The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will begin an official trip to Spain on Tuesday amid the concern of the United States and the European Union about his position on the war in Ukraine.

The EU “is concerned about Brazil’s position on Russia’s war against Ukraine and about Brazil’s lack of commitment on climate and environmental issues,” reveals an internal document ahead of the meeting of EU foreign ministers and which had Political access.

In recent weeks, Lula has not only worried the most important Western foreign ministries, but has also had to apologize to video game lovers and mental health specialists. In these days she also puzzled with some statements in Portugal, the country where she is on an official visit.

Lula has the theory that Ukraine and Russia wanted war, and for this reason he considers both responsible for what has been happening since February 2002. The way out he envisions is an agreement between the two countries.

“Putin cannot keep the territory of Ukraine. Perhaps the Crimea will be discussed. But what he invaded again, he has to rethink. Zelenski cannot want it all either,” the Brazilian head of state said during a breakfast with journalists in Brasilia to beginning of the month.

During his visit to Portugal, the local Ukrainian community sent him a critical letter regretting his position on the war. And in those same hours he spoke of creating a “peace club” made up of impartial countries to mediate in the war. That diffuse “club” would include China, a possibility that worries the United States. Mauro Vieira, the foreign minister, elaborated on the matter, and the reaction of the United States was between nervous and unusual.

Lula is “parroting propaganda” from China and Russia, said John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council. Karine Jean-Pierre, White House spokeswoman, appealed for better forms, but the same background: “We were shocked by the tone of the Foreign Minister’s press conference, which did not use a tone of neutrality and suggested that the United States and Europe are not interested in peace or that they share the responsibility for war, that is completely wrong.”

Thus, the mediation that Lula intends to lead does not seem to be viable. During his visit to Portugal, which runs until Monday, Lula was seen upset by questions from a journalist from the Portuguese news agency about his position on Ukraine. “I don’t understand the question,” the Brazilian head of state, who intends to make his country a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UN), answered twice.

Lula and the Portuguese Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, signed a series of agreements to relaunch the bilateral relationship, catatonic during the four years of Jair Bolsonaro. Lisbon wants the Luso-Brazilian summit to be held annually from now on. Costa announced investments in Brazil by the Portuguese companies Galp and EDP for an amount of 5.7 billion reais (about 1.1 billion euros) in the coming years.

Ukraine was not the only headache for Lula, whom, according to the Brazilian press, his advisers are trying to isolate him from the media so that he speaks as little as possible.

The Brazilian president had to apologize recently for saying that the attacker at a nursery in the southern state of Santa Catarina, with a balance of four children dead, had some screws missing.

“I have always heard that the World Health Organization has always said that humanity should have more or less 15 percent of people with a mental disability problem. If this figure is true, and we take Brazil with 220 million inhabitants, It means that we have almost 30 million people with a problem of loose screws. In an hour a catastrophe can occur,” said the president.

The associations linked to mental health raised a cry to heaven, and Lula admitted his mistake: “I would like to apologize for a speech I gave last week during a meeting on violence in schools. I have spoken and listened to many people in recent days and I’m not ashamed to assume that I’m still learning and looking to evolve”.

The gamer community was also upset by a reflection by the president about video games: “They are not games that talk about love, they are not games that talk about education. They are games that teach children to kill, they show more death than in World War II World”.

The one who came out at the crossroads this time was one of Lula’s sons, Luiz Claudio, a fan of video games: “My father saw his children and grandchildren grow up playing video games, he knows that this did not make us violent, he made a statement on a topic controversial live and ended up generalizing. The video game is much more than violence, it is art, it is leisure, it is entertainment”.

In Portugal there was also a gaffe, a comment from the president that was intended to be nice, but ended up offending the Portuguese community in Brazil. According to Lula, in Brazil it is impossible to go to a “padaría” (bar) in the morning without talking to a Portuguese man who will take care of you. Appealing to the “cliché” of “padaría Portuguese”, which generates rejection to the Portuguese residents in Brazil, was shown to be a bad idea during a state visit.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project