Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy could meet China’s Xi Jinping next month as Kyiv views countries from the Global South as crucial to securing a halt to the war with Russia. Ukraine’s former deputy foreign minister Oleksandr Chalyi told the Xiangshan Forum, China’s biggest military diplomacy event, that relations between Kyiv and Beijing had improved to the point that everyone was waiting for the leaders to meet.
Mr Chalyi, who took part in peace talks in Istanbul shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, said that the two sides were too far apart to agree a peace deal but a pause in hostilities was possible.
“If we understand that a political settlement means conclusion of a peace treaty, a comprehensive political settlement, to my mind, we have no chance for political settlement as such,” he said.
“So a political settlement is impossible. But to my mind, a ... cessation of hostilities [is possible].”
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He said that Ukraine wanted to organise a new peace summit, to which Russia could be invited, making it more likely that China would participate.
“The position of some countries of Global South, China, Brazil, India, now is crucial,” he said.
“It’s a very crucial element which could permit us to find some solution concerning the cessation of hostilities.”
China’s defence minister Dong Jun said that negotiation was the only solution to conflicts like the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, calling on all countries to promote peaceful development. China says it is neutral on the war in Ukraine, although the western powers have accused Beijing of directly supporting Russia’s military campaign.
Sergei Karaganov, a political scientist who heads Russia’s Council for Foreign and Defence Policy, said: “We have a problem. The problem is Europe. It is the source of the worst tragedies and crimes in the history of humanity. Two world wars in one generation, unbelievable, a Holocaust. And now they are running towards a third one,” he said.
“The Ukrainian crisis has nothing to do with Ukraine. The Ukraine crisis is about the expansion of Nato and the West, I will say, crossing all thinkable boundaries.”
Prof Karaganov suggested last year that Russia should use nuclear weapons against Nato member states in Europe to break the will of the West and save humanity. He told the Xiangshan Forum that it was necessary to “put a nuclear pistol to the empty heads” of the Europeans who were arming and funding Ukraine.
“We have to restore at least the fear of nuclear weapons. Nuclear deterrence stopped working because people don’t mind. They forgot what crimes Europeans have committed to themselves and humanity,” he said.
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