Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva informed that his country will not supply Ukraine with shells for German Gepard anti-aircraft guns, despite the request of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who visited Brazil on an official visit.
DW writes about it.
Instead, Lula da Silva offered to mediate in the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia and involve Chinese leader Xi Jinping in this process.
The new president of Brazil did not directly condemn Russiaʼs aggression against Ukraine. According to him, Moscow "made a classic mistake" by attacking another country and acted "wrongly". He also said that the real reasons for the conflict do not seem so obvious to him.
- On October 31, 2022, a new president was elected in the second round of elections in Brazil. The opposition candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won with 50.9% of the vote. Incumbent Jair Bolsonaro won 49.1% of the vote.
- Inacio Lula da Silva was already president of Brazil from 2003 to 2011. In July 2017, he was sentenced to 9.5 years in prison for corruption, but was released in 2019. In 2021, all charges against him were dropped.
- In an interview with TIME in May 2022, Lula said that not only Putin is to blame for Russiaʼs invasion of Ukraine, but also the United States, the EU, and Zelensky. He said that Ukraine should have abandoned the path to the EU and NATO, and instead negotiated with Russia.