It was a gesture almost unprecedented in Latin America. Less than an hour after his inauguration and subsequent speech, Javier Milei devoted the greatest attention of all foreign dignitaries present not to a representative of another country in the region, but to the president of an Eastern European state. Only warm smiles and mutual words of recognition were exchanged between Milei and Volodymyr Zelensky in December 2023. Zelensky’s first trip to Latin America since the Russian invasion of Ukraine led precisely to Buenos Aires for Milei’s inauguration. “I am certain that mutual cooperation between both countries will continue to expand,” Zelensky thanked Milei for his support against Russian aggression.

“I was the first to defend Ukraine against Russia. You will always find me on the right side of history,” Milei said at the time. But fifteen months is a long time in the current geopolitical situation. Just as Washington changed its approach to resolving the war in Ukraine, Buenos Aires also made a 180-degree turn.

Photos with Zelensky deleted

The two heads of state had met in person several more times or spoken on the phone since December the year before last. Argentina also became a supplier of military equipment for the defending country. In February 2024, it donated two Russian-made helicopters to Kyiv and in June promised to deliver five more French fighter jets.

Since Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House, however, Milei’s government has been slowly retreating from supporting Ukraine. Everything culminated at the end of February, when Argentina abstained from voting on a UN resolution demanding Russia’s withdrawal from Ukrainian territory. The UN General Assembly then adopted a resolution from Ukraine and European countries confirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity and designating Russia as the aggressor.

Ninety-three countries (including the Czech Republic) voted for the resolution, 65 states abstained, and 18 countries, including the USA, Russia, Hungary and Israel, were against. The United States also failed to push through a proposal calling for a “swift end” to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict without mentioning Russian aggression or Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Bolsonaro is barred from running for eight years due to spreading disinformation about the electoral system. In play are Bolsonaro’s sons and his wife, governors of Brazil’s largest states, or popular country singer Gusttavo Lima.

A month before the vote, Milei and Zelensky had met at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where the Argentine president again mentioned support for Ukraine. Subsequently, in March this year, joint photographs with Zelenskydisappeared from Milei’s social media, and statements from Argentine diplomacy also illustrated a different view of the situation.

Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein subsequently stated that the United States is moving towards peace. “The United States resolution says it calls for an end to this war in which many people have died. Argentina will always be on the side that can participate in the peace process,” said the former ambassador to Washington.

What about the Malvinas?

However, some government allies opposed the change in Argentine foreign policy. For example, MP Sabrina Ajmechet from the right-wing Propuesta Republicana group, which is considering joining Milei’s La Libertad Avanza, published a selfie with President Zelensky on platform X on the day of the UN vote, accompanied by emojis of Ukrainian flags.

Moreover, this is not the first diplomatic decision in which Argentina copies the United States. President Milei, like Trump, has already announced his intention to leave the World Health Organization, which he has repeatedly criticised for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Similarly, the Argentine head of state is loudly considering withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement. According to Milei, global warming “has nothing to do with human activity” and is an “agenda inspired by cultural Marxism.”

Milei expressed his support for Trump and his political direction at a February meeting of conservatives in Maryland. “The only rational path is to reduce the state as much as possible. Reducing the state is in itself an act of justice,” the Argentine president said at the conference, where he met, among others, Elon Musk. To the richest man on the planet, who repeatedly attacks Ukraine and European allies, he gave the symbol of his successful election campaign: a chainsaw with which Milei wants to “trim” the Argentine state.

Experts meanwhile warn of the potential impact of Argentina’s UN vote. According to some, the sovereignty of the Malvinas (or Falklands) is at risk. “Argentina has historically been very careful about how it votes within the United Nations and other multilateral organisations, so as not to take a position that would negatively affect its intentions and policy towards the Malvinas,” the Buenos Aires Times quotes analyst Andrei Serbin Pont.

Brazilian paradox

Brazil, on the other hand, stood up for Ukraine in the conflict with the United States. While in May 2022, then-presidential candidate Lula da Silva declared that Ukrainian President Zelensky “is as responsible for the war as Vladimir Putin,” the Brazilian head of state now speaks differently. For most of his mandate, the left-wing president insisted on Brazil’s tradition of neutrality. In recent weeks, however, his rejection of Trump’s policy has likely prevailed.

