United States.
And, furthermore, because Friday, February 24, marks the year of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
For Alberto Fernández, the link with Putin was one of the initial points of mistrust that awoke in the White House.
The President traveled to Moscow on February 3, 2022, twenty-one days before Biden's pre-announced invasion.
And there he offered Argentina as a door for Russia in Latin America.
Later,
he complained about a supposed lack of support in Washington for the agreement being negotiated with the IMF,
which fell worse in Washington and they made him feel that way.
In this year of war there were calls from Putin to Alberto Fernández to congratulate him on the triumph of the Argentine national team in the last World Cup in Qatar, and from Lavrov to Cafiero, twice.
In Russia they were widely spread.
Instead, here they reported it lukewarmly.
The Russians show it to set the tone that they are not so isolated despite the thousands of sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe as a result of the invasion of Ukrainian territory.
They stress that the strategic relationship with Argentina and Latin America, which did not join the sanctions, remains intact.
Cafiero and Lavrov - one of the strong men of the Russian nomenclature -
met in Indonesia in the middle of last year within the framework of the G20.
The visit that Lavrov wants to make to Argentina and the region - Mexico's is less plausible due to the visceral ties that President Andres Lopez Obrador has with Washington - is the subject of comments even among foreign ambassadors.
But there is still no confirmation that it will be done.
It will also be difficult to reject since the Russians are indeed allies of Argentina.
They will put on the table the supply of Sputnik vaccines,
support for the Argentine cause for the Falklands, and the boost they want to give the country to become members of the BRICS.
In recent days, the relationship with Moscow has been revealed once again by the case of the wave of citizens of that country who seek to enter Argentina fleeing the war in Ukraine.
But also looking for a passport that allows them to travel the world at a time when their country is subject to sanctions.
Meanwhile, the Casa Rosada continues to
signal to Washington that it is seeking a summit between Alberto Fernandez and Biden
.
This Sunday, one of the star patrol boats of the United States guard, the USCGC Stone,
moored in Puerto Madryn, Chubut .
She is the same one whose presence was rejected by the nationalist and anti-American sectors in 2021 when she was planned to moor in Mar del Plata.
Then they warned that sovereignty was in "danger" because of that visit.
The presence of the Stone had been organized in the same way as it is now by the Naval Prefecture, but the controversy was such that the US government suspended it at the last moment.
Lula's visit to Biden and the speed with which the Democrat invited him to the White House exposed, by contrast, the postponement of the reception to Fernandez.
Biden had invited him by phone on July 25.
He postponed it to the 26th and soon after,
it was reported that he had COVID
.
Since then, both the ambassador Jorge Argüello and Cafiero have tried to overcome it but there are no news.
Even so, Argentine officials insist: "
it is not suspended and it will be done."
Washington continues to consider Argentina an ally.
But Biden's emissaries continue to put his concerns first and Alberto Fernández enters an election year.
One of those concerns was repeatedly raised with the opposition and has to do with
the government's assault on the Supreme Court of Justice.