Putin celebrates deepening ties with Beijing as Chinese premier visits

Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s premier Li Qiang celebrated their deepening political and economic ties

Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s premier Li Qiang have celebrated their deepening political and economic ties in the face of growing friction with the West over the grinding war in Ukraine.
Trade relations were “developing successfully” and “yielding results,” Mr Putin told Mr Li, who visited the Kremlin on Wednesday as part of a four-day trip by a senior Chinese delegation to Russia and Belarus.
Mr Li, in turn, praised the efforts by the Russian leader and Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, to “inject strong momentum” into bilateral relations which he said had reached an “unprecedentedly high level”.
The longstanding annual visit of the Chinese premier, who holds the second highest position in the Communist Party hierarchy, comes at a time when Moscow is increasingly dependent on economic cooperation with China to continue its war in Ukraine.
On Wednesday night, Moscow fought off one of the largest ever drone attacks on the capital while Russian troops entered their third week of a struggle to push back a surprise Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region.
China has attempted to position itself as neutral in the Ukraine conflict and denies supporting Russia’s war effort but it has faced criticism for helping Moscow avoid the impact of heavy western sanctions by buying up Russian oil.
NATO in July accused China of becoming a “decisive enabler of Russia’s war” by providing equipment, microelectronics and tools to allow the Kremlin to build the weapons it needed to prolong the conflict.
Beijing vehemently rejected the accusations, but its intensifying political ties with Moscow reflect joint animosity towards the West and what both states view as US domination of global affairs.
In his own meeting with Mr Li, Mikhail Mishustin, the Russian prime minister condemned Western attempts to contain their two nations through “illegitimate sanctions” and “unfair competition methods” that curbed their economic and technological potential.
“Our partnership and strategic cooperation is especially important in a situation where new contours of the global order are being formed,” Mr Mishustin said.