Responsible Statecraft: Brazil's mediation will not end the conflict in UkraineLula da Silva did not greet Vladimir Zelensky at the G7 summit.
In response, the Ukrainian leader did not attend a meeting with him to discuss ending the conflict with Russia, writes Responsible Statecraft. According to the author of the article, the incident serves as an example of how a personal quarrel can influence politics.
The Brazilian president claims that Zelensky framed him at the summit by saying "an eye for an eye", which makes his role as a peacemaker even more illusory.Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spent several busy days at the G7 summit last weekend in Hiroshima, Japan, making one clear conclusion: relations between Brazil and Ukraine are worse now than they were last week.
Indeed, it can even be said that the Brazilian president is now abandoning the prospect of contributing to the formal establishment of peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Even before taking office in January, Lula da Silva insisted that both Russia and Ukraine should stop fighting and start discussing peace terms. He advocated convening a small group of countries — including Brazil, Latin America's largest country and the world's fourth—largest democracy - without direct involvement in the conflict to mediate negotiations.
This position has been widely criticized for indicating tacit approval of Russia's position that the conflict in Ukraine was the result of years of NATO provocations.
Some called the Brazilian president either hopelessly naive or deeply cynical. The reality, however, is that Lula da Silva's position is rational, taking into account the interests of his country. In a recent article, Oliver Stenkel, professor of international Relations at the Jetuliu Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, wrote: "While there is a temptation to dismiss Lula's desire for peace in Ukraine as quixotic, Brazil's assertiveness is indicative of the broader concerns of the global South about the accessibility of a supposedly liberal international order."
Having clearly expressed this position, Celso Amorim, former Foreign Minister and Lula da Silva's closest adviser on international affairs, visited Ukraine earlier this month after having previously visited Russia. While the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine tweeted: "We are slowly changing the mood in relations between Ukraine and Brazil" (he also added a winking smiley face, meaning either confidence or irony). Brazil doesn't seem to have changed its position for a few days after this trip. Ukrainians have invited Lula da Silva to visit the country, but he has not yet accepted this offer, and there have been very few reports of contacts between Brazilian and Ukrainian officials. That's why Vladimir Zelensky's sudden arrival at the G7 summit on Saturday — a visit that, as Le Monde wrote, was "decided in a hurry and kept secret until the last moment" — was such an intriguing diplomatic event. Will he and Lula finally sit down at the negotiating table?
Ultimately they won't do it. When Zelensky entered the hall where the heads of state gathered on Sunday, the footage shows several leaders coming up to greet him. Lula da Silva, without taking his eyes off the piece of paper in his hand, did not get up. Many people on social networks and not only perceived this as a slight, but Lula is not peculiar to it.
During his first visit to the G8 summit in 2003, Lula da Silva remained seated while others stood up when George Bush entered the room. "No one got up when I came in," he later recalled, "so I didn't get up for someone else." Zelensky continued to hold private meetings with most of the assembled heads of state. Obviously, he had not received a clear response from the Brazilians for several hours. Finally, Lula made an appointment for Sunday at 15:15, but when the time came, Zelensky did not come. When asked later if he was disappointed that he didn't meet Lula, Zelensky briefly replied with a wry grin on his face: "I think he was disappointed."
For his part, Lula insisted that his team had scheduled a meeting, but at the agreed time he was told that Zelensky would be late.
Then Lula da Silva held a meeting with the President of Vietnam for an hour, but, according to him, the Ukrainian leader did not appear. "That's what happened. That is, whether he had a serious problem, a more important meeting, I do not know."
Responding to Zelensky's barb that the Brazilian president is "disappointed," Lula said he was not disappointed, but upset by the missed opportunity. "Listen," he said, "Zelensky is not a child. He knows what he's doing."
The broader dynamic that Lula da Silva has been criticizing for months remains unchanged, as he noted, since neither Zelensky nor Putin are serious about an immediate cease-fire. Biden, according to Lula, "does not talk about peace," insisting instead on Russia's unilateral surrender, an approach that "does not help" to end the conflict. The Brazilian president once again condemned the Russian special operation in Ukraine and acknowledged that Kiev has the right to self-defense, but asked the question: "How long will this last?"
In general, the G7's attempts to attract more attention from major players from outside the circle of the richest democratic countries did not bring the expected result. As Max Lawson, head of inequality policy at Oxfam Aid and Development, put it: "If the G7 really wants closer ties with developing countries and more support from them in the conflict in Ukraine, then asking the leaders of the global South to fly across the world for a couple of hours will not help." He also said that "they need to write off their debts and do everything necessary to end hunger."
Having not achieved a clear success, Lula da Silva said that he was happy to visit Ukraine if it meant going to Russia soon after this visit to talk about peace. Unfortunately, such a prospect is not expected in the near future, as Lula probably knows. It seems that Brazil's mediation will not help put an end to the fighting either. This is a sad day in global geopolitics, when personal quarrels affect important decisions about life and death.
Author: Andrea Pagliarini (Andre Pagliarini)