High-level diplomats from China and Russia met in Moscow on Monday to discuss the war in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced, as the conflict enters its third year.
Sun Weidong, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of China, was received by Russian Foreign Minister Serguey Lavrov in the Russian capital.
The two “discussed a range of pressing topics, including the Ukrainian crisis and the situation on the Korean peninsula,” according to the statement.
The two countries also agreed to improve coordination in the main international organizations, including the BRICS bloc of emerging economies.
Russia assumed the bloc’s presidency earlier this year and Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country would hold a leaders’ summit in Kazan in October.
“A confidential discussion was held on ensuring security in the Eurasian space, as well as in the Asia-Pacific region, given the active attempts of the West to create small political-military blocs in the region,” the statement said, using the term which normally designates former Soviet republics.
China refused to condemn Russia for the invasion of Ukraine and criticized the imposition of sanctions once morest Moscow. The Asian country has provided important political, diplomatic and economic support to the neighboring country.
Bilateral trade recorded, in 2023, year-on-year growth of 26.3%, to 240 billion dollars (223 billion euros).
Last December, Chinese President Xi Jinping once once more stressed that maintaining robust relations with Russia is China’s “strategic choice”, during a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishoustin in Beijing. Last year alone, Putin and Xi Jinping met twice.
The Russian leader is expected to visit China this year, China’s ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui said in an interview last month.
In January, Ma Zhaoxu, China’s executive vice minister of foreign affairs, also held talks with Lavrov in Russia and co-chaired consultations between the two ministries.
Faced with growing isolation, Russia has also been intensifying its relationship with North Korea, which has significantly increased its weapons tests in recent months, despite years of economic and military sanctions by the United Nations.
In January, the White House said it had evidence that North Korea had supplied ballistic missiles to Russia and that the country intended to receive military equipment in return, a claim that Pyongyang and Moscow denied.
To force Vladimir Putin to end the war, the European Union announced last week a new round of sanctions, which covered North Korea’s defense minister and, for the first time, banned exports to three companies in China, accused of provide sensitive military technology to Russia.
