Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suggested on Thursday that Ukraine cede the Crimean peninsula to Russia to end the conflict that has been raging since February 2022, saying that his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky “can’t want it all”. .

Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot occupy the territory of Ukraine. About Crimea, maybe we could discuss. But for the other territories he invaded, he has to think again,” Lula told reporters in Brasilia.

“Zelensky cannot want everything,” the Brazilian president continued. “The world needs peace (…) We have to find a solution,” he added.

Kiev refuses to negotiate with Moscow unless Russian troops are withdrawn from all of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.

Lula made a proposal in late February, still unclear, that a group of countries mediate to end the war in Ukraine. He will outline his plan when he meets with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing next Thursday, April 13.

The president of Brazil declares that he is “sure” that the plan has a chance of success and expresses the hope that the group of countries that will mediate “will be created” after his return from China.

Lula’s main adviser on international affairs, former foreign minister Celso Amorim, met in Moscow in late March with Vladimir Putin and his government’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who is also expected in Brazil on Monday. April 17th.