Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Russia next week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Friday. "At the invitation of President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Russia from March 20 to 22," the ministry said in a statement without further details. The Kremlin has announced that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will have a one-on-one lunch on Monday, before more formal talks the next day.
On Monday, “it will be a one-on-one conversation, there will be an informal lunch. And from (Tuesday) March 21 there will be a day of negotiations,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about the program for the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
The two leaders met in September on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan. For their first meeting since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, they had shown their desire to support each other and strengthen their ties in the midst of a crisis with Westerners.
A few months earlier, the Russian president had visited the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Xi Jinping and Putin then proclaimed their "boundless" friendship. Shortly after, Vladimir Putin launched his troops against Ukraine.
China presents itself for the most part as a neutral party in the war in Ukraine, but has been strengthening its ties with Moscow in recent months. Beijing released a 12-point document last month urging Moscow and Kyiv to hold peace talks.
The text also opposes any recourse to nuclear weapons and calls for respect for the territorial integrity of all countries, also implying that of Ukraine, part of whose territory is under Russian control.
