Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday that his country was trying to work toward peace in Ukraine but that neither side is ready to end the fighting.
“Neither Putin nor Zelensky are ready,” the Brazilian leader said, according to Reuters. “Brazil’s role is to try to arrive at a peace proposal together with others for when both countries want it.”
Lula criticized the UN Security Council for failing to stop the war and for failing to prevent US and other Western invasions. “The UN Security Council has not worked. United States invaded Iraq, France and England invaded Libya, now Russia. And everyone has veto power,” he said.
Brazil has been working with other neutral countries to push for peace. Many African nations and China have offered frameworks for a peace deal, but there’s no sign that negotiations will happen anytime soon.
Ukraine is demanding a full Russian withdrawal before negotiations can happen, which is a non-starter for negotiations with Moscow. For their part, Russia says it’s open to talks but insists any future deal must recognize the territory it annexed in Ukraine as Russian.
Peace talks that were held in the early days of Russia’s invasion had a chance, but they were discouraged by the US and its allies. Turkey said at the time that some NATO countries wanted to continue the war to “weaken” Russia, something Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin openly acknowledged was a US goal in Ukraine.
Brazil was invited to talks this weekend in Saudi Arabia, where Ukraine and the US plan to pressure non-aligned countries to adopt Ukrainian demands for peace. Zelensky said on Wednesday that almost 40 nations will attend the August 5 and 6 meetings in Jeddah. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said his country would only attend the talks if Russia was invited.
Source: AntiWar.
