Brazil rejects US criticism of its position on the war in Ukraine: “We are only looking for peace”

The Ukrainian community in Portugal calls to protest against Lula on his official visit to Lisbon next week

18 (EUROPA PRESS)

Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira has refuted US criticism of his country’s position on the war in Ukraine and stressed that the only thing that interests the Brazilian authorities is promoting peace.

“I can’t say anything because I haven’t heard anything and I don’t know what it’s about,” Vieria responded to the spokesman for the National Security Council of the United States, John Kirby, who assured that the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, would be “parroting propaganda” Russian and Chinese.

“What I can say is that Brazil and Russia this year complete 195 years of diplomatic relations with resident ambassadors and, in short, they are two countries that have a common history (…) Brazil wants to promote peace,” he said after meet in Brasilia with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

Thus, he has stressed that Brazil “is ready to join a group of countries that are willing to talk about peace” and that this has been stated to Lavrov in the meeting that both have held.

“The president did not talk about war either, he only reiterated what he already said, that Brazil is willing to cooperate for peace,” he stressed in relation to Lula’s latest statements about the crisis in Ukraine, reports ‘Folha de Sao Paulo’ .

In recent hours, Washington has reacted with criticism of Lula’s words about the war as it passed through China and the United Arab Emirates, from where he accused the United States and the European Union of promoting the war by supplying weapons to Ukraine.

PROTESTS BY UKRAINIANS AND THE EXTREME RIGHT AGAINST LULA DURING HIS VISIT TO PORTUGAL

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian community in Portugal -the second largest after the Brazilian one- has called a protest against President Lula on the occasion of his official visit to Portugal, where he is scheduled to speak in a special session on April 25 in the Assembly of the Republic.

“We know that Lula is coming on April 25 and we are going to prepare a statement from our community because his statements do not support the end of the war. They encourage the continuation of the genocide of the Ukrainians,” the president of the Association of Ukrainians accused. in Portugal, Pavlo Sadoja, on the TSF radio station.

“Brazil is a great country, a great economic power, of course Ukraine also needs the support of these countries. We need the support of all the countries that declare themselves democratic,” said Sadoja, who assured that “some” believe that Lula wants to extract “benefits” for Brazil at the cost of Ukrainian lives.

Lula will visit Portugal officially between April 22 and 25, and his presence there will not only be used by the Ukrainian community to express their discontent with the position adopted by Brazil in the war, but also by the Portuguese ultra-right, which has already advance that he will convene his own protests and will be absent from the welcome session that the Assembly has prepared for him.