In Latin America, Russia finds an opening to blast the U.S. and erode support for Ukraine

The recent trip of Russia’s foreign minister this week to four Latin American countries, including South American giant Brazil, showcases the Russian’s government interest in using the region as a geopolitical playground to provoke the United States and weaken support for Ukraine in the war launched by the Kremlin.

Sergei Lavrov first arrived in Brazil on Monday, where he met the country’s leftist president, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, who had proposed a “club of neutral countries” to negotiate an end to the war that the Russian foreign ministry assessed as favorable to the Kremlin, according to a leaked U.S. intelligence document. Lavrov then visited Russia’s traditional Latin American allies, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, his last stop. Less publicized was his meeting with the foreign minister of Bolivia while he was in Caracas.

While little of substance was announced during his tour, Lavrov’s remarks made clear that Russia’s renewed interest in the region stems from considering it a scenario of confrontation with the United States and what it calls the “collective West.” The diplomatic strategy, with its Cold War flavor, is not new but has become a priority amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And the region’s long-standing tradition of non-alignment and supporting multilateralism has provided the Kremlin the talking points to try forging unlikely partnerships, as with Brazil.

In opening remarks during talks with Venezuela’s foreign minister, Yvan Gil Pinto, in Caracas on Tuesday, Lavrov said he is confident that Latin America will become “one of the pillars” of an emerging international order that will oppose U.S. “colonial policies” i

He reiterated during his tour that his country will support regional organizations like the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States that are seen as counter to U.S. interests. Lavrov also said Russia supports a proposal made by the Brazilian president to move the countries grouped in the so-called BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) away from using the dollar in their transactions.

Visits to traditional regional allies like Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, where his comments go unchallenged, also offered Lavrov a podium to blast the United States and spin falsehoods about the invasion of Ukraine.

“The U.S. has started a crusade against the Russian Federation and its legitimate interests, against Russian culture, Russian traditions,” he said. “They have chosen the Kyiv Nazi regime as a springboard, pumping it full of weapons. It should be clear to everyone that this course of action is hopeless,” he said during a press conference Thursday after meeting Cuban leaders Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel, who was appointed to a second term as president Wednesday without facing competition.

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Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, diplomatic exchanges and visits of top Russian security officials to these three countries have been frequent. In early March, Vladimir Putin’s top security adviser, Nikolai Patrushev traveled to Havana after visiting Caracas.

But Lavrov struggled to provide any concrete economic development assurances during his visit, though he promised that the results of agreements negotiated by Díaz-Canel during a trip to Moscow last November, in particular regarding food and oil, two critical areas for Cuba, would be announced “soon.”

He also provided a muted response when asked if Russia plans to open a military base in Cuba.

“Our military cooperation is being developed successfully in line with the agreements between our countries, and as I understand it, the forms of that cooperation are satisfactory to both Russia and Cuba,” he told Russian and Cuban journalists.

While Russia lacks the economic muscle to deliver on many of its promises, it uses its allies in Latin America “mostly to annoy the United States,” said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program. “It isn’t interested in serious partnerships in the region, where Moscow has little trade or investments.”

“When Lavrov shows up in Latin America, it is mostly to remind the United States that Russia is able to harass the United States in its near-abroad as a way to discourage the United States from engaging in Russia’s neighborhood,” he added.

Yet the war in Ukraine adds a new layer to Russia’s typical posturing in the Americas, as this time, the positions Latin American countries take can have concrete implications in the war and the diplomacy seeking to end it. Brazil, in particular, has refused to send weapons to Ukraine or impose sanctions on Russia, and President Lula suggested Ukraine should renounce the territory of Crimea if it wants peace.

Not surprisingly, Lavrov’s visit to Brazil and President Lula’s comments about the war in Ukraine drew more attention and concern in the United States, prompting a diplomatic rift that exemplifies the kind of divisions Russia seeks to instigate in the region.

While returning to Brazil from China and the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, Lula said the United States and the European Union were “contributing to the continuation of this war.”

On Monday, in a joint press conference with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, Lavrov went on to say the two countries have “concurring positions on the current events in the world” and said his government was “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,” he said referring to the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

The comments and the reception of the Russian minister, who also met with Lula, made the White House abandon a more diplomatic tone and to accuse Brazil of “parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without at all looking at the facts,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Monday. And the national security adviser to President Joe Biden, John Sullivan, called Lula’s special advisor Celso Amorim to complain about the Brazilian president’s comments, Brazilian GloboNews reported.

While Lula quickly moved to repair the damage, condemning the “violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity” during an event Tuesday, the whole affair revealed the tensions that Russia is able to exploit by stepping up its game in the region.

While Lavrov was speaking on Thursday in Cuba, in another signal that Latin America is deemed an important but contested space, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky was addressing lawmakers from Mexico, another country with an ambivalent position towards the war.

Zelensky asked for Mexico’s support in organizing a Latin American summit that would show the region’s “unity and global principles.”