CNN — You talk a lot about democracy, Mr President, and it looks like you’re going to come up against President Biden on a key defense of the United States, of democracy around the world – and that is Ukraine. You do not believe, I don’t think, in the Western support for Ukraine’s defense, and you have said it many times. Why not? I mean, some people have asked, in fact, in an article: why is Lula so committed to democracy at home and not abroad?
President Lula — I’m extremely committed to democracy anywhere on planet Earth. I think that, in the case of Ukraine and Russia, there has to be someone who speaks in peace, there must be interlocutors to try to talk with both sides. This is my thesis, that is, we must find interlocutors who can sit down with President Putin and show him the mistake he made by invading the territorial integrity of Ukraine; and we have to show Ukraine that it is crucial to learn to talk more to avoid this war; we must stop this war. So what am I going to talk to President Biden about? I don’t know what he’s going to talk to me about, but what I want to talk to him about is that a group of countries must be established to negotiate peace.
CNN — You have those countries: the BRICs. You’re one of them. Russia, China, India. None of them seems to want to talk about peace: they’re just basically talking about Russia.
President Lula — I want to talk about peace, I want to talk about peace with Putin, I want to talk about peace with President Biden, I want to talk about peace with Xi Jinping, I want to talk about peace with India, I want to talk about peace with Indonesia, I want to talk about peace with everyone, because to me the world will only develop if there is peace, if there is tranquility.
CNN — Okay, that’s nice – but do you believe that a country which is a sovereign, independent, democratic country like your own, like Ukraine, has the right to self-defense and to defend itself against an illegal invasion?
President Lula — Of course it has the right to defend itself, because the invasion was a mistake by Russia; it could not have done that – and after all it is part of the National Security Council, and wasn’t this discussed in the Security Council? So what I want to say is this: Look, whatever wrongdoing that had to be done has already been. Now, we must find people to try to help fix it. And I know that Brazil isn’t very important on the world stage, you know, in this perverse logic of the world’s conflicts, but I can tell you that I’m going to commit to seeing if I can find a way for someone to talk in peace. I was with the German Chancellor these days; he was in Brazil.
CNN — He asked you to send his Leopards to Ukraine and you said no.
President Lula — It was to send ammunition and I didn’t want to send it, because I said that, if I send it, I’ll join the war, I said if I send you know the ammunition you’re asking for I’ll join the war, I don’t want to join the war, I want to end the war. This is my dilemma and this is my commitment, you know; Läs intervjun