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Shaking hands in the Kremlin: Wang Yi visiting Vladimir Putin
Photo: Anton Novoderezhkin / ITAR-TASS / IMAGO
Because of the attack on Ukraine, Russia is quite isolated internationally - but the relationship with a powerful country should now be closer: Russian ruler Vladimir Putin is striving for deeper cooperation with China.
At a meeting with China's top diplomat Wang Yi, Putin praised the close ties between the two countries as particularly important at the moment.
"International relations are complicated today," Putin said, according to the Russian state agency TASS.
"In this context, cooperation between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation (...) is of particularly great importance for stabilizing the international situation."
A short video showed how the two men greeted each other with a handshake and then sat down together at a table.
Putin also renewed his invitation to China's head of state and party leader Xi Jinping to come to Moscow for a state visit.
According to Russian reports, Wang said China is willing to deepen both political and strategic cooperation.
Russian-Chinese relations developed stably, despite pressure from the world community.
There was no official communication on the peace initiative that China had announced for Ukraine, which was attacked by Russia a year ago.
Tass had reported that Wang wanted to exchange views with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.
China is considered a close ally of Russia.
At the same time, Beijing has so far largely complied with the international sanctions against Moscow in order not to become the target of punitive measures itself.
Wang, China's foreign minister until the end of last year, is still part of the Chinese government as the so-called State Councilor.
The office ranks above an ordinary minister but lower than a deputy prime minister.
Since early 2023, he has served as director of the office of the Central Commission on Foreign Affairs, a Communist