The striking photo of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Volodímir Zelensky meeting after the UN General Assembly this month in New York may be a good document of how the Brazilian proposal for a negotiated solution in Ukraine may be gaining strength.

In the image, distributed by the Brazilian government, a suited Lula speaks animatedly to a poker-faced Zelensky in uniform. Along with the Brazilian Foreign Minister, Mauro Vieira, is Lula’s closest advisor, former Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, the true architect of the veteran president’s ambitious foreign agenda.

Amorim met Vladimir Putin in Moscow in March, breaking protocol and angering Washington. Now, Lula, by meeting with Zelensky, whom she criticized last year for “putting on a show” instead of negotiating, has planted the other leg of non-aligned Brazilian diplomacy.

For Lula, the meeting reinforces the message that he is a sincere mediator. “Brazil is the country best positioned as a mediator to end the war precisely because it has refused to take sides,” according to Thiago Rodrigues, a foreign policy specialist at the Federal Fluminense University in Rio de Janeiro.

With war paralysis and so-called “Ukraine fatigue” growing in public opinion in the US and Europe, the time for the Brazilian option may be closer.

According to data compiled this week by The New York Times and the Institute for the Study of War, Ukraine’s so-called counteroffensive has achieved “insignificant progress” in recent months at “extreme costs.” This raises the risk of “a decline in Western support.” Russia has not achieved its objectives either.

Lula urged Zelensky during the meeting in New York to “take the demand for territorial integrity to the negotiating table and not to the battlefield,” according to sources from Brazilian journalist and writer Jamil Chade.

The president may be more receptive to the Brazilian proposal than his gesture in the photo indicates: “It was a useful meeting for Zelensky, because he has given a signal that he may be willing to agree to a negotiated solution,” said Rodrigues.

Since his first governments (2003-2011), Lula has not hidden his ambition to promote a new multipolar world order.

After years of isolationism under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, Lula, who will turn 78 in October, has launched himself onto the global circuit. She has made 13 trips abroad so far this year – the first, to Argentina; the last one, to Vietnam – despite a hip worn out by osteoarthritis that will be operated on this weekend.

It may be a case of overexposure for a Latin American country that, despite its 213 million inhabitants, has little geopolitical weight if this is measured by weapons of war or GDP. “Brazil does not have sufficient economic size to lead the transformation in global governance; The natural leader of the Global South is China,” writes Zeina Latif, columnist for the powerful Globo media group. Latif also criticizes Lula’s “anti-American ideology” and his desire to “defend her biography,”

But Brazil – historically known as the country without enemies, at least until Bolsonaro – has always been a soft power power. No less than 60 countries requested to meet with Lula during the assembly in New York.

Brazil once again has a strong role in multilateral organizations. It will host the G-20 – which brings together major developed countries with a group of developing countries – next year at a summit in Rio de Janeiro. He is the leader of the G-77, which groups the countries of the Global South.

As one of the founding countries, Brazil obtained the presidency of the BRICS development bank – held by former president Dilma Rousseff – before the incorporation of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Argentina.

“Lula is the only figure in the world who can articulate between the rich countries of the G-7 and the developing countries of the G-77,” Rodrigues said in an interview.

This is key to their role in seeking a just peace in Ukraine. Lula “expresses without fear what is believed in other countries of the Global South, which reject the idea that it is a war of good guys against bad guys,” says a former director of Unasur.

Of course, it is not only an ethical foreign policy… Brazil is interested in maintaining good relations with Russia and even more so with China. Russia is the main supplier of potassium for the fertilizers necessary for the powerful Brazilian agribusiness. China, for its part, imports 54% of the basic foods – soybeans, corn, sugar and cotton – produced in Brazil. Despite Western sanctions, trade between Brazil and Russia has soared in the last year. Brazil imports 30% of its diesel from Russia, up from 0.7% in 2022.

Despite all this, Lula maintains good relations with Washington, as was proven in the meeting with Biden after the UN assembly. “I don’t know if the US is ready to adopt the Brazilian position, but it is in its interest that people like Lula and Amorim can talk to both sides,” says Chade.

Even the big Brazilian media has learned to love Lula. “There is a lot of pragmatism in Lula’s politics, and that is why I think the Brazilian elites agree,” Rodrigues said.