The Chinese authorities are confronting serious problems over Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. On the one hand, the closeness of relations between Beijing and Moscow is at its highest level in years. As far as Beijing is concerned, Russia’s importance stems from its role as a supplier of raw materials and its value as a geopolitical ally in the confrontational relationship with the United States thrust upon China during Donald Trump’s presidency. Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed the situation in the famous formula in January 2021, when he stated that Sino-Russian strategic cooperation had no limit, no forbidden zones, and no ceiling. A year later, China and Russia reinforced this political line in a joint statement adopted during a visit by President Vladimir Putin to China, in which, for the first time, Beijing associated itself clearly with Russia’s demands to halt the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expansion, as well as calling on the organization, jointly with Moscow, “to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds, and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other States.”
President Biden contradicted his own staff Monday by insisting he did not regret or retract his call from over the weekend for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be removed from power in response to his invasion of Ukraine.
Russian-Israeli oligarch Roman Abramovich and the Ukrainian negotiators in the ceasefire talks were allegedly poisoned during a meeting in Kyiv last month, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
