Heine Offers Insight on Brazil’s Role in Russia-Ukraine War
On May 2, 2023, Jorge Heine, Research Professor at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Interim Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, published an article for Foreign Policy on Brazil’s role in mediating the end of the Russia-Ukraine War.
Heine argued that Brazil is the state with one of the best chances for mediating an end to the Russian War. Brazil, a state that practices active non-alignment as part of its foreign policy, is relatively neutral to either side in the Ukraine conflict. Brasília mainly is negotiating for an end to the war, rather than to help or hinder a particular side. As a result, Russia has not completely written it off as a state to conduct negotiations with, as evidenced by the recent meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s chief advisor Celso Amorim. Heine argued also that Western nations should stop writing off Brazil as naive and out of its depth and should support Brazil’s efforts to mediate peace.
A stalemated war—which is where Ukraine may be headed—is ultimately about economic resilience. There, Russia has the upper hand. The Brazilian mediation initiative to bring the conflict to an end soon may be an opportunity to save Ukraine—rather than the naive, misguided undertaking many in the West describe it to be.
Read the full article on the Foreign Policy website.
Ambassador Jorge Heine is a Research Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He has served as ambassador of Chile to China (2014-2017), to India (2003-2007), and to South Africa (1994-1999), and as a Cabinet Minister in the Chilean Government. Read more about Ambassador Heine on his Pardee School faculty profile.