Lula da Silva: EU and USA could have prevented war

In an interview with the US weekly magazine Time, Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) sharply criticised the European Union, the USA and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. They were all partly responsible for the war in Ukraine, the politician of the leftist Workers’ Party (PT), who wants to run in the presidential elections in October, said.
  He accused US President Joe Biden of having “done nothing to prevent the war”. He firmly believed that differences could be resolved through talks. Neither Biden nor EU leaders had done this sufficiently in the run-up to the Russian invasion, he said.
  “The US has great political weight. And Biden could have prevented [the war] instead of fuelling it. He could have spoken more, been more involved. Biden could have taken a plane to Moscow to talk to Putin. This is the kind of attitude you expect from a leader. Intervene to make sure things don’t get out of hand.”
  Russia should not have invaded Ukraine, Lula stressed, “but it is not only Putin who is guilty. The US and the European Union are also to blame.” They should have assured the Russian government that Ukraine would not join NATO, “that would have solved the problem,” the PT politician said. He drew a comparison with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the US and Russia agreed to remove missile sites from Turkey and Cuba to avoid an escalation with unforeseeable consequences for the world.
  The head of the Ukrainian government was “just as responsible for the war as Putin, because not only one person is guilty of the war”, da Silva continued. Zelensky had “wanted the war”, otherwise he would have “negotiated more” and proposed, for example, “to discuss NATO and EU membership further”. He had not done this. Now he was receiving standing ovations in all European parliaments and could be seen constantly on television. It was irresponsible for Western politicians to “celebrate Zelensky” instead of focusing on negotiations.
  War is not a solution, Lula affirmed. Western sanctions against the Russian Federation were unjustifiably affecting the economies of other regions. “Now we have to pay the bill for the war against Ukraine. Argentina and Bolivia will also have to pay. They are not punishing Putin. You are punishing many different countries; you are punishing humanity.” [...]  •

Source: https://amerika21.de/2022/05/257924/lula-da-silva-eu-usa-ukraine-krieg of 7 May 2022

(Translation Current Concerns)