(Madrid) Brazilian President Lula, who has recently sparked controversy over the situation in Ukraine, once again displayed his differences with Westerners on Wednesday, saying there is “no point in saying who is right between Kyiv and Moscow, the priority being to negotiate peace.
“No one can doubt that Brazilians condemn the territorial violation of Ukraine by Russia. This mistake has taken place, the war has started,” said Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on an official visit to Spain since Tuesday.
But “there is no longer any point in saying who is right, who is wrong. From now on, what must be done is to end this war, ”insisted the Brazilian president, during a press conference alongside Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
“No one says ‘peace’ except me, it’s like I’m alone in the desert,” he lamented.
Criticizing the inaction of the UN Security Council, he reiterated his desire to create a “G20 of peace”, a group of notably emerging countries wishing to work for the end of the conflict in Ukraine.
Asked by a Spanish journalist about Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, Lula said that it was “not up to him to decide who owns Crimea”.
“It’s up to the Russians and the Ukrainians to discuss this,” he insisted.
The Spanish prime minister, whose country has been unequivocally on Kyiv’s side since the start of the conflict, hailed Lula’s “involvement” in peace on Wednesday.
But he also reminded him that there was “in this war an aggressor and an aggressor”, Ukraine, “which is only fighting for its territorial integrity, its national sovereignty and its freedom”.
“It’s important that we all get involved,” added Sanchez, who spoke a few weeks ago in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
According to the Spanish leader, “it is fundamental that the voice of the attacked country […] be listened to and that its proposal for peace be taken into account”.
Words harshly criticized by Washington, which accused Brazil of “echoing Russian and Chinese propaganda without taking the facts into account”.
The Brazilian president has also said in the past that the responsibilities for the war sparked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 were shared between the two countries.
He also received Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday in Brasilia, who “thanked” Brazil for its “contribution” in the search for a solution to the conflict and for “its excellent understanding of the genesis of this situation. “.
Invited to Kyiv to “understand the real causes and essence” of the war, the Brazilian head of state announced from Portugal, where he was visiting before going to Spain, that he would send his main foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim, for a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Lula, who ruled Brazil from 2003 to 2010, is making his first official trip to Europe since returning to power in January. He wants to put his country back at the center of global geopolitics.
