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.
Both sides make far more unreasonable demands than those listed here.
Not only is it impossible to imagine any deal, both sides want to make that obvious.
This is a knife fight now, to the death.
Americans are the ones who want war. Zelenski is a US puppet and American citizens are brainwashed to hate Russia, China, Iran and Korea.
There are also Russian fanatics would would love to get rid of Putin and deploy nuclear weapons because, like Nuland & Co. they see this whole thing in religious-apocalyptic terms. Just have a look at Russian TV talk shows and social media.
Thank you. I wonder of one of those leaders is in prison. Were US sanctions ever applied with the goal to help them such leaders?
Lula is positioning himself to be an international leader. African and South American leaders are starting to step forward to make their voices heard on the international stage.
Why not…? He is the president of a large country…!
If anything it is about time.
Smaller nations are also starting to assert themselves in ways I do not recall seeing in the past.
I think this could very well turn into a golden era for the southern hemisphere. If the conflict in Ukraine does not go nuclear and we deal with various environmental threats, then the northern hemisphere could do well too.
Seems to me the only ones ready are the Russians who would be very happy to make the lines the new borders and what is left of Ukraine without a NATO presence.
The UNSC should be modernized to include India, Brazil, and perhaps Indonesia and S Africa as permanent members and also no one nation should be able to veto a resolution.
Mexico and another African nation as well to give additional representation to Latin America and to Africa.
If you think the SC is useless and paralyzed now, just wait for that.
I would like to see that tested out.
Add 2 Latin American nations, 2 African nations, and 2 Asian nations and remove veto power, and see what they can do.
You said the current SC is useless and paralyzed. There is little to lose.
Thanks for admitting you’re into empty gestures.
Nigeria and Egypt come to mind … and yes Mexico would be great but they are SO dysfunctional right now.
As I said before, it is not a Peace Meeting… Rather a Propaganda Meeting…!
There was that article here and on a libertarian website, can’t find it now, where ex officials had multiple back channel meetings with Moscow, essentially admitting that the US stepped all over Russia’s security issues, and had at least partially created what had come to be. But then the last part of the article said that regime change, ousting Putin, was still an option. How can you admit your fault and then proceed with ideations of tossing out the leadership who recognized it? This is the person who ostensibly would be negotiating for peace.
Because the goal of the loony wing is not peace, it is the destruction of Russia.
The loony wing is all encompassing.
The other day in an interview, John Mearsheimer mentioned there is a low probability but not zero probability chance that the Ukrainian army will suddenly collapse like the French army did in 1940, possibly ushering in a Polish invasion and the parade of horribles that would follow that.