Skip to main content
Lula offers hope of a different approach to Ukraine – but sadly his summit with Scholz shows Europe is unlikely to grasp it
VICTOR GROSSMAN reflects on the dangerous groupthink pushing ever more arms to Ukraine
DIFFERENT PATHS: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrives with Brazil’s President Lula to deliver a statement on Ukraine and Russia to the press at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil

CHANCELLOR Olaf Scholz, after bowing to belligerent pressures from US and Nato war hawks, flew off on his first official trip to Latin America last week. After brief, uneventful courtesy visits to Chile and Argentina he landed in Brazil, hoping to wean the world’s fifth-largest country into the Nato and European cradle – and away from the West’s Russian and Chinese rivals.

The closing press conference with Lula was full of smiles and back-slapping, at first! “We are all happy that Brazil is back on the world stage,” Scholz assured us. But then, suddenly, he got the happiness kicked out from under him.

No, Brazil would not send to Ukraine the desired parts of the German-made Gepard air defence tanks and no ammunition either. Lula declared: “Brazil has no interest in handing over munitions that can be used in the war between Ukraine and Russia. We are a country committed to peace.”

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Morning Star call for advertising
More from this author
metz
Features / 21 March 2025
21 March 2025
VICTOR GROSSMAN believes peace in Ukraine needs to come before anything else and abhors the EU's insane drive to keep the war going on
march
Features / 21 February 2025
21 February 2025
VICTOR GROSSMAN reports, with a little chuckle, on how US readiness to work with Russia, not just on peace for Ukraine, has thrown a spanner into the German electoral machine
8germany
Features / 26 March 2024
26 March 2024
Although Chancellor Scholz has ruled out sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine, the atmosphere in Germany is one of mounting ‘war readiness,’ while the left remains worryingly divided, warns VICTOR GROSSMAN
A man holds a sign reading
Features / 25 January 2024
25 January 2024
We can only hope the charismatic leftist Sahra Wagenknecht’s new party can beat the AfD, as the increasingly out-of-touch ruling caste in government prepares Germany for huge, belligerent ‘war games,’ writes VICTOR GROSSMAN
Similar stories
metz
Features / 21 March 2025
21 March 2025
VICTOR GROSSMAN believes peace in Ukraine needs to come before anything else and abhors the EU's insane drive to keep the war going on
8sevimdagdelen
Features / 27 November 2024
27 November 2024
Anti-imperialist organisation Liberation conducts a Q&A with German MP SEVIM DAGDELEN on the attitudes of the ‘war-drunk’ main German political parties, Nato policy-makers’ detachment from reality and the prospect of bringing about a common platform for de-escalation