Latin America rejects pleas to send weapons to Ukraine
"The offer from the US sounded appealing: if Latin American nations donated their ageing Russian-made military kit to Ukraine, Washington would replace it with superior American weaponry. But far from taking up the US proposal, which was revealed last month by General Laura Richardson, head of the US Southern Command, Latin America’s leaders lined up to denounce it. 'Even if they end up as scrap in Colombia, we will not hand over Russian weapons to be taken to Ukraine to prolong a war,' Colombia’s leftwing president Gustavo Petro responded. 'We are not with either side. We are for peace.'
'Brazil has no interest in passing on munitions to be used in the war between Ukraine and Russia,' President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said. 'Brazil is a country of peace. At this moment, we need to find those who want peace, a word that has so far been used very little.' Neighbouring Argentina took a similar line. 'Argentina is not going to co-operate with the war,' said a defence ministry spokesperson. 'It is not appropriate to co-operate by sending arms to the conflict in Europe.'"
Not one country in South America except for Chile's land mine clearing machines responded to this offer for US military hardware equivalents.