BRASÍLIA: Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who accused Western countries of ganging up against Moscow over the war in Ukraine.

Lula met with Russia’s top diplomat a day after conferring with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Lula and Lavrov did not address the press after their talks.

The Brazilian leader has opposed the US-led drive to isolate and punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, arguing that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Western countries share some of the blame for the war.

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Lavrov, who is on a tour of Latin America, arrived in Brasilia after taking part in a G20 meeting of foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro.

There, he told Russian news outlets that some Western countries at that gathering had tried to make Ukraine the only issue on the agenda.

“Some of our Western colleagues at the G20 ministerial meeting tried… to make unfounded accusations against Russia and ‘Ukraine-ize’ the agenda in every possible way,” Lavrov said.

“These attempts were not supported by developing countries, by most countries of the Global South,” he added.