BRASILIA: Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov arrived at the Brazilian capital on Monday as Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pushes a diplomatic approach for peace in Ukraine that has irked both Kyiv and the West.
The meeting between Lavrov and his Brazilian counterpart Mauro Vieira was set in March, when they held a bilateral at the G20 summit in New Dehli. They met Monday morning and, according to the foreign ministry’s website, both will meet with Lula in the afternoon.
Lula has refused to provide weapons to Ukraine while proposing a club of nations including Brazil and China to mediate peace. On Sunday, he told reporters in Abu Dhabi that two nations – both Russia and Ukraine – had decided to go to war, and a day earlier in Beijing said the US must stop “stimulating” the continued fighting and start discussing peace. Earlier this month, he suggested Ukraine could cede Crimea to end the war, which the spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, rejected. “Would you offer a Crimea-sized part of Brazil… just for tranquility’s sake? Then we’ll talk!” Belgium’s former PM Guy Verhofstadt tweeted earlier this month.
As part of his bid to end hostilities, Lula has also withheld arms to Ukraine, even at the request of Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He has said sending supplies would mean Brazil entering the war, which he seeks to end. His position has apparently been appreciated in Moscow. One of roughly 50 leaked classified documents on Discord viewed by AP said that, as of late February, Russia’s foreign ministry supported Lula’s plan to establish a club of ‘impartial’ mediators, as it “would reject the West’s ‘aggressor-victim’ paradigm.”
The meeting between Lavrov and his Brazilian counterpart Mauro Vieira was set in March, when they held a bilateral at the G20 summit in New Dehli. They met Monday morning and, according to the foreign ministry’s website, both will meet with Lula in the afternoon.
Lula has refused to provide weapons to Ukraine while proposing a club of nations including Brazil and China to mediate peace. On Sunday, he told reporters in Abu Dhabi that two nations – both Russia and Ukraine – had decided to go to war, and a day earlier in Beijing said the US must stop “stimulating” the continued fighting and start discussing peace. Earlier this month, he suggested Ukraine could cede Crimea to end the war, which the spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, rejected. “Would you offer a Crimea-sized part of Brazil… just for tranquility’s sake? Then we’ll talk!” Belgium’s former PM Guy Verhofstadt tweeted earlier this month.
As part of his bid to end hostilities, Lula has also withheld arms to Ukraine, even at the request of Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He has said sending supplies would mean Brazil entering the war, which he seeks to end. His position has apparently been appreciated in Moscow. One of roughly 50 leaked classified documents on Discord viewed by AP said that, as of late February, Russia’s foreign ministry supported Lula’s plan to establish a club of ‘impartial’ mediators, as it “would reject the West’s ‘aggressor-victim’ paradigm.”