Brazilian presidential frontrunner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva argued in an interview published Wednesday that world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, are not doing nearly enough to help secure a peaceful resolution to Russia’s deadly war on Ukraine, which has dragged on for more than two months with no end in sight.

“I don’t think anyone is trying to help create peace,” Lula, a globally popular leftist running to unseat far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and return to the post he held from 2003 to 2010, told TIME magazine in an interview conducted in late March.

Lula will appear on the cover of TIME‘s May 23-30 issue.

While acknowledging that Russian President Vladimir Putin “shouldn’t have invaded Ukraine,” Lula contended that Western powers such as the U.S. and the E.U.—which are pumping massive quantities of heavy weaponry into the war zone—are “also guilty” for not urgently pursuing diplomatic talks before Moscow launched its full-scale attack in late February.

“What was the reason for the Ukraine invasion? NATO? Then the U.S. and Europe should have said: ‘Ukraine won’t join NATO,'” Lula said. “The conversations were very few. If you want peace, you have to have patience. They could have sat at a negotiating table for 10, 15, 20 days, a whole month, trying to find a solution. I think dialogue only works when it is taken seriously.”