President-elect Lula da Silva highlighted the importance of his election for Brazil’s foreign policy, in his Sunday night address after winning the election:
“The world misses Brazil. That sovereign country that spoke on equal terms with the richest and most powerful countries and, at the same time, contributed to the development of the poorest countries. The Brazil that supported the development of African countries, that worked for the integration of Latin America, South America, and the Caribbean, that strengthened Mercosur and helped create the G20, Unasur, CELAC, and BRICS,” he said. “Today, we are telling the world that Brazil is back, that Brazil is too big to be left to the sad role of pariah of the world.”
In both Europe and the United States, various “alternative” media have usefully republished Lula’s sharp statements to Time magazine last May on the conflict in Ukraine, in which he charged that NATO, the US, and Europe share part of the responsibility for the development of that war. Those statements won Lula inclusion on the initial July 14 Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation’s target list, before someone decided it best to remove him. Lula told Time's interviewer:
“Putin shouldn’t have invaded Ukraine. But it’s not just Putin who is guilty. The U.S. and the E.U. 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.
“The other issue was Ukraine joining the E.U. The Europeans could have said: `No, now is not the moment for Ukraine to join the E.U., we’ll wait.’ They didn’t have to encourage the confrontation.” https://time.com/6173232/lula-da-silva-transcript/
