Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, hoping for support against Western pressure over his war in Ukraine.
Xi will be the first national leader to shake Putin’s hand since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him on Friday over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia since its invasion. Xi will present China as a global peacemaker intent on brokering an end to the conflict.
Moscow rejects the charge and Beijing said it reflects double standards.
The Tass news agency reported that Xi had arrived in the country around noon Moscow time, his first visit since the beginning of the Ukraine invasion in February 2022. Russia is presenting Xi’s trip, also his first since securing an unprecedented third term this month, as evidence that it has a powerful friend prepared to stand with it against a hostile West that it accuses of trying to isolate and defeat Moscow.
“We can feel the geopolitical landscape in the outside world undergoing drastic changes,” Putin said in an article in China’s People’s Daily published on the Kremlin website.
China has released a 12-point proposal to solve the Ukraine crisis, but at the same time strengthened ties with Moscow.
China has repeatedly dismissed Western accusations that it is planning to arm Russia, but says it wants a closer energy partnership after boosting imports of Russian coal, gas and oil following Putin’s all-out invasion of Ukraine. Western sanctions on Russian energy mean Beijing has saved billions of dollars.
Putin visits Mariupol
China’s Ukraine peace proposal, released last month, reflects global views and acknowledges difficulties, Xi said in an article timed to his visit to Moscow.
“Complex problems do not have simple solutions,” Xi wrote in Rossiiskaya Gazeta, a daily published by the Russian government, according to a Reuters translation from Russian.
Ukraine and its Western backers would be likely to dismiss any attempt to secure a ceasefire as little more than a ploy to buy Putin time to reinforce, and delay a widely expected Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he will only consider peace settlements after Russian troops leave Ukrainian territory.
China’s proposal contains only general statements and no concrete proposal on how to end the year-long war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, destroyed cities and forced millions to flee.
Putin, who visited Russian-occupied Mariupol in Ukraine on the weekend, welcomed China’s offer to mediate. He signed a “no limits” strategic partnership with Xi last year shortly before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine to end what he said was a threat to Russia from its moves toward the West.
The United States and its allies are deeply skeptical of China’s motives, noting it has declined to condemn Russia and given it an economic lifeline as others impose sanctions.
Alongside growing oil and coal deliveries to China, Putin said Russia was helping to build nuclear power reactors there and the two countries were deepening co-operation in space exploration and new technologies.
The United States and the transatlantic military alliance NATO have recently accused China of considering supplying arms to Russia and warned it against doing so.
China has dismissed the accusations.
Meanwhile, justice ministers from around the world will meet in London on Monday to discuss support for the ICC.
“We are gathering in London today united by one cause: to hold war criminals to account for the atrocities committed in Ukraine during this unjust, unprovoked and unlawful invasion,” British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said.
Battlefield update
In Ukraine, fierce fighting continued in the eastern town of Bakhmut with each side launching counter-offensives. Ukrainian forces have held out in Bakhmut since last summer in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.
Giving its regular morning roundup from the front, Ukraine’s military said defenders in Bakhmut, Lyman, Ivanivske, Bohdanivka and Hryhorivka — all towns in the Donetsk region — had repelled 69 Russian attacks in the past day.
“Bakhmut remains the epicentre of hostilities,” it said.
WATCH | Ukrainian tells CBC News of going from Realtor to defending his country:
Rosemary Barton Live speaks with Ukrainian soldier Roman Trokhymets about life as a sniper on the battlefield and the toll it’s taking on him emotionally.
Ukraine’s military said that Russian forces were on the defensive in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to the south.
Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, which is spearheading the assault on Bakhmut and has suffered heavy losses, plans to recruit some 30,000 new fighters by the middle of May, its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said over the weekend.
In January, the United States assessed that Wagner had about 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, including 40,000 convicts Prigozhin had recruited from Russian prisons with a promise of a pardon if they survived six months.
Ukrainian officials have said that some 30,000 of Wagner’s fighters have deserted or been killed or wounded, a figure that could not be independently verified.
Meanwhile, several European Union countries will sign an agreement on Monday in Brussels to buy an unspecified amount of 155-millimetre artillery shells for Ukraine, with the first orders possibly placed by the end of May.
Ukraine has identified the shells’ supply as critical, with both sides firing thousands of rounds every day.
More Stories
Fair share: the right office solution can take finding the right partner
Ontario faces crew shortages, aircraft issues in fight against wildfires | Globalnews.ca
Refugee attends open house at Downtown Eastside affordable housing facility – BC | Globalnews.ca