The presence in Moscow of Chinese President Xi Jinping once again raises hopes that Russia and Ukraine can at least resume peace contacts abandoned almost a year ago. The Chinese leader arrived in the Russian capital yesterday to meet with the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, and is the bearer of the peace plan that his country unveiled in February. Beijing wants to play an important mediating role, a possibility welcomed by Russia, but viewed with skepticism by Western countries, given its good relations with Moscow. Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky has shown interest in speaking with the Chinese leader, which could take place after this trip.
Beijing assured last week that this visit is a trip “of peace and friendship.” In it, he will try to strengthen the relationship with Moscow. Russia tries to present the meeting between the two presidents as evidence that it has powerful support in the face of a West that it says is hostile and trying to destroy Russia.
Xi Jinping’s trip to Moscow, his first trip abroad since he was elected for a third term as Chinese president, will serve to strengthen friendship and cooperation between the two countries, which are based on the “concept of eternal friendship and cooperation mutually beneficial,” he wrote in an article published yesterday by the Russian state newspaper Rosiskaya Gazeta.
During Putin’s visit to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, weeks before Russian troops entered Ukraine, Moscow and Beijing proclaimed their friendship “without limits.”
But Xi also brought under his arm to Moscow the 12-point Chinese proposal that he made public last month, when it was a year of armed conflict.
“The document serves as a constructive factor to neutralize the consequences of the crisis and promote a political solution,” Xi says in Rosiskaya Gazet a. In the article, the Chinese leader claims that Beijing is making “active efforts” to help bring peace to Ukraine. And he was convinced that he will find a “rational way out of the crisis and a path towards solid peace and global security.”
China has not explicitly supported Russia in its intervention in Ukraine, but it has opposed sanctions against Moscow, as “they do not solve the problems.”
Vladimir Putin received his guest in the Kremlin yesterday, where they held an informal meeting, whose preambles were broadcast on Russian television. “We are always open to a negotiation process. We will certainly discuss all these issues, including your initiatives, which we treat with respect,” Putin said.
However, Russia maintains its maximalist positions. Whether there are negotiations, Putin stressed, depends on the Ukrainian government’s willingness to accept the new “realities”.
This position is not new and Moscow has repeated it in recent months every time the possibility of returning to a dialogue table like the one Turkey offered last year has been put on the table. Moscow basically wants Kyiv to agree to lose the Donbass (Luhansk and Donetsk in the east) plus the southern provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhia.
In September 2022, Putin proclaimed the annexation of these territories, despite the fact that Russian troops do not fully control them. The pro-Russian authorities in these regions organized referendums described by Kyiv and its Western partners as a “farce”. And, of course, nothing to talk about the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014.
After the face-to-face meeting, the two leaders continued their meeting in an even familiar way, over dinner. In it, diplomacy and geopolitics were accompanied by sturgeon soup and roast deer, among other Russian delicacies with which Putin treated Xi, according to what journalist Pável Zarubin published on Telegram.
Positions on a diplomatic end to the current conflict continue to be found and, for the moment, seem immovable.
If Russia talks about “new realities”, Ukraine, which has courteously followed the Chinese peace plan, asked Beijing yesterday to “use its influence to force Moscow to end its aggressive war”, the ministry spokesman said. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Oleg Nikolenko, quoted by the Ukrainian news agency Unián. Last week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dimitro Kuleba spoke by phone with his Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang. In that call he stressed that the territorial restoration of Ukraine should be at the center of diplomatic efforts.
Like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin also wrote an article before the meeting, which appeared in the official Chinese newspaper People’s Daily. In it, he thanked “China’s balanced approach to the Ukrainian issue” and was satisfied with Beijing’s willingness to “play a constructive role” in this crisis.
True, only the preambles of the contacts in Moscow were seen yesterday. Xi Jinping’s visit continues on Tuesday with meetings of both delegations and a final press conference with the leaders. The Chinese president will leave the Russian capital on Wednesday.
It will be necessary to be attentive to any sign that indicates that the good words have managed to move the positions of both Moscow and Kyiv.
Then there will be Chinese contacts with Ukraine. Qin told Kuleba last week that China will try to help “a cessation of hostilities, the alleviation of the crisis and the restoration of peace between Ukraine and Russia.”
The Government of Ukraine later stated that it is preparing the videoconference that, according to various media, Zelenski could hold with Xi Jinping after the Chinese president concludes his visit to Moscow.
