Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva departed the G7 summit in Alberta, Canada, on June 17 without holding a planned meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, leaving Kyiv's request for bilateral talks unfulfilled.

The encounter, which had been proposed by the Ukrainian side, reportedly fell victim to scheduling delays that pushed the G7 programme back by more than an hour, according to advisers to the Brazilian president. With Lula required to catch a flight to Brazil at 9:30pm local time, his team concluded that proceeding with the Zelensky meeting would jeopardise his departure slot.

This marks the second consecutive G7 summit where the two leaders have failed to meet despite scheduled bilateral talks. At the 2023 gathering in Hiroshima, a different sort of diplomatic impasse emerged when both sides proved unwilling to make the symbolic gesture of visiting the other's accommodation, a move that would have signalled deference. The pair eventually met a few months later in New York for the opening of the UN General Assembly.

The scheduling mishap proved particularly frustrating against the backdrop of broader diplomatic turbulence at the Canadian summit. According to Reuters, Zelensky left the gathering with fresh Canadian military aid worth $1.47bn but voiced concerns that "diplomacy is now in a state of crisis" after missing opportunities to secure additional weapons commitments from Washington.

The Ukrainian leader had hoped to press US President Donald Trump for more military support, but those discussions never materialised as Trump departed the summit a day early to address escalating Middle East tensions. Trump’s early exit and his ambivalent stance vis-à-vis Vladimir Putin had already complicated efforts to forge G7 unity on Ukraine policy.

Relations between Lula and Zelensky had previously grown strained following controversial statements by the Brazilian leader, and reached a nadir in May when Lula travelled to Moscow to attend Victory Day celebrations. Still, CNN Brasil reports that contacts have resumed in recent months. Last month, Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira held telephone discussions with his Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sybiha regarding the ongoing war with Russia, reiterating Brazil's position advocating for direct negotiations between Zelensky and Putin.

Despite the diplomatic setbacks, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney managed to secure a chair statement expressing G7 support for Trump's peace efforts whilst calling on Russia to match Ukraine's commitment to an unconditional ceasefire. The statement emphasised the group's resolve to "explore all options to maximise pressure on Russia, including financial sanctions,” as reported by Reuters.

The missed opportunity for face-to-face talks between Lula and Zelensky comes at a time when Brazil has been seeking to position itself as a potential mediator in the Ukraine conflict, though its approach has drawn criticism from Western allies who view some of Lula's statements as insufficiently supportive of Kyiv's position.

Last year, Brazil drafted peace proposals jointly with China. However, Lula has repeatedly declined invitations from Zelensky to visit Kyiv, while the Ukrainian leader turned down the Sino-Brazilian peace plan, dismissing it as “destructive.”

The 79-year-old Brazilian president, who was recently added to the Myrotvorets “enemies of Ukraine database,” has maintained close ties with Putin following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. His recent Moscow visit, during which he appealed for a temporary ceasefire, saw the signing of wide-ranging agreements covering defence, nuclear energy and scientific collaboration.

Yet Lula has not spared criticism of Russia's aggression. During a recent trip to France, the Brazilian leader said that “Brazil condemned, from the start, Russia's violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity and has been standing for peace for three years. I told Putin it was time to end the war; I advised him to meet Zelensky in Istanbul. And I regret that he did not go."