In a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine published yesterday, former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose formal candidacy in the presidential 2022 elections is to be announced May 7, insisted that world leaders, President Biden, President Zelensky, and the EU cut out the games, and get serious about negotiations.
Putin should not have invaded Ukraine, but “it is not just Putin who is guilty,” he said. “The U.S. and the EU are also guilty. What was the reason for the Ukraine invasion? NATO? Then the U.S. and Europe should have said: `Ukraine won’t join NATO.’ That would have solved the problem.”
Nor did Lula spare Biden. “I don’t think he made the right decision on the war between Russia and Ukraine. The U.S. has a lot of political clout, and Biden could have avoided the war, not incited it. He could have talked more, participated more. Biden could have taken a plane to Moscow to talk to Putin. This is the kind of attitude you expect from a leader. To intervene so things don’t go off the rails. I don’t think he did that.” Asked whether Biden should have made concessions to Putin, Lula responded, “no,” but recalled how the Americans resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1961. “Biden could have said, `we’re going to speak a bit more. We don’t want Ukraine in NATO, full stop.’ That’s not a concession.”
Responding to one question about whether he thought that Putin invaded Ukraine because he thought Ukraine was going to join NATO, Lula noted that that was the reason Putin gave. The other reason was Ukraine joining the EU. So, he remarked, the Europeans “could have said: `No, now is not the moment for Ukraine to join the EU, we’ll wait.’ They didn’t have to encourage the confrontation.” Lula also rejected the idea that the EU/NATO tried to speak to Russia. “No, they didn’t. The conversations were very few. If you want peace, you have to have patience. They could have sat at a negotiating table for 10, 15, 20 days, a whole month to find a solution. I think dialogue only works when it is taken seriously.”
Lula ridiculed Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. He could have put off the NATO and EU discussion and sat down to talk. Instead he gave constant TV addresses and spoke before many foreign parliaments, “as if he were waging a political campaign. He should be at the negotiating table…. He did want war.” If he hadn’t, he would have negotiated more.
But, he underscored, “I don’t think anyone is trying to help create peace. People are stimulating hate against Putin. That won’t solve things!. We need to reach an agreement. But people are encouraging the war. You are encouraging this guy [Zelensky] and then he thinks he is the cherry on your cake. We should be having a serious conversation. `OK, you were a nice comedian. But let us not make war for you to show up on TV.’ “
