Brazil, Colombia Refuse To Send Military Equipment to Ukraine

Jan. 28, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—Brazil has rejected sending tank ammunition to Germany, over concerns that these shells could then be handed over to Ukraine, according to the story published Friday in Folha de São Paulo, widely-reported elsewhere. Folha cited unnamed Brazilian military and political sources present at the January 20 meeting of the military command with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva where the decision was taken. According to Folha’s report, the President refused to consider the request from the German government that Brazil sell some of its stockpiled Leopard 1 tank ammunition, with the argument that “it is not worth provoking the Russians.” The kicker on Folha’s story expanded that, writing that “To maintain neutrality and not provoke the Russians, the President denies Germany’s request.”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro—who earlier in his administration had invited NATO to step in with helicopters to help police the Amazon—is also refusing to allow its weapons to be sent into the conflict. Petro told reporters at the Jan. 24, CELAC meeting in Buenos Aires, that he refused the U.S. request that Colombia make its Russian-made helicopters available to Ukraine. Those helicopters may deteriorate into “scrap metal” for lack of maintenance and replacement parts, but Colombia will not send weapons to feed the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, Petro said. “Latin America should ... demand peace.”

U.S. Southern Command head Gen. Laura Richardson had reported during her Jan. 19 talk at the Atlantic Council that the U.S. is “aggressively” requesting that Ibero-American countries which have Russian-made military equipment, make that equipment available to Ukraine, since they can no longer service it because of sanctions against Russia.

Petro confirmed that General Richardson and others from the U.S. had asked him to hand this equipment over to the U.S., which would get it to Ukraine.