Lula publicly opposed the way American diplomacy wants to resolve the war in Ukraine. The head of the largest South American state said that it is not possible to discuss peace without the participation of both sides of the conflict and also Europe. “Trump’s role in negotiating without wanting to listen to the European Union is bad, very bad. The European Union has been very strongly involved in this war and now cannot remain outside the negotiations,” Lula criticised Trump.

The Brazilian president also rejected sending Brazilian troops to Ukraine, which according to The Economist was proposed by the United States. Lula nevertheless did not rule out Brazil’s participation in a potential “peace mission.” According to him, the South American country has a “tradition of promoting peace,” as evidenced by its opposition to the “war in Ukraine, genocide in Gaza, and the blockade of Venezuela and Cuba.”

Support for Trump and the adoption of the American view of the Russian invasion still persists among the Brazilian right. Its main figure, Jair Bolsonaro, who currently faces prison for planning a coup d’état and the murder of his political opponents, was still negotiating in March 2022 through his government about possible financial aid for Russia, which was hit by sanctions. Similarly, Bolsonaro refused to condemn the Russian invasion and insisted on Brazilian neutrality.

However, the Kremlin-funded media in the region have already noticed the Brazilian (not just far-right) right’s affinity for Trump. The Brazilian version of Sputnik has been spreading posts featuring Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for a long time, warning against “Western globalism” and attacking Ukraine. Disinformation about the conflict in Ukraine and about Europe’s positions is then often taken from Russian media and spread by the popular media project Brasil Paralelo.

“Netflix of the Bolsonarists,” as the platform was dubbed by Brazilian media, publishes documentaries on YouTube that correspond to a conservative worldview. Brasil Paralelo has been facing criticism for a long time for spreading disinformation about the Brazilian electoral process or rewriting history in periods such as the military dictatorship, the colonisation of Brazil, or slavery. The project currently has over 4.3 million subscribers on YouTube, is followed by almost a million accounts on the Musk-owned platform X, and the group in the Telegram service numbers over 70,000 people.

Is a new Milei or Bolsonaro emerging?

Meanwhile, a battle is taking place on the Brazilian right for Lula’s main counter-candidate, as Bolsonaro is barred from running for eight years due to spreading disinformation about the electoral system. In play are Bolsonaro’s sons and his wife, governors of Brazil’s largest states, or popular country singer Gusttavo Lima. Brazil will choose a new head of state in October 2026, so the question remains whether the almost 81-year-old Lula da Silva will run for re-election, especially as he is currently facing declining popularity.

Ukraine may also soon lose its remaining allies in the region. Ecuador awaits the second round of presidential elections in mid-April, in which it will be very difficult to predict the winner after a close contest in the first round. The difference between the incumbent head of state Daniel Noboa and left-wing candidate Luisa González was only 0.2 percent.

The current right-wing President Noboa, although he called for fair peace negotiations in the past, has backed out of promised arms deliveries to Ukraine. Given the security situation in the country, it can be expected that foreign policy will not be high on the list of priorities for the new head of state, whoever it may be.

Even more attention will then be focused on the elections in Chile, which are scheduled for November this year. The current president Gabriel Boric, incidentally the youngest head of state in the country’s history, cannot run again. Moreover, the leftist liberal failed to achieve the main goal of bringing the country a new constitution, and so among the favourites for the presidential post, candidates from the right or far-right predominate. Within the region, Boric is among the loudest and most consistent supporters of Ukraine, for which he has several times come into conflict with some of his political counterparts.

It seems that the pink wave, which brought left-wing politicians to the leadership of Latin American states, will be replaced by a wave of the political opposite. After Milei, another libertarian, nicknamed “Gabriel Boric of the right,” is close to the presidential chair. He is 49-year-old Chilean MP Johannes Maximilian Kaiser Barents-von Hohenhagen.

The popular YouTuber, who named his new party after his video channel, made it to the lower house of the Chilean parliament thanks to his on-camera performance. The descendant of Chilean-Austrian parents is now aiming even higher. On the path to his dream post, he even (twice) left the party of Boric’s opponent from the second round of presidential elections, José Antonio Kast.

Kaiser is currently beating the well-known face of the Chilean far-right in election polls, despite controversies such as questioning whether women should have the right to vote. With the growing popularity of the Latin American far-right actively supported by Donald Trump, hard times are coming not only for the local left and the condition of democracy but also for Ukraine.

The author is a contributor to the editorial staff of the Czech portal *Alarm.