Mision Verdad
Yesterday, February 23, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) passed a resolution condemning Russia for its Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, a few hours after the first anniversary of its launch due to Washington’s systematic disregard of President Vladimir Putin’s demands regarding NATO’s threatening eastward expansion and Kiev’s increasingly belligerent behavior in its military offensive against the Russian population of Donbas, a region geographically, linguistically and culturally linked to the Federation, which has been subjected to bombardment, persecution and apartheid experiments since 2014.
The resolution in question, that had 141 votes in favor, 32 abstentions and seven against, is not binding – it has no practical effects and implies no obligations – and should be seen as a symbolic act of simulation to project a favorable image towards the efforts of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to escalate the conflict with Russia militarily, as well as economically, financially and through energy.
Among the countries in favor of the resolution, Brazil’s affirmative vote is noteworthy. The government presided by Lula Da Silva was the only member of the BRICS to support it, an action that fractured the common position of abstention in the multilateral bloc in the vote.
This is not a minor aspect, especially considering that the consensus of neutrality and non-alignment has marked the trajectory of the BRICS in the international arena since the Russian SMO began a year ago.
With this position, the platform has exercised a balancing role aimed at fostering understanding between the parties, keeping open the window of cooperation with Russia at multiple levels (refusing to subscribe to “sanctions” packages), while giving continuity to its relations with European countries that openly support Ukraine.
However, Brazil’s affirmative vote on the resolution can be seen as the manifestation of a broader geopolitical line of action that is taking shape during this first stage of Lula’s government, according to which the Atlantic power axis (United States + Western Europe) is gaining prominence in terms of the hierarchy assigned to it by Brazilian foreign policy.
In the joint statement of the Brazilian president and U.S. President Joe Biden in the framework of their first bilateral meeting on February 10, it is noted that the two heads of state “deplored Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and annexation of parts of its territory as flagrant violations of international law, and called for a just and lasting peace”.
This uniform view that places all the responsibility for the escalation of the conflict on Russia is also a sign that the South American president bends his balance of international priorities towards multilateral frameworks of partnership with the United States (from “climate change”, “protection of the Amazon” to “human rights” and the “gender agenda”), to the detriment of a careful treatment that preserves the unified position of the BRICS in the context of the war in Ukraine.
However, in an attempt to preserve form, in view of the fact that Dilma Rousseff has just assumed the presidency of the BRICS Bank, Brazil included an amendment in the draft resolution to include a call for “the cessation of hostilities” and “the need to reach a comprehensive, just and lasting peace as soon as possible”, thus seeking to reduce the noise among the members of the bloc, but without diluting the discursive alignment with the U.S. president.
On the other hand, Brazil’s vote occurred in the midst of a new period of intense lobbying for the ratification of the free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, a matter pending final resolution for 20 years. Despite the historical tension of the negotiations, especially around the meat industry in which Brazil would certainly have the advantage over French producers, the Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, projected that the agreement could be finalized by July of this year.
In addition to this, the billionaire European funds from the Amazon Fund, withheld during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, have begun to be progressively thaw since January of this year. Consequently, a Brazil more balanced towards Europe and the United States in the face of the most important geopolitical issue of recent years: the war in Ukraine, represents an additional boost for Lula’s trade, environmental and multilateral agenda focused on the Atlantic axis.
Although it is evident that Lula will show elasticity in maintaining a multi-vector foreign policy, aimed at a passive balance in the midst of a chaotic and complicated transition from a unipolar order to a new model of international relations -multipolar-, his first moves reflect a framework of preferences based more on the West than on Eurasia. The Brazilian president’s visit to China in mid-March, where he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, will be a new opportunity to further assess these projections.
Translation by Internationalist 360°
INTERNATIONALIST 360° 