Ukraine's Zelensky Holds First War Phone Call With China's Xi

President Xi has never condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine

Ukraine’s Volodymr Zelensky says he has had a “long and meaningful” phone call with China’s Xi Jinping, their first contact since Russia’s war began.

He said on Twitter he believed the call, along with the appointment of an ambassador to Beijing, would “give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations”.

China confirmed the call, adding that it “always stood on the side of peace”.

Unlike the West, Beijing has sought to appear neutral on the Russian invasion.

But it has never hidden its close ties to Moscow, or condemned the invasion, and last month President Xi paid a two-day state visit to Russia.

He referred to President Vladimir Putin as his “dear friend”, proposed a vague 12-point peace plan and insisted that China stood on the right side of history.

However, he made no commitment to providing Russia with weapons.

Within days of the visit, President Zelensky invited the Chinese leader to visit Kyiv for talks, noting they had contact before the full-scale war but nothing since it began in February 2022.

In a readout of Wednesday’s phone call, China quoted President Xi as saying that China, “as a responsible majority country”, would “neither watch the fire from the other side, nor add fuel to the fire, let alone take advantage of the crisis to profit”.

That statement appears to be a swipe at China’s biggest international rival, the US, which has provided the most help towards Ukraine’s response to the Russian war.

But the likelihood of China helping to end the war appears remote, not just because Russia has shown no readiness to withdraw its forces from Ukraine’s sovereign territory – a key demand from Kyiv.

Critics have also questioned the idea of Beijing acting as a mediator, citing not only Mr Xi’s firm friendship with Russia’s leader but also China’s soaring trade with Russia and its refusal even to speak of an “invasion”.