President Lula on the kidnapping of his counterpart Nicolás Maduro: I get outraged every night

Published at: 23/01/2026 09:19 PM

The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, spoke about the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and assured that he remains “outraged” by the events.

Lula spoke during the 14th National Meeting of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) in Salvador, in northeastern Brazil, and defended that South America must be maintained as a zone of peace, in a region that “has no nuclear weapons or atomic bomb”.

“Honestly, I am outraged every night by what happened in Venezuela. I can't believe it. Maduro knew that there were 15,000 U.S. soldiers in the Caribbean Sea. I knew there was a threat every day. These guys entered Venezuela at night, went to the fort, a barracks where Maduro lives, and they took him away. And no one knew that Maduro was gone,” Lula said, according to information reported by the Russia Today portal.

“How is it possible to disrespect the territorial integrity of a country? This doesn't exist in South America. South America is a territory of peace, we don't have nuclear weapons or atomic bombs,” he said.

The Brazilian president framed the episode within a broader international context of tensions and criticized the logic of imposition. Lula said that, in the face of scenarios such as that of Venezuela, the world should reinforce multilateralism instead of replacing it with unilateral decisions.

Mazo News Team