Ukraine’s Zelensky, Brazil’s Lula to meet Wednesday: Brasilia

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Ukraine’s Zelensky, Brazil’s Lula to meet Wednesday: Brasilia

10:20 CAT | 19 Sep 2023

File photo: Reuters/ Anushree Fadnavis

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will meet Wednesday in New York, the Brazilian president’s office said, after previous attempts at a sit-down fell through.

Lula, who has faced accusations in the West of being soft on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, will meet with Zelensky after a bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Lula’s office said.

Zelensky had previously sought a one-on-one meeting with Lula at the G7 summit in Japan in May, but the attempt fizzled, officially because of scheduling conflicts.

Relations are tense between Zelensky and Lula, who has said his Ukrainian counterpart is “as responsible as (Russian President Vladimir) Putin” for the war and refused to join Western nations in imposing sanctions on Russia or supplying munitions to Ukraine.

Zelensky quipped in May that their aborted meeting had likely left his Brazilian counterpart “disappointed.”

“I wasn’t disappointed. I was upset, because I’d like to meet him and discuss the matter,” Lula said at the time.

But “Zelensky is a grown-up. He knows what he’s doing,” he added.

Lula has sought to position Brazil as a potential mediator in the conflict, along with other “neutral” countries, including China and Indonesia.

But the veteran leftist, who previously led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, has repeatedly faced criticism over his stance on the war.

In April, he accused the United States of “encouraging” the conflict, and said the US and European Union “need to start talking about peace.”

After the White House accused him of “parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda”, Lula toned down his rhetoric, saying Brazil condemned Russia’s invasion.

But there has been lingering awkwardness, with Brazil reportedly helping block efforts to explicitly criticize Russia’s invasion in the final statement from the G20 summit in India earlier this month.

Lula has also suggested Ukraine may have to give up the disputed Crimea peninsula, which Russia forcefully annexed in 2014 in a prelude to its invasion of Ukraine last year.

“Zelensky can’t want to have it all,” he said in April.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry criticized his stance after those comments, saying Lula was giving “equal weighting to the victim and the aggressor.”

Source: Reuters