The Government of Ukraine accused former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday of trying to “distort the truth” for having stated that the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, “wanted the war” as much as his Russian colleague, Vladimir Putin.
“Former President Lula da Silva talks about the guilt of Ukraine or the West in the war; These are attempts to distort the truth.” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podoliak said.
Zelensky’s adviser maintained that “it is simple: Russia treacherously attacked Ukrainethe war is only on the territory of Ukraine and Russia massively kills civilians.”
It is a “classic war of destruction and occupation,” Podoliak added in a message posted on his Twitter account, in Ukrainian and English.
In an interview published Wednesday by the US magazine Time, Lula said that “Zelenski is as responsible for the war as Putin, because in the war there is not a single culprit”.
He argued that Zelenksi “wanted the war” and added: “If he had not wanted the war, he would have negotiated a little more, it is so”.
Although he clarified that he criticized Putin and that he considers that the Russian invasion of Ukraine “was a mistake,” Lula maintained that “people are stimulating hatred against Putin” and “this is not going to solve anything.”
“I don’t know the president of Ukraine” but “his behavior is a bit strange, because it seems that he is part of a show” when “he appears on television morning, noon and nighthe appears in the British parliament, in the German, in the French, as if he were campaigning,” said the former Brazilian president.
