Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday (April 18) condemned the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity by Russia and again called for mediation to end the war, a peace initiative that has been criticised by Kyiv. Lula insisted that while his government condemned Russia’s offensive, it also defended a negotiated political solution to the conflict.
Speaking at a lunch with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Lula said a group of neutral nations must come together to help broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Lula’s comments came a day after the United States criticised his remarks during a recent trip to China that Washington was “encouraging the war” in Ukraine and that Kyiv shared the blame for the conflict, the news agency AFP reported.
Addressing a press conference, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that Brazil was parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without at all looking at the facts. Ukraine also expressed anger at the comments of the Brazilian president.
Hitting back, Lula’s foreign policy advisor Celso Amorim called Washington’s criticism absurd and insisted that Brazil did not share Russia’s position.
Speaking to Globo TV, Armorim said that Brasília defended the territorial integrity of Ukraine, adding, “As long as there are no talks, the ideal peace for the Ukrainians and the Russians will not happen. There must be concessions.”
Since the beginning of the war in February last year, Brazilian President Lula pitched himself as a peace broker (to end the conflict). His proposal, based on Brazil’s tradition of non-intervention and neutrality, calls for a group of countries not involved in the war to engage Moscow and Kyiv in talks.
However, Ukraine criticised the proposal as it treated the victim and the aggressor in the same way. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian government invited Lula to the war-torn country to see for himself the consequences of Russia’s offensive, the news agency Reuters reported.
(With inputs from agencies)
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