Lula earlier lied about the conflict being “over small things”, his Foreign Minister lied about the reasons why Lula politically supports Kiev in alignment with the US, and now Lula just lied about President Putin supposedly being disinterested in peace.
Brazilian President Lula blatantly lied on Sunday when telling reporters that “President Putin doesn’t take any initiatives to stop the war”, which was likely spewed in a misguided attempt to reinforce his credentials as a “mediator” after China ignored his “peace club” proposal during his trip there last week. While he told the truth in his subsequent sentence about how “Zelensky from Ukraine doesn’t take any initiatives to stop the war”, it’s Lula’s latest lie about this conflict that’ll be analyzed in the present piece.
He earlier claimed in mid-March that this conflict is “over small things”, which isn’t truly the case and was debunked in this piece here. Casual observers might not be aware of it due to the disinformation propagated by his supporters, but Lula is actually politically aligned with the US against Russia in the most geostrategically significant conflict since World War II. The reasons why were explained in this analysis here, which relies on information from official sources to reach some critical conclusions.
The latest one of relevance is that Lula supposedly doesn’t have an alternative to this policy since he’s allegedly bound by Article 4 of the Brazilian Constitution to condemn anything that Russia does in those territories that Kiev claims as its own. This lie, which was even pushed by his Foreign Minister last month in an attempt to justify Lula’s political support for Kiev, was debunked in this piece here showing that his then-successor Rousseff had Brazil abstain from an anti-Russian UNGA vote in March 2014.
As can be seen, Lula earlier lied about the conflict being “over small things”, his Foreign Minister lied about the reasons why Lula politically supports Kiev in alignment with the US, and now Lula just lied about President Putin supposedly being disinterested in peace. The rest of the article will now document some of the recent instances where Russia publicly expressed its interest in peace and conveniently hyperlink to each source so that skeptical readers can see for themselves that Lula lied yet again.
President Putin was already talking about peace in the weeks before Lula’s re-election back in mid-October when he reminded everyone that Kiev unilaterally suspended talks last April and then later made it literally illegal for Zelensky to interact with him. In early December, the Russian leader lamented that his side was the only one sincerely working to implement the Minsk Accords after Merkel admitted that everyone else was just exploiting them to buy time for Kiev to rearm and reconquer Donbass.
Kremlin spokesman Peskov referenced his boss’ abovementioned observation regarding Kiev’s prohibition on Zelensky holding talks with President Putin in early January while also adding that the West continues pressuring Ukraine to keep fighting Russia instead of considering peace. In his latest Federal Address from late February, President Putin built upon what he said in early December by telling his compatriots how hard he personally tried to implement the Minsk Accords in order to avert war.
He then brought that up again last month while talking to workers at the Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant when responding to a question about what Russia is doing to “bring peace to every home”. A few days later in his article for the People’s Daily newspaper ahead of President Xi’s trip to Moscow, he reaffirmed that “Russia is open to the political and diplomatic resolution of the Ukraine crisis” and reminded everyone that it was Kiev who broke off peace talks last April.
President Putin then informed everyone during his statement to the press after their meeting about how much time he and his counterpart devoted to discussing China’s peace proposal, which confirmed his consistent interest in peace. That same day, Peskov said that “Washington, European capitals, but first of all, Washington is filled with the desire not to let, under any pretext, [Kiev] enter into peace negotiations. They simply do not let Kiev even think about it”, which accounted for why such talks haven’t resumed.
The Kremlin spokesman then elaborated on this at the tail end of last month by declaring that “We have repeatedly said that Russia’s goals … can be achieved in various ways. These are politico-diplomatic or – if politico-diplomatic are currently impossible, and in the case of Ukraine, they are impossible, to our regret – through military means, that is, through the special military operation.” Two days later, he said the same thing in response to Belarus’ recent peace proposal.
There’s more evidence in support of the factual claim that Russia is interested in peace and proving that this is also true for President Putin personally, but that which was already shared should be sufficient in showing that Lula lied about the Russian leader’s intentions. This is all the more stunning since he did this just weeks after dispatching his chief foreign policy advisor to Moscow, who later revealed in an interview with CNN Brasil that he discussed Russia’s envisaged path to peace with President Putin.
There’s accordingly no question that Lula lied since he was clearly briefed by that trusted advisor about the content of his hour-long conversation with the Russian leader, though it’s unlikely that he’ll ever account for this provocation unless a brave journalist confronts him or his representatives about it. It’s up to Brazil’s media community to decide for themselves whether doing so is of interest to their audience or not, but the present piece proves that there’s no doubt that Lula did indeed lie yet again.