Why Won't Brazil Pick a Side on the Ukraine War?Two opposite presidents, the same position

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Europe responded quickly. It condemned Moscow, imposed sweeping sanctions, and began sending arms to Kyiv. Brazil went only halfway. A democracy and in many ways a Western-facing country, it condemned the invasion at the United Nations but refused to join the sanctions or send weapons. Four years later, it still refuses.

What stands out is that this position survived a complete change of government. The war has spanned two presidents at opposite ends of the political spectrum, Jair Bolsonaro on the far right and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on the left, yet both held the same line. So why did two governments that agree on almost nothing end up with the same policy on the war? The answer lies in the economic dependencies and diplomatic traditions that shape Brazilian foreign policy.

Two presidents, one position

Days before the invasion, Bolsonaro flew to Moscow, told Vladimir Putin that Brazil stood "in solidarity" with Russia, and talked up fertilizer trade. When the tanks rolled in, his government condemned the invasion at the UN General Assembly, but his ambassador immediately made clear that Brazil opposed both sanctions and arms, arguing that either would only prolong the war. Bolsonaro himself refused to name Russia as the aggressor. Brazil voted yes on several resolutions, but abstained on those that punished or isolated Russia, including its suspension from the Human Rights Council and the register of war damages.

Lula, who took office in January 2023, changed the tone but not the practice. He kept Brazil out of the sanctions-and-arms camp. He turned down a German request to send arms, saying that "Brazil is a country of peace." He also went further than Bolsonaro in his rhetoric, at one point accusing Washington and Brussels of "feeding the war". Where Bolsonaro had been passive, Lula was active. He floated a "peace club", a group of uninvolved countries that he argued could broker a settlement, and together with China issued a six-point peace framework that left out Ukrainian territorial integrity and Russian withdrawal. Zelensky called the plan "destructive".

The shift showed up in how Brazil voted in the UN. By 2025 and 2026, it was abstaining on every Ukraine resolution, including the two competing texts on the war's third anniversary, the return of abducted Ukrainian children, and the call for a lasting peace. Abstention had become the default, a clear hardening from the yes votes of 2022 and 2023.

Why the position held

Three forces hold Brazil in place, and they outlast any single president.

The first is material. Russia has supplied a large share of Brazil's fertilizer, around a fifth of imports, feeding an agribusiness sector that makes up close to a quarter of GDP. Brazil also became a major buyer of Russian diesel, with purchases of Russian fuel rising from $95 million in 2022 to $5.4 billion in 2024. New U.S. sanctions in late 2025 then cut Russia's share of Brazil's diesel imports from a peak near 60% to about 17%. Cutting Russia off would have put the burden on Brazilian farmers and drivers, and the lobbies that speak for them, above all, the agribusiness caucus, carry serious political weight.

The second is ideational. Bolsonaro and Lula arrived at the same restraint from opposite worldviews. For Bolsonaro, staying out reflected an affinity with strongmen like Putin who claimed to defend "traditional values." For Lula, it grew from a distrust of Western-led institutions and a long-held vision of a multipolar world in which Brazil leads alongside other Global South powers. Both could draw on a deep tradition in Brazilian foreign policy, non-alignment, and "autonomy through diversification", the practice of staying independent by keeping good relations with every major power rather than joining a bloc. Sanctions and arms transfers are exactly the Western enforcement tools that this tradition is meant to avoid, since they can one day be aimed the other way.

The third is external. China's rise gives Brazil a real alternative to the West, and Beijing is now its largest trading partner by a wide margin. Donald Trump has also turned out far friendlier toward Russia than previous U.S. presidents. Because of that, backing Ukraine is no longer clearly the "Western" position, which both lowers the reputational cost to Brazil of staying out and, oddly, narrows the gap between Washington and Brasília.

A regional pattern

Brazil's stance fits a broader regional pattern. Across Latin America, the common response has been to condemn the invasion in principle while declining to enforce it. Chile has been more critical, Bolivia and Venezuela have not condemned it at all, but most of the region sits closer to non-alignment. The reflex draws on a deep tradition of non-intervention and peaceful settlement, sharpened by a history of sovereignty violations against Latin America.

Europe should not assume that democratic, “like-minded” partners will share its geopolitical instincts. Criticism has not moved Brazil either. When a senior U.S. official accused Lula of "parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda," it changed nothing. As the EU works to deepen ties with the region, through the Mercosur agreement, regular summits with CELAC, and competition with China for influence. The EU is deepening ties with the region through the Mercosur agreement, regular summits with CELAC, and competition with China for influence. But closer economic ties are unlikely to shift Brazil's position on the war, and Brussels should not expect them to.

Can Brazil hold the line?

For all its talk of balance, Brazil's position is not neutral. Refusing to take a side is itself a choice, and the claim that both sides share responsibility lends the invasion a veneer of legitimacy. But this is a position with deep roots, in economic dependence, a long diplomatic tradition, and a strategic environment that increasingly rewards staying unaligned. Whether Brazil can hold this line or is eventually pushed to pick a side is an open question. The forces behind its stance suggest it will resist a clear position for as long as it can.

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Oscar Hansen Aanerud is a recent graduate of the Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Public Policy at Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). He is now a political journalist at Dagens Næringsliv (DN), Norway’s leading business daily. His interests include political economy, development, climate policy, and diplomacy.

The opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of the EULAS Network.