Xi Jinping told Vladimir Putin on Monday that he was “happy” to meet again, and that ties between Beijing and Moscow had grown “more solid.” The two leaders met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. It was their first meeting since May.
Prospects ahead are “even brighter,” Xi said, though “the amount of uncertainty and unpredictability in the international order has obviously increased.” Putin replied that “cooperation is successfully developing on all fronts.”
Russia is in the fifth year of its war on Ukraine. China has consistently denied giving Moscow material support for it.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian media the two men mostly discussed economic relations and raised Ukraine only “in passing.” Western sanctions have left the Russian economy leaning harder on China, and Western governments have asked Beijing to press Moscow to end its offensive.
Modi, Pezeshkian and the wider room
The two-day summit marks the 25th anniversary of the grouping. More than a dozen heads of state are attending, among them Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian, India’s Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan is there as a dialogue partner. The gathering falls four and a half years into the Ukraine invasion and six months into the war between the United States and Iran.
Putin also sat down with Modi, and the two arrived in the same car. Modi said New Delhi was ready to work toward an end to the Ukraine conflict. Putin said Moscow was “following the path” toward a resolution and gave no detail. Peace talks brokered by Washington remain stalled, though reports last week said CIA Director John Ratcliffe had visited Moscow.
Putin is expected to hold separate talks with Pezeshkian. Russia and Iran are among the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, and Iran has supplied drones for the Ukraine war. President Donald Trump has warned Moscow and Beijing against arming Iran, and US media speculated that Ratcliffe carried the same message to Russian officials.
Pezeshkian spoke in Bishkek after the first exchange of fire between the United States and Iran in a month. Continuing the war, he told Modi, “is neither in our interest, nor in the interest of the region.”
The organisation has 10 members, 15 dialogue partners including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and two observers, Afghanistan and Mongolia. It claims to speak for about 40 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of global GDP. Its members are a mixed lot, and they disagree with one another.
