After the three-day trip to Russia to discuss with Vladimir Putin and present his peace plan, and openings to dialogue with Volodymyr Zelensky, Xi Jinping has now received a formal invitation to Kiev: the Chinese president presents himself at the moment as the main mediator between the warring parties, surpassing what was initially done by Erdogan, long accredited as a point of contact between Russia and Ukraine.
“We are ready to see it here. I want to talk to him. I was in contact with him before the full-scale war. But for all this year, more than a year, there has been no contact,” Zelensky said of Xi Jinping. China, it should be remembered, has never formally condemned Russia’s invasion in the various UN resolutions that have been voted on for a year now. In the field, however, the question around the city of Bakhmut holds the table: “If the city were to fall into the hands of Russian forces – says the Ukrainian president – Putin would sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China, to Iran”.
In an intervention taken up by the Guardian, Zelensky then indirectly referred to Donald Trump, who wondered whether Washington should continue to provide Ukraine with billions of dollars in military aid: “The United States must really understand that if they stop helping us, we won’t win.” Even Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s main opponent for the leadership of the GOP, has suggested that defending Ukraine in a “territorial dispute” with Russia is not a priority for US national security.
