Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement at a joint news conference following talks with Foreign Minister of Brazil Mauro Vieira, Brasilia, April 17, 2023

Mr Minister,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to once again thank our Brazilian friends for such a warm reception and hospitality.

Our talks with Mauro Vieira took place in an atmosphere of trust, friendship and mutual understanding, which is traditional for Russian-Brazilian relations of strategic partnership.

We reaffirmed our desire to continue our productive and constructive cooperation. Our cooperation rests on the principles of equitable, mutually respectful dialogue that is immune to change in the international arena. This year, we celebrate a memorable event – 195th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and Brazil (October 3, 1828). We agreed to prepare a series of events, such as meetings with historians, archive exhibitions and cultural undertakings towards this memorable date. We noted that today’s meeting took place on the eve of another memorable day in the history of Brazilian diplomacy – Diplomat Day observed on April 20. Using this opportunity, we would like to congratulate the staff of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, and all Brazilian diplomats on this important day.

We reaffirmed our intention to develop strategic partnership in all areas. We focused on trade, economic and investment cooperation, which reached a record $8 billion last year. This is far below the limit.

We talked about the areas that should be developed in the interests of our countries and people. This was partly about energy including the peaceful use of nuclear energy (we have good cooperation and prospects in this respect) and outer space, agriculture, healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry.

We agreed to take an inventory of everything we have done in the past few years on the coordination of contractual and legal documents and the further development of interaction. Our economic and financial analysts will do this. We will also review logistics and transport cooperation.

We will certainly continue developing our already good ties in the cultural, humanitarian and education areas.

We are assigning a special level to bilateral mechanisms for interaction in strengthening all of our relations in our strategic partnership. I am referring to the High-Level Commission on Cooperation headed by the Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin and Vice President of Brazil Geraldo Alckmin Filho and the two commissions that are included in it – the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation and the Commission on Political Issues. These commissions have not met in some time, largely due to Covid restrictions. We drafted a plan that will allow us to resume a regular schedule and conduct an inventory of the issues and specific projects requiring special attention.

We discussed urgent international and regional issues. We would like to note that Russia and Brazil have consonant positions on the current events in the world. We are united by our common striving to facilitate the formation of a fairer, genuinely democratic world arrangement based on the international legal principle of the sovereign equality of states. We believe that this will guarantee a fair multi-polarity that will reflect the interests of all countries without exception rather than just one group of states. In this context, we have a common approach to reforming global governance institutions. President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has recently talked a lot about this. This applies to financial institutions and the need to expand the participation of the developing nations in them. We share the view that unilateral sanctions introduced in circumvention of the UN Security Council are illegal. They are doing damage by politicising the functioning of specialised international platforms.

We reviewed the current situation in global governance. Our Western “colleagues” are fiercely fighting to preserve their domination in world affairs (in the financial, economic, political and security areas). This is exactly what triggered the current situation in relations between the Russian Federation on the one hand and NATO and the EU on the other, as regards the processes in Ukraine.

We are grateful to our Brazilian friends for a correct understanding of the genesis of this situation and their striving to contribute to a search for ways of settling it. Such problems must be resolved not on a momentary basis but on the foundation of long-term agreements that would primarily be multilateral and would consider the security of all states without exception. This is the principle of indivisibility of security where not just one country enhances its security at the expense of the security of other states and will not try to dominate anyone in this area. This was the essence of the political commitments that the West together with our country, Ukraine and other post-Soviet states solemnly assumed in the OSCE in the early 2000s. But the West has not made a single attempt to fulfil them. On the contrary, it has been doing precisely the opposite in its effort to maintain global domination.

We would like to see the Ukrainian conflict end as soon as possible. We have repeatedly explained the causes of the current developments and our goals in great detail. First of all, we want to make sure that no threats to the Russian Federation’s military security emanates from the territory of Ukraine. The West had implemented such plans for many years. Our second objective is to protect the lives of the Russian-speaking population in eastern and southern Ukraine. The rights of these people had been trampled upon for many years. For this purpose, the Ukrainian parliament passed a series of laws banning Russian-language education, media outlets and cultural events. Ukrainian authorities methodically destroyed millions of Russian-language books at Ukrainian libraries. I am confident that anyone who is committed to the principles set forth by international conventions on protecting ethnic minorities and their rights shares these goals. There are many such conventions at the European level and at the level of the UN and UNESCO. The Ukrainian regime rudely violated all of them.   

We will cooperate closely with the UN and at the UN Security Council (where Brazil now has the status of a non-permanent member) within the framework of our joint efforts to promote a fair and just reform of global governance institutions. We have reaffirmed our support for Brazil’s application to become a permanent UN Security Council member, just as we support India. In this connection, we believe it is necessary to satisfy the interests of the African continent.

Brazil is preparing to lead the G20 next year, while Russia will preside in BRICS. This is a good opportunity to see how we can take advantage of this situation for our mutual benefit, in the context of coordinating our foreign policies.  All BRICS members are also members of the G20. In addition, this association involves a group of countries that voice the same positions on principled issues as BRICS countries. We will coordinate our positions and exchange assessments on these issues, as well as on other aspects reflected in the current plan of political consultations between the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Brazilian Foreign Ministry in 2022-2025.

In the regional context, we talked about political and economic integration processes in Latin America. We praised the readiness of the President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Brazilian diplomats to strengthen overall regional mechanisms, such as CELAC, MERCOSUR and UNASUR. We praised the steps taken by Brazil to restore full-fledged relations with all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Our talks were highly useful. We reaffirmed our mutual commitment to further strengthening Russian-Brazilian strategic partnership.

I invited the Minister to visit the Russian Federation at any time convenient to him. Our staff will continue to maintain close contacts in the relevant spheres of our relations.

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