President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday once again tried to play both sides of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, this time during a meeting with President Sauli Niinistö of Finland.
At a press conference following a bilateral meeting, Lula said he “reiterated Brazil’s position defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity and condemning the invasion.” Brazil has voted in favor of resolutions to that effect at both the United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly, but Lula has often echoed Russian talking points.
During a recent trip to Spain, Lula said that it was “not up to him” to decide to whom Crimea and the Donbass region belonged, and that the matter should be “discussed by Russians and Ukrainians.”
At least since February, Lula has been talking about forming a so-called “peace club” — a group of countries that would mediate the Ukraine war. The think tank Institute for the Study of War has written that Russian statements expressing a willingness to negotiate are “part of an ongoing information operation intending to weaken Western willingness to aid Ukraine.”
During a recent visit to Brasília, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov thanked Brazil for what he called its “contribution” to resolving the war in Ukraine. Conversely, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that Lula wanted to be “original” in his peace proposal, but did not find time to meet with him at the recent G7 meeting in Japan.
Finland is NATO’s newest member, having officially joined last April, just over a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“I think we are fully of the same opinion that peace is the most important thing,” Mr. Niinistö said at a press conference after meeting with Lula. “Every attempt for peace is very valuable.”
Lula added that Brazil “expects” to reach a balanced free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, a possibility recently raised by Brazilian Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira.
A summit between the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) will be held in Brussels in July, which could be an opportunity for Mercosur leaders to present their forthcoming counter-proposal to the EU.
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