President Jair Bolsonaro told his supporters on Tuesday that Brazil’s neutrality in Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine underlines the importance of maintaining the Russian fertilizer supply and entering Brazilian agribusiness.

“They wanted me to take sides in this war abroad. My party is Brazil, we have business with Russia, we are neutral and we continue to buy fertilizer from them. Imagine our agriculture business without fertilizer, productivity will drop,” he said. in a video posted on social networks.

Bolsonaro said that due to the war in Ukraine, the Eastern European country did not export wheat and this put pressure on its prices both in the international market and in Brazil.

“Someone is going to pay this bill,” he said.

Despite criticism from the international community, the president has tried to maintain his neutral stance since the end of February, when the war began. But at the UN, Brazil voted in favor of resolutions against Russia.

Shortly before the outbreak of the armed conflict, Bolsonaro met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.