(Reuters) – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will meet with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy in New York City on Wednesday, as the wartime leader seeks to enlist Brazil’s backing in its conflict with Russia.
This first get-together between Zelenskiy and Lula, who will also meet with Biden on Wednesday, has been months in the making. The Ukrainian government asked for the meeting after the two men did not meet at the G7 summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima earlier this year.
Lula has advocated the creation of a group of nations to mediate an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, but in May he stated that both Moscow and Kyiv were to blame for the conflict, angering the United States and European states who back Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion.
Last month, the Brazilian leftist leader told reporters neither Zelenskiy nor Russian President Vladimir Putin were ready for peace.
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter)
