The communication lasted only two minutes, as confirmed by those close to the President, which corresponds to the current distance of the connection. From Quinta de Olivos, the President Alberto Fernandez yesterday received the call from his colleague from the Russian Federation, Wladimir Putinwho congratulated him on Argentina’s triumph at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Not to mention the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war that has been going on since last February, the dialogue between the two presidents took place minutes after Argentina’s triumph and centered on football.
“You talked about football. He asked to speak (with Fernández) as soon as the game was over, he called him and congratulated him and all the Argentines,” commented witnesses of the dialogue that took place amid congratulatory calls from various regional and world leaders that the President took participated mainly in the Quinta de Olivos (he answered the last ones in the Casa Rosada, where he arrived after the end of the final).
“(They talked) about the value of football to society,” they added, very close to the president, who did so with his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sánchez after speaking with Putin.
The announcement was confirmed in principle by the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. “Vladimir Putin has just had a phone conversation with Argentine President Fernández and warmly congratulated him on the Argentine team’s victory at the World Cup.” Peskov told reporters in Moscow, Sputnik agency reported in its international edition. The official agency also recalled that “diplomatic relations between Argentina Y Russia they have the character of a comprehensive strategic union based on the joint declaration signed in Moscow in 2015 by then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015) and Vladimir Putin,” he said.
While Fernández did not publicly thank the Russian leader for the gesture via social media, he did so to other presidents, such as the Brazilian Luis Inacio Lula da SilvaNext, the Indian takes over the position Narendra Modi or his French pair Emmanuel Macron– the congratulations were confirmed by the Office of the President’s Spokesman, Gabriela Cerrutti.
From the presidency, they also reiterated that the dialogue with Putin was “one of many” that the president had yesterday. They commented in an informal tone that Macron himself was the most adamant, who tried to make a pre-game video call before attending the game in Doha. “The president replied to him after the game,” the sources said.
Fernández and Putin’s relationship has been fluid and solid, especially during the pandemic when the Russian Federation shipped the Sputnik V vaccines, the first the country had to fight the coronavirus pandemic. It peaked in early February when they met in Moscow. At that time, the President offered his Russian counterpart to be the “gateway” of Latin America for Russia three weeks before the start of the invasion of that country in Ukraine. In April, and as far as he could tell THE NATIONPutin congratulated Fernández on the birth of his son Francisco, in a gesture that received little publicity.
The bond severed by the war then began to tighten, both politically and economically, although the bridges were never fully broken. In fact, Argentina insists on officially joining the Brics, made up of the developing giants that, alongside Russia, also form China, South Africa, India and Brazil, which with the arrival of lula to power could facilitate entry into the country.
To align his approach with the global condemnation of Putin, Fernández spoke about the Russian invasion during a Brics meeting last June. “It is imperative that hostilities in Ukraine cease. We want to be part of the search for a solution that brings all parties together to achieve a lasting peace that finally leaves behind the dynamics created by the escalation of the war,” the president then said via zoom, with and without Putin’s condemnation himself Direct mode of the Kremlin-led invasion.
In the regional strategy of the government and the foreign ministry, Putin is not an insignificant player. In fact, the President is maintaining ever-stronger ties with Venezuelans Nicholas Maduroan ally of the Kremlin and a key factor in the expected continuity of Fernández at the head of Celac, the community of 32 Latin American and Caribbean countries that Lula plans to join on January 24 during the meeting of this conglomerate in Buenos Aires.
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