In May, China and Brazil offered a proposal to be mediators in peace discussions between Ukraine and Russia over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia is in support of this “China-Brazil peace initiative”, with Putin openly backing the plan and even suggesting India to be a third mediator country. However, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated that the initiative was disrespectful towards Ukraine—the Ukrainian government was not even included in the process of establishing this peace initiative, despite Zelenskiy offering to discuss the proposal. Zelenskiy also stated that he views Brazil and China’s governments to be more pro-Russian, which would make them inadequate as mediators between the two countries.
The most notable part of this article to me is which countries are being backed by Putin to be mediators between Russia and Ukraine. Brazil, China, India… They all have something in common: they are main member countries, along with Russia itself, in the BRICS economic IGO. BRICS was created in 2001 as an economic league between the largest developing economies, and this economic cooperation has also strengthened political relationships between its member countries. I can see why Zelenskiy would see these countries as being pro-Russia, especially considering their refusal to directly condemn Russia’s invasion and unwarranted attacks of Ukraine. Russia, Brazil, and China are essentially suggesting a peace conference between one violent country and another country acting in self defense mediated by countries with direct ties to only the offending party. On top of that, they did not even discuss this plan with Ukrainian officials. This proposal has clearly raised tensions between Ukraine and Brazil, as well as Ukraine and China. It is disrespectful, and it is a proposal with complete disregard for Ukraine’s leaders and its integrity as a country.
Historically, peace talks between conflicting countries have taken place on neutral ground and were mediated by neutral countries. However, the Swiss peace conference held in June was rejected by Russia for being “too pro-Ukraine”. It appears that Russia is not interested in peace unless it gets what it wants, which makes it harder for everyone involved to negotiate an end to this conflict. What Russia wants is control of the disputed Russian-majority territories in Ukraine, especially Crimea, which Russia claims as its own. The invasion was meant in part to “regain” these territories and in part as a final Russian power play to attempt to get other countries’ respect or fear considering the steep decline in Russia’s working class population causing issues domestically. The bottom line there, however, is that it is 2024 and just invading another country to claim its land is not acceptable on the global stage. In my opinion, there should be no Brazil-China peace initiative, because these countries are not recognizing how wrong Russia’s actions have been. Instead, NATO should be getting more involved in this conflict and shutting Russia down, not only to protect Ukraine, or even to protect its member states in close proximity to Ukraine, but to send a clear message to the world that invasions like these will no longer be tolerated on a global level.