Vladimir Putin on Friday invited his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to pay a state visit to Russia next spring, as Moscow seeks to deepen ties with China amid growing international isolation over the war in Ukraine.
Speaking to Xi via video conference, Putin said Russia’s ties with China are the “best in history”, expressing his desire to expand military cooperation and inviting Xi to visit Moscow.
Without mentioning the war in Ukraine, Putin said he shares the same views with Xi “in the face of unprecedented pressure and provocations from the West.”
“We are waiting for you, dear president, dear friend, we are waiting for you next spring on a state visit to Moscow,” Putin told Xi in an eight-minute introductory statement broadcast on state television.
Xi, in turn, said his country was ready to “increase strategic cooperation with Russia” and remain “global partners for the benefit of the peoples of our countries and in the interests of stability around the world.”
The Chinese leader did not mention a visit to Moscow, according to the official Russian translation. Xi said his country would maintain its “objective and fair” position on the war in Ukraine.
The meeting was closely watched by analysts for any sign that China was reassessing its support for Putin as Russia’s war falters.
Since the beginning of the invasion, Beijing has tried to balance its support for Moscow with the desire to avoid the indirect impact on its economy of the sanctions imposed on Russia by the West.
While China has blamed the West for escalating tensions in Ukraine, it has stopped short of supplying Moscow with weapons, while its companies have largely complied with unprecedented Western sanctions imposed on Russian companies.
“Everyone wants to see if Xi has buyer’s remorse for Putin,” said Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But today’s call indicates that Xi has no plans to throw Putin under the bus. Ties between the two countries will only grow in the coming year,” Gabuev added.
Gabuev noted the sharp increase in economic cooperation between the two countries since the war began, with China now accounting for more than a quarter of Russia’s total imports, according to the Institute of International Finance based in Washington.
Chinese customs data also show that bilateral trade between the two countries has increased by 32% in 2022, reaching a record $172.406 billion between January and November this year.
Chinese companies have eagerly filled the vacuum created by the exodus of hundreds of Western companies that left Moscow in the days after the invasion began.
According to a recent report by the RBC company, of the 14 car brands still sold on the Russian market, the only foreign ones – 11 of them – are Chinese.
“Xi does not want to cross Western red lines: supplying Russia with arms and evading sanctions, but he is also aware that he has a lot of influence over Moscow and can benefit from this crisis,” Gabuev said.
“Integration between the two countries will happen on Chinese terms. Putin has no one else to turn to.”
Gabuev added that Xi’s state visit to Moscow next year would be seen as a major public show of solidarity from China.
The call between the two leaders came hours after Ukraine was again attacked by Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones. The Ukrainian military said it had shot down all 16 drones, which it said were sent from the southeast and north.
“The enemy continues to launch massive airstrikes on the capital of Ukraine,” the military administration in Kyiv said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging platform.
Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, said there were no casualties from the night strikes.
The latest drone strike comes at the end of a week in which Russian forces launched a series of deadly bombings in the recently liberated city of Kherson.
Late Thursday, the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, repeated his earlier warnings that Moscow may be planning to plunge Ukraine into darkness before the New Year holiday.
“Perhaps the enemy will once again try to make us celebrate the New Year in the dark,” he said in his evening speech.
Also on Friday, Belarus claimed that Ukraine was trying to widen the conflict, after Minsk reported on Thursday that its air defense forces had shot down a Ukrainian S-300 surface-to-air missile near the village of Harbacha in the Brest region.
“Kyiv is striving to provoke a regional conflict by any means,” Belarusian security council secretary Alexander Volfovich told Russian state-run Sputnik Belarus. “An example of this is the recent incident with the destruction of the Ukrainian S-300 missile. There is little reason to believe that it entered our airspace by accident. From all appearances, it seems that some plan was being carried out here “.
A Ukrainian military spokesman said the incident was “the result of air defense”.
Thursday’s incident came amid fears in Kyiv that Moscow was pressuring its closest ally to join a new ground offensive against Ukraine.