Lula justifies his decision not to meet with Zelensky

The Ukrainian president, according to the president of Brazil, arrived late to a scheduled function at the G7 conference in Japan.

Vladimir Zelensky, the Ukrainian counterpart, allegedly skipped a scheduled bilateral meeting during the G7 conference in Hiroshima, Japan, according to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

“At 3:15 pm, I had a bilateral interview in this room with [Zelensky]. We waited and learned that he was running late,” the president, often known as Lula, said on Monday, according to Reuters.

Zelensky, he continued, “did not show up” because “clearly he had appointments and he couldn’t come.”

Lula was quoted by AFP as stating that he was “upset” that the meeting didn’t go as planned.

The itinerary that Lula’s office released before to his journey to Japan did not include a face-to-face meeting with the president of Ukraine. Nevertheless, the Brazilian team felt under pressure to set up a meeting between Lula and Zelensky, whose travel plans were not made public, according to anonymous Brazilian sources quoted by Bloomberg on Saturday.

In a later statement, Zelensky informed the media that “everyone has their schedules, so we couldn’t meet with the Brazilian president.” In March, the two leaders had a phone conversation.

Lula has denounced Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, but he has refused to support the Western-imposed sanctions against Moscow and has said no to arming Kiev. He has urged that discussions between Russia and Ukraine should end the war. If a solution is not built on conversation, it will not hold. The room for negotiations needs to be created, Lula remarked on Sunday.