A reference to the Russia-Ukraine war is “inevitable” in the upcoming joint statement by G7 members and invited countries on food security, a Brazilian Foreign Affairs Ministry official said on Monday.
Speaking at a press briefing on President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s upcoming trip to the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, on May 17, economic and financial affairs secretary Mauricio Carvalho Lyrio said the “conflict in Ukraine” has implications for global food security. “Naturally, the Brazilian government is negotiating this language [in the G7 joint statement] so that it is compatible with the language that Brazil has been using on this issue,” he said.
G7 leaders are expected to issue a separate statement with a harsher tone on Russia. Apart from the summit’s host, the other remaining G7 countries are members of NATO. Japan, for its part, has also sided with Ukraine. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv in March to “convey Japan’s solidarity and unwavering support for Ukraine.”
Food security, specifically access to fertilizers, was one of the arguments used by Brazil’s previous government under Jair Bolsonaro to avoid sanctioning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. In June 2022, after Mr. Bolsonaro and Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone, the Kremlin said Mr. Putin “stressed that Russia is committed to fulfilling its obligations to ensure the uninterrupted supply of Russian fertilizers to Brazilian farmers.”
Ambassador Lyrio added that Lula has scheduled a bilateral meeting with Mr. Kishida, as well as separate meetings with the leaders of India and Indonesia, who were also invited to the G7 Summit. India currently holds the rotating presidency of the G20, which Brazil will take over on December 1.
During his first two terms as president (2003-2010), Lula attended six G8 meetings, the last coming in 2009, shortly after the G20 began holding annual summits. After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia was expelled from the group, which reverted to its original G7 name and composition.
Mr. Lyrio said that Lula will bring to the G7 his “message of peace,” an ill-defined proposal. The president has on several occasions advocated a so-called “peace club” — a group of countries to negotiate an end to the war — but has never specified the grounds for such negotiations.
Last week, Mr. Zelensky said he told Brazil’s special foreign policy adviser, Celso Amorim, that “the only plan capable of stopping Russian aggression in Ukraine is the Ukrainian Peace Formula.” The remarks were a polite way of saying that Brazil is invited to agree with Ukraine, rather than the other way around.
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