MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lula insists Ukraine should seek a peaceful solution to war with Russia

“Those who want to talk to us now could have talked to us before the war had started,” Lula stressed

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva insisted this week that his Ukrainian colleague Volodymyr Zelensky should take the South American country's advice and seek a peace negotiation with Moscow. Lula made those remarks after Zelensky dubbed the roadmap submitted jointly by Brasilia and Beijing “destructive.”

 Speaking at a graduation ceremony at a diplomatic academy on Monday,Lula highlighted Brazil’s peaceful foreign policy and neutrality. “It is important for Brazil to say that we want peace, that we don’t want war,” he underlined. “Those who want to talk to us now could have talked to us before the war had started,” he elaborated. The leftwing leader also recalled that “war only brings harm.“

The Sino-Brazilian six-point proposal dating back to May included a ceasefire along the current front lines. It also urged Moscow and Kyiv not to seek an “expansion of the battlefield,” in addition to resuming bilateral dialogue.

But Zelensky found Lula's stance to be openly pro-Russian. “You either support the war, or you don’t support the war. If you don’t support it, then help us stop Russia,” Zelensky had told Brazilian outlet Metropoles as his government is reluctant to drop its demands that Ukraine's 1991 agreed upon with Russia be recognized. ”Unfortunately, I believe that they [the Brazilian government] support Russia,“ Zelensky said about Lula's ”political pacification“ attempt.

In the process, Rusian President Vladimir Putin said that negotiations were even more unlikely after Ukraine's incursion into the Kursk Region. The Zelensky administration has invited Lula to visit Ukraine and Putin has also expressed his approval to the idea of major founding BRICS members such as Brazil, China, and India involved in peace negotiations.

”I said it to Lula, and we said it to the Chinese side: 'Let's sit down together, let's talk together.' [...] What makes you suddenly think that you should side with Russia or be somewhere in between?,” Zelensky also argued while underlining that the joint proposal was nothing but a political statement.

Russia and Ukraine last held peace talks in 2022 but Kyiv's delegation pulled out, allegedly under orders from the West, according to Putin.