Ukraine’s government has included former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the PT candidate to try to return to office in October, on a list of “speakers promoting Russian propaganda narratives.”
The accusation was published on the website of the Center for Containment of Disinformation, an entity created by President Volodymyr Zelensky last year that is part of the information war between Russia and Ukraine from the perspective of what Kiev considers fake news and Kremlin manipulations.
Lula is the only Brazilian in a list of 78 people, 30 of whom are Americans. He is there for two reasons, according to the center: he said that Russia should lead a new world order and that Zelensky is as much to blame for the war as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There is no record of PT having said the first statement. During his eight years in office (2003-10), Lula promoted a foreign policy focused on South-South relations, in which Russia was a founding member of the BRICS, a political-economic bloc that unites Brazil, China, India and South Africa. South too.
On numerous occasions the then president and members of his government praised the idea of an alternative to diplomacy dominated by the US and Europe, which is quite different from saying that Russia should dominate the international system.
The second sentence is in the controversial interview given by Lula to the American magazine Time, in May. In it, he stated: ”I keep watching the president of Ukraine on television as if he were celebrating, being given a standing ovation by all the parliaments, you know? This guy is as responsible as Putin. He is as responsible as Putin. Because in a war has not just one culprit”.
Lula’s adviser said he would not comment on the case, but recalled that PT condemned the invasion of Ukraine. He considers criticism of Lula’s speech a matter of “bad will”.
Even among PT’s allies, there was a reading that, regardless of the merit of the opinion, it could have been toned down, since Kiev was the object of Moscow’s aggression. But there was not the usual exploitation by his biggest rival, President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), for a simple reason: the president agrees with his predecessor.
This is the second interaction between the conflict in Eastern Europe and the Brazilian election. Last week, Zelenski gave an interview to Rede Globo and criticized the position of neutrality advocated by Bolsonaro. Brazil condemned the invasion in a resolution at the UN (United Nations), but did not adhere to the sanctions regime against Moscow.
It did so for economic interests: it wanted to keep the flow of Russian fertilizers to Brazilian agribusiness and, now, it seeks to negotiate the purchase of diesel at discounted prices to alleviate the fuel inflationary crisis.
The path, criticized by Zelensky, who sees the relativization of relations with Moscow as something equivalent to the West’s attempt to appease Adolf Hitler before the Second World War, is not unique to Brazil.
China and India, not coincidentally members of the BRICS, brutally increased the import of Russian hydrocarbons, generating criticism that they indirectly help to finance the war. In addition, Itamaraty has historically advocated negotiated conflict solutions, avoiding taking sides.
The Ukrainian center list is arbitrary, but has no practical effect. There, diplomatically, there are no heads of state: Bolsonaro, who visited Putin and offered him solidarity a week before the war, does not attend.
Candidates for president, however, are there. In addition to Lula, two losers in this year’s French election are included: Marine Le Pen and Eric Zammour are criticized for pro-Moscow positions. France, led by Emmanuel Macron, is often targeted in Kiev for its less aggressive stance on Putin. Perhaps not by chance, it is the second country with the most names in the index, 12.
The publication, made on July 14, was highlighted by the British website UnHerd on Monday (25). The publication listened to some of the people listed there, such as the American political scientist John Mearshimer, an advocate of the so-called realist line of international relations who has always pointed to the West’s attitude towards Russia as part of the roots of the conflict.
“When they fail to debunk your arguments with facts and logic, they defame you. I argue that it is clear from the available evidence that Russia invaded Ukraine because the US and its European allies were determined to make the country a Western stronghold.” stated.
This has been a central geopolitical focal point for understanding the crisis since Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, but the mere discussion has been banned in much of the West because it ends up resembling a justification for war. What it is not: understanding reasons, or problematizing common sense, does not imply endorsement.
Another name on the list, American journalist Glenn Greenwald, on Twitter accused the government of Ukraine of McCarthyism —reference to the 1950s US witch hunt against alleged communists under the inspiration of then-Senator Joseph McCarthy.
He rightly recalls that Zelensky operates a heavy censorship of journalistic work inside Ukraine, suppressed the opposition and saw rival prisoners since he wielded power under the shadow of Putin’s bombs.
Not that the situation is much better on the other side of the trenches. Putin, who had already effectively suppressed political dissent in Russia for the past two years, has installed tough military censorship and information control in his country. Independent media has been virtually extinct and anyone accused of spreading fake news about the war, which cannot even be called that, risks getting 15 in jail.
