Lula's Victory in Brazil Is Great News for Putin

Brazil's newly elected president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva may be from the other side of the political spectrum from his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, but the leftist also known as Lula may be just as much of an ally to Vladimir Putin regarding the war in Ukraine.

In February, only days before his full-scale invasion, Putin hosted Bolsonaro at the Kremlin in what looked like a meeting of minds between the strongman leaders and afterwards, Brazil's outgoing president took a neutral stance towards Russia's aggression.

This week, Putin was quick to welcome the victory of Lula which Russian state media reported with relish, as an interview he gave re-emerged in which he said it was "not just Putin" who was guilty for the war. "Putin shouldn't have invaded Ukraine," Lula told Time in May, before he added that the U.S. and Europe "should have said 'Ukraine won't join NATO'— that would have solved the problem."

In August, Lula's foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim criticized the U.S.-led sanctions against Russia and said that if elected his boss would not endorse such measures. While the West is relieved at Lula's election, especially for its environmental implications, when it comes to the war in Ukraine, the two Brazilian leaders, past and present, so different politically, are paradoxically in lockstep over Ukraine.

"I don't think it's another country falling into Putin's lap," said Jonathan Eyal, associate director of the London thinktank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

"What is true, however, is that the statements of Lula have given added credibility to Putin's claim that it's only Western countries that accused Russia of the aggression, and that the global south somehow has a different position."

"In that respect it's a win for Putin," he told Newsweek. "Russia is not gaining something new apart from perhaps a diplomatic victory that someone else is now echoing the talking lines from Moscow."

"While Lula's position is deeply disappointing, since he wasn't in power when the invasion took place, and therefore he had a much greater freedom to think outside the box...it's not surprising," Eyal added.

Putin has repeatedly pushed a narrative that Moscow is at the forefront of a geopolitical shift away from the U.S. and the European Union. Meanwhile, the West's condemnation of his war in Ukraine has been absent in other parts of the world, such as Brazil.

"It's not just autocrats around the world who are supporting Putin or Russian narratives. Lula's case indicates that leftist progressives in the Global South are also susceptible to Russian views," said Dionis Cenusa, risk analyst for the Lithuania-based Eastern Europe Studies Center.

"That also says that the West has weak diplomacy outside the Western world, even after more than eight months of war," he told Newsweek. "Both the U.S. and the EU fall short in extending Russia's effective international isolation beyond the West, both in terms of strategic communication and sanctions."

It is traditional for Brazilian governments not to take sides in any conflict that does not affect the country directly and Lula has not made any direct pronouncements about his foreign policy. However, he is expected to focus on its relationship with other emerging economies bound by the BRICS acronym, which includes Russia, China, India and South Africa.

Vinicius Mariano de Carvalho, reader in Brazilian and Latin American Studies at King's College London, told Newsweek: "We can expect that BRICS will be again on the top of the agenda for Lula" and this will have "interesting consequences" as it could push Brazil "to decide which side to take on this question of the invasion of Ukraine."

"It's also important to remember that (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky also congratulated Lula," he said. This shows both Ukrainian and Russian presidents are "thinking how that [Lula's election] will influence the relationship between the countries."

Kathryn Hochstetler, professor of international development at the London School of Economics, said that Lula had enthusiastically embraced the BRICS countries in his previous stint as president between 2003 and 2010.

"At the same time, though, Lula is much more committed to multilateralism than Bolsonaro was and is keenly interested in Brazil being seen as a global partner and not a pariah," she told Newsweek. "So he will not only be looking to the BRICS, but is likely to significantly rebuild ties with the U.S. and Europe."

Most of the focus on Lula's environmental policy has been on what it would mean for Amazonian deforestation and indigenous rights and where he will reverse Bolsonaro's policies and provide greater protection.

"But on other environmental agenda items, like developing Brazil's oil and gas reserves, Lula will share more in common with Putin than with the Colombian (President Gustavo) Petro, who has called for a moratorium," Hochstetler added.