Speaker of Russian Federation Council Senator Valentina Matviyenko, who headed the Russian delegation to Brazil for Lula da Silva’s inauguration Jan. 1, had a lengthy face-to-face meeting with the new President. Matviyenko said of the meeting that “Russia is determined to further actively develop relations with friendly Brazil.” The two countries “have the same vision of a future world—a multipolar and just one.… I also want to stress that Brazil is a very reliable, important and well-tested partner.”
According to Matviyenko, Lula said he wants to improve Brazil-Russia relations: “It is very important that during the meeting, the newly elected President confirmed his readiness and interest to reset Russian-Brazilian relations in terms of increasing trading and economic cooperation in science, engineering, and the environmental and other fields. He supported the idea of promptly launching a high-level commission, which, unfortunately, has not met in session for several years for a number of reasons, including subjective ones,” she reported.
