Brazilian President Lula da Silva reiterated calls for peace on June 5, urging Russia to restrain attacks on Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to "respond" to Operation Spiderweb.
Ukraine on June 1 launched a game-changing drone attack on four key Russian military airfields, damaging 41 planes, including heavy bombers and rare A-50 spy planes.
The operation, dubbed Spiderweb, took 18 months to plan and was overseen directly by President Volodymyr Zelensky and carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). The SBU said 117 drones, launched from concealed trucks positioned across Russian territory, simultaneously struck airfields in at least four regions — including sites thousands of kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
During a phone call with Putin on June 4, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Putin vowed that Moscow "will have to respond" to the attack.
"It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace. President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields," Trump said of the call following the conversation with Putin.
"I see that Trump tweeted saying he had discussed this with Ukraine and that things are not looking good, and that Putin had said he would take revenge for this attack on Ukraine," Lula told reporters, urging restraint on additional attacks.
Lula added that he urged Putin to end the war in Ukraine during a phone call with the Russian president in May that urged Putin to physically attend peace talks in Istanbul. Putin ultimately did not attend peace talks and instead sent a delegation to meet on his behalf.
"I said (to Putin) it's time to open our eyes and to put an end to the insanity of war, which destroys everything and builds nothing," Lula told reporters during a visit to France.
Despite two rounds of negotiations, Russia continues to reject a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Putin on June 4 blamed Ukraine’s top leadership for the attacks: "The current Kyiv regime does not need peace at all," he said during a televised meeting with senior officials. "What is there to talk about? How can we negotiate with those who rely on terror?"
Olena Goncharova
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