KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping had a “long and meaningful” phone call Wednesday, their first known contact since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, and Beijing said it wanted to send an envoy to Kyiv to serve as a mediator to pursue a “political settlement.”
The nearly hour-long call came two months after Beijing, which has long been aligned with Russia, said it wanted to act as a mediator and a month after Xi visited Moscow. The timing was also relevant because it comes as Ukraine is readying its forces for an expected spring counteroffensive.
Zelenskyy was upbeat about the call, which offered him the chance to press his views in what until then had been a bilateral dialogue between Moscow and Beijing. Russian President Vladimir Putin is eager to keep Xi close as a counterweight to the United States, which has sided with Ukraine.
“I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine’s ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations,” Zelenskyy said in a Facebook post without elaborating.
An official readout on his website called the conversation “productive” and said it leads the way toward “possible interaction with the aim of establishing a just and sustainable peace for Ukraine.”
Zelenskyy emphasized the need to regain all Ukrainian territory and stated, “There can be no peace at the expense of territorial compromises.” In an indirect reference to U.S. reports that China had considered supplying weapons to Russia for its invasion, Zelenskyy’s office said he asked countries to refrain from doing so because “any support — even partial — is converted by Russia into the continuation of its aggression, into its further rejection of peace.”
A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said Beijing’s “core stance is to facilitate talks for peace,” announcing that an envoy — a former ambassador to Russia — would visit Ukraine to seek a “political settlement.”
The statement struck a positive tone, giving a nod to Kyiv’s insistence that its territory cannot be broken up by Russia’s annexations and making clear that Beijing values its longstanding ties with Ukraine.
“Mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity is the political foundation of China-Ukraine relations,” the statement said. “China’s readiness to develop relations with Ukraine is consistent and clear-cut. No matter how the international situation evolves, China will work with Ukraine to advance mutually beneficial cooperation.”
Analysts expressed skepticism about the prospects for peace.
The call balances China’s dialogue with Russia by showing it is “recognizing Ukraine’s leadership and indicating Ukraine is an important entity,” said Kimberly Marten, professor of political science at Barnard-Columbia University in New York, in an interview with The Associated Press.
But, she added, unless undisclosed details reveal otherwise, “it’s a non-starter. It’s pro-Russian. I would not guess that this holds a lot of significance for ending the war.”
She noted the Chinese proposal didn’t call for Russia to leave occupied areas or brand Russia as an aggressor, and refers to the situation as “a crisis, rather than a war.”
Elizabeth Wishnick, of the U.S.-based think tank CNA and Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute, noted in an email to AP that the Chinese statement about the call contains “no mention of a Russian troop withdrawal, which, to my mind, makes this a less than serious initiative and unlikely to contribute in any major way to ending the war, which will likely be decided on the battlefield.”
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova commended China’s approach, praising Beijing’s “readiness to strive to establish a (peace) negotiations process,” while slamming what she called Kyiv’s “rejection of any sound initiatives aimed at a settlement.”
