Russia’s Putin, China’s Xi expected to meet for 1st time since Ukraine crisis

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, are expected to meet next week for the first time since Moscow began a military offensive in Ukraine.

Russian Ambassador to Beijing Andrey Denisov announced the planned meeting in a press conference in the Chinese capital on Wednesday, adding that the two leaders would meet on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, which will be held on September 15-16.

“In less than ten days, we will have a regular meeting of our SCO leaders in Samarkand, we are getting ready for it. In general, this summit promises to be interesting, because it will be the first full-fledged summit since the pandemic,” he said.

“I do not want to say that online summits are not full-fledged, but still, direct communication between leaders is a different quality of discussion,” Denisov said.

The meeting will be held as Moscow and Beijing boost their economic cooperation in the face of an array of unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and its European allies over Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, which began on February 24.

A day earlier, Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, said that it had signed an agreement with China to settle payments for gas in yuan and rubles instead of US dollars. Moscow’s push to trade in rubles is part of its policy to lessen its reliance on the US financial system after being hit with rafts of sanctions.

Back in June, Xi reaffirmed his country’s support for Russia’s “sovereignty and security” amid tensions between Moscow and the West over the war in Ukraine. At the time, Xi told Putin during a phone call that China was ready to “strengthen communication and coordination” with Russia in international organizations and “push the international order and global governance toward more just and reasonable development.”

This is while the US and its NATO allies have pressed the Chinese president to take a more critical stance against Russia over the war in Ukraine.

China says the anti-Russia sanctions are unilateral and not authorized by the United Nations Security Council.

China to send troops to Russia for joint 'Vostok' military drills

Chinese troops will travel to Russia for major joint military exercises amid heightened tensions with the United States over Taiwan and Ukraine.

China and Russia issued a 5,000-word statement early in February in which they slammed the expansion of NATO, calling the US-led military alliance a relic of the Cold War.

From September 1 to 7, Russia also held the Vostok 2022 (East 2022) military drills in various locations in its Far East and the Sea of Japan, involving forces from China and other nations. More than 50,000 troops and 5,000 weapons units were involved in the drills, including 140 aircraft and 60 warships, according to the Russian defense ministry.

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