President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that China, on which he said Russia is now “fully dependent”, could force the Kremlin to stop the war against Ukraine but “keeps silent too often”. According to the President’s press service, he said this in his speech at the UN Security Council’s high-level meeting on Ukraine, which took place on the night of 24 September Kiev time.
“China is also represented here. A powerful country on which Russia is now completely dependent. If China really wanted to end this war, it could force Moscow to stop the invasion. Without China, Putin’s Russia is nothing. But China too often keeps quiet and stays on the sidelines instead of taking active action for peace,” Zelensky said.
China has positioned itself as a neutral party in Russia’s war against Ukraine and says it is not providing military aid to either side, unlike the United States and other Western countries. But Beijing remains a close political and economic ally of Russia, and NATO members call China the “decisive leadership” of a war it has never condemned.
The PRC remains in active contact with Moscow. The two leaders, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, have met dozens of times and signed an unrestricted strategic partnership agreement in February 2022, less than three weeks before Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. China is Russia’s largest trading partner, helping it to weather the effects of Western economic sanctions.