Brazil’s response to the ongoing war in Eastern Europe — a war, it must be noted, precipitated by the ruthless bellicosity of President Vladimir Putin of Russia — has revealed conflicting tendencies in the diplomacy of Latin America’s largest nation. These competing impulses have deep historical roots. President Jair Bolsonaro has been loath to openly criticize Mr. Putin.
Indeed, on his visit to Moscow mere days before the invasion of its sovereign neighbor to the west, Mr. Bolsonaro expressed solidarity with Vladimir Putin without defining exactly what he meant.
Since then, as Anthony Faiola and Lesley Wroughton noted in...
