Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has warned Washington against further instigating the conflict in Ukraine, where Russia continues its special military operation.
He told reporters after his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing that "the United States needs to stop encouraging war and start talking about peace."
"The European Union needs to start talking about peace so that we can convince [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr] Zelensky that peace is in the interest of everyone and that war is only interesting, for now, to the two of them," Lula pointed out.
He also revealed that during his sit-down with the Chinese president, they, in particular, discussed forming a group of like-minded leaders to grapple with the Ukraine conflict.
"I have a theory that I have already defended with [French President Emmanuel] Macron, with [Chancellor] Olaf Scholz of Germany, and with [US President Joe] Biden, and yesterday, we discussed at length with Xi Jinping. It is necessary to constitute a group of countries willing to find a way to make peace," Lula emphasized.
He spoke after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made it clear that the US will keep on giving military aid to Ukraine. Washington and its allies ramped up their military assistance to Kiev shortly after Russia launched the special operation in Ukraine.
Moscow has repeatedly warned countries who send weapons to Kiev it sees their military shipments as legitimate targets, and that such an aid will add to prolonging the Ukraine conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for his part, stressed that NATO allies arming and training Ukrainian forces is tantamount to a direct involvement in the standoff.