The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, reminded his Brazilian counterpart, Lula da Silva, on Tuesday that the Ukrainians are victims of the Russian invasion and that “the war is not in Brazil”, withdrawing territorial concessions and asking for respect from the independent states. .
“The war is concretely in Ukraine, the victims are concretely Ukrainians. They are not Brazilians, nor other Europeans, nor Americans. They are concretely tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, who died or were injured, it is our homes that were attacked or bombed, not the houses in Brazil or other countries,” Zelensky said in a fragment of an interview with RTP, which will be broadcast in its entirety tonight.
When asked to comment on Lula da Silva’s statements last week at the BRICS Summit that “Brazil does not contemplate unilateral formulas for peace”, the Ukrainian leader stated that “in order to say something, it is necessary to understand who the victim and who to the aggressor”, adding: “It is not a unilateral way, it is a formula of the country that suffers all this, that suffers the war and in the territory in which the war is taking place. Period”.
Despite condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24 last year, the Brazilian president had already admitted in April the cession of Crimea, illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, as a way out of the conflict and, at the summit of the The BRICS once again called for a negotiated peace and the abandonment of an “outdated Cold War mentality.”
In reaction, Zelensky declared that Ukraine is a democratic country and intends to involve “as many countries as possible” in the Kiev peace formula, which calls for the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine and rejects any territorial concessions. However, he said that he was open to proposals.
“But if these proposals are in any way based on giving up any part of our territory, then that is not consistent, firstly with our thoughts, and secondly, it is certainly not compatible with our territorial integrity and sovereignty,” the president said. Ukrainian leader. insisting that “the people must respect the territories of the independent states”.
Contrary to criticism of Lula da Silva, in an interview with RTP, Zelensky praised the visit to Kiev last week of his Portuguese counterpart, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who, in a ceremony held on the 32nd anniversary of the independence of Ukraine, held on August 24, made a brief intervention in Ukraine.
The gesture did not come as a surprise to the Ukrainian president, who said he appreciated it, despite “some accent”, but that it denoted “respect for Ukraine”.
Zelensky considered Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa “a person with a lot of charisma”, who feels the voice of his people and also of the Ukrainian people, and that the two leaders are “in unison, as the musicians say” and in this way he will achieve everything.
Source: TSF
