The President of Russia gave the President of China an deailed account of the reasons behind the recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic and the start of a special military operation to protect civilians from genocide and ensure the demilitarisation and denazification of the Ukrainian state. Vladimir Putin also noted that considering the signals received from Kiev he was ready to send a delegation to Minsk to hold talks with representatives of Ukraine.
Xi Jinping stressed that he respected the actions of the Russian leadership in the current crisis.
The two leaders assessed the current international situation from a common perspective. They reaffirmed a mutual readiness to closely cooperate and support each other further at the UN and in other multilateral platforms. They noted that illegitimate sanctions used to achieve selfish goals of individual countries were unacceptable. In this context, the two leaders emphasised the importance of stepping up practical bilateral cooperation, including following their talks in Beijing on February 4.
Vladimir Putin congratulated Xi Jinping and the nation of China on successfully hosting the XXIV Winter Olympics and on the results of their national team.
It was agreed to maintain close personal contact.
In general, the conversation was constructive and friendly and demonstrated the concurrence of principled approaches to the main issues on the international agenda.