Lula puts Vladimir and Volodímir on the same plane

Lula took up his former position – he had already been president between 2003 and 2010 – barely a month ago, after a four-year term from the right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaroalso known as the “Trump of the tropics”.

A week after Lula took office, pro-Bolsonaro groups even looted federal buildings in Brasilia, a ludicrous imitation of the attack on the United States on January 6, 2021. When Brazilian institutions—and Lula—resisted the assault, much of the The democratic world felt an air of relief.

One person who was particularly pleased was the German chancellor, Olaf Schölz. For a long time she has been one of those leaders “westerners” who have made the most effort to transcend perceptions that put the West on one side and the “rest” instead of viewing world politics as a competition between democratic and autocratic destinies.

“We are all delighted that Brazil is back on the world stage.”, a smiling Scholz told Lula during his visit to Brasilia this week. “They have been sorely missed”. Lula spontaneously gave the foreign minister a hug.

In particular, Scholz wants to broaden the alliance to support Ukraine and oppose Putin by including as many countries as possible in the “global south”. Last year, for example, when he hosted the Group of Seven, a club of liberal democracies made up of major economies, he also invited India, Indonesia, South Africa and Senegal.

The same objective took him this week to South America. Once again, Scholz realized that the further away countries are from Europe, the less urgency they feel about the war in Ukraine. The Chilean President, gabriel boriche was relatively communicative: “We will always defend multilateralism, the peaceful solution of conflicts and, above all, the validity of human rights”, he said after meeting with Scholz in Santiago.

The Argentine president, Alberto Fernandezwas more cautious, declining to offer Ukraine military assistance and only lightly wished for the “peace”.

But Lula he not only rejected Scholz’s requests outright, but also completely deviated from it. “Brazil has no interest in delivering ammunition to be used in the war.” Lula said at their joint press conference. “Brazil does not want to have any participation, not even indirectly.”

To get a better idea of ​​Lula’s thinking, it helps to read his comments in an interview with Time magazine last year. “It’s not just Putin who is to blameLula insisted. “The United States and the EU are also guilty”, apparently for not being more adamant in ruling out Ukraine’s NATO membership (which hasn’t even been discussed since 2008).

But Lula had more in mind. For most people, the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, depicts an inspiring leader facing a brutal invasion. But for Lula, no. The Brazilian president believes that Zelenski is “weird” and behaves like a publicity hound that goes from one television camera to another, when instead it should be “negotiating”—allegedly about the capitulation of Ukraine. “This character is as responsible as Putin for the war“, said.

Forgiveness? It is one thing for leaders to decide, based on the “realistic politics”, that they must stay out of a conflict that they consider – correctly or incorrectly – irrelevant to their national interests. It is also only fair that countries in the global south point to the West’s long history of hypocrisy in choosing for which tragedies, in which part of the world, and under which circumstances it is worth being idealistic and which can be ignored or even tolerated.

But adopting and relaying Putin’s own propaganda narratives is unacceptable. Was only putin who decided to attack Ukraine, and who has kept changing his reasons for doing so ever since. Apparently he is now fighting satanism in the Ukraine. He is an old-fashioned imperialist and dictator, bent on subjugating and colonizing a smaller neighbor, in violation of all international norms.

One day, the tragic war in Ukraine will end after negotiations. But it is not up to Lula, or anyone else, to tell a country that is fighting for its own survival that the time has come to sit down and negotiate with the invaders. If Lula can’t understand the moral geometry in Ukraine, Europe and the world, he doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously.

By Andreas Kluth