00:00While Europe and the U.S. have largely backed Kiev with sanctions and weapons,
00:05countries in the global south have tried to tow a more neutral line, none more so than Brazil.
00:11The country's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has condemned the invasion in principle,
00:15but he's also refused to take sides.
00:18Our correspondent in, Jan Onosco, is in Brazil.
00:21Jan, can you tell us more about Brazil's position on the war?
00:54Its independence and its territorial integrity.
00:59On the flip side, though, it has condemned unilateral sanctions against Russia,
01:04and it has also condemned the supply of weapons to Ukraine by third countries.
01:10So what has changed, really, is that more recently,
01:14Brazil has decided to abstain in U.N. resolutions about Ukraine.
01:20It really seems to want to project an image of not taking sides in this war and being completely neutral.
01:27So why is Brazil keen to be neutral? What's driving that decision?
01:34Well, one of the reasons is likely to be that it wants to be more aligned with the BRICS bloc
01:41of countries.
01:42Now, the BRICS bloc is an informal grouping of the world's leading emerging economies,
01:47and, of course, Russia is a member of BRICS, too.
01:52Now, in 2022, Brazil was the only BRICS member to vote in favour of those U.N. resolutions that I
01:58mentioned.
01:59All the other BRICS countries decided to abstain,
02:02and it seems that Brazil is now adopting their strategy of abstention.
02:07Brazil is also keen to maintain its neutrality because it wants to project itself as a peacemaker,
02:13as a negotiator in this conflict.
02:16Indeed, President Lula tried to bring together a peace club of neutral nations,
02:23and he even went as far as to say that the reason why Brazil abstained in two U.N. resolutions
02:28about Ukraine last year
02:30was because that he believed it would preserve a climate that was more conducive to dialogue.
02:36And the other reason is that, geopolitically, Brazil does like to remain neutral.
02:41It doesn't want to see the world dividing into political blocs.
02:45Indeed, just two days ago, President Lula gave an interview where he said he doesn't want to see the start
02:51of a new Cold War
02:52between the U.N. and China, the U.S. and China, the two superpowers in the world,
02:59are also Brazil's two leading trading partners.
03:03And so Brazil really does want to maintain the status quo between those two nations.
03:07Any war between them, whether it's a trade war, a Cold War or a hot war,
03:12is seen as detrimental to Brazil.
03:22I want to tell the U.S. President Donald Trump that we don't want a new Cold War.
03:27We don't want a interference in any other country.
03:30We want all countries to be treated equally.
03:33We want to treat all countries in equal conditions and receive from them the same treatment in equal quotations,
03:39and egalitarian treatment.
03:42And if this is possible to build with the United States,
03:45I think everything will go back to normality.
03:51All right, Jan and Osco reporting live for us there in Brazil.
03:55Thank you very much for that update.
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