Lula's side
The articles written by the PÚBLICO Brasil team are written in the variant of the Portuguese language used in Brazil.
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VIP guest of Russian President Vladimir Putin is the latest title of President Luiz Inácio da Silva. There is no acceptable justification for the smiling meeting between the Brazilian leader and the bloodthirsty Russian dictator, which was splashed across the front pages of the newspapers. If he thought it was important for Brazil to be represented at the ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Moscow, Lula would have sent former Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, who is accustomed to fraternizing with dictators on behalf of his government.
Brazil's commercial and other interests should be handled by ministers and other officials in the sectors responsible for these specific issues. This is not the case. President Lula should not play this shameful role alongside Putin. His presence and that of the First Lady, Janja da Silva, in Moscow serve mainly to reinforce the false idea that Putin is not isolated in the world because of the criminal invasion of Ukraine.
The prospect of someone knowing about and witnessing crimes in a merely passive and inactive manner — such as those occurring in the invasion of Ukraine — without doing anything objectively to put an end to the atrocities committed, turns the observer into an accomplice. Going to Russia to participate in the ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II represents support for your host, Vladimir Putin.
In Moscow, Lula was alongside dictators and autocrats such as Xi Jinping of China, Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Miguel Diaz-Canel of Cuba, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, as well as representatives from Indonesia, Serbia, Slovakia and other former Soviet republics. Lula chose to celebrate the date in Moscow, ignoring events held in liberal democracies, which celebrated Victory in Europe Day on May 8.
The choice is yet another political gesture to get closer to Putin. It shows that Lula has a side, and it is not Ukraine's. Brazil does not have a tradition of celebrating Victory Day in Europe, holding only a few ceremonies in honor of the soldiers, but Lula chose to participate in Putin's party. The Russian celebration on a different date from other countries represents a ploy by the Russian dictator to make the population believe that the Soviet Union was responsible for the victory over Nazi Germany.
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