The former president and presidential candidate of Brazil in the upcoming elections of 2022, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, in an interview with Time magazine, criticized Zelensky and the West for inciting conflict with Russia

The ex-president believes that it was the advance of NATO and the EU to the borders of Russia and the unwillingness to talk to the Russian Federation on security guarantees that provoked the conflict in Ukraine: “The United States and Europe should have said: ‘Ukraine will not join NATO.’... That would solve the problem. But they did not try to talk to the Russian Federation...”

At the same time, Lula noted the “strange” behavior of Zelensky, who, instead of real negotiations, is engaged in political PR: “It seems that he is part of the play. He is on TV on a 24-hour basis. He is in the European parliaments. It's like he's running a political campaign.”

“The President of Ukraine wanted war with the Russian Federation, otherwise he would have continued negotiations...,” the ex-president stressed.

Lula added that
incitement to hatred towards Putin and encouraging Zelensky is not a “solution
to the problem” and further exacerbates the conflict.