Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has rejected a request from the German government to send ammunition for battle tanks to Ukraine.
The decision, made known this Friday, was taken last Friday 20 at a meeting of the Workers’ Party (PT) with high commanders of the Brazilian Armed Forces and the Minister of Defense, José Múcio, according to the newspaper ‘Folha de Sao Paolo’.
The refusal would have occurred on the eve of the dismissal of the commander of the Army, General Júlio César de Arruda, as a consequence of the distrust within Lula’s government after the coup attacks of January 8.
The Leopard-1, with an old 105 mm caliber gun, is only operated by Brazil, while the Leopard-1 model uses 120 mm ammunition.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksi Reznikov already announced in November his intention to ask the Brazilian government for ammunition for the Gepard anti-aircraft tanks. «I will send a signal to your government because you have an opportunity to provide us with ammunition for Gepard,» he said.
The government of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro declared itself neutral in the war in Ukraine, although the far-right leader met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in a highly controversial visit at the height of hostilities in the country.
Lula, who seems to maintain this neutrality, previously questioned the «spectacle» in which, in his opinion, the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, was participating and reproached him for having exchanged the negotiating table for the European parliaments.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
