Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has stated he intends to personally persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to participate in planned peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul. Lula da Silva plans to make a stop in Moscow on his return journey from China to Brazil and will "try to talk" to Putin, as he told journalists in Beijing on Wednesday, May 14.

"I have no problem saying: 'Hey, Comrade Putin, go to Istanbul and negotiate, for heaven’s sake,'" he said. The Brazilian President attended a meeting in Beijing between Latin American representatives and China’s President Xi Jinping. In a joint statement, Lula da Silva and Xi Jinping emphasized that direct negotiations are the "only way" to end the war in Ukraine.

Commenting on the potential contacts between Putin and Lula da Silva, Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov indicated that there’s "nothing to say at the moment." "If contacts are agreed upon in any form, we will inform you immediately," the Kremlin representative told journalists on May 14.

In an effort to influence Putin, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha appealed to Brazil to support initiatives for a 30-day ceasefire and to help organize a direct meeting between Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on May 15.

"President Zelensky confirmed his willingness to meet with Putin in Turkey and called on Brazil to use its authoritative voice in dialogue with Russia to make this high-level direct meeting happen," Sybiha wrote on the social network X on May 13.

Putin has yet to respond to Zelensky’s proposal for a personal meeting in Istanbul—though the very idea of Russian-Ukrainian talks in this city, where they previously took place in 2022, was originally suggested by Russia.

  War in Ukraine, Istanbul, Brazil

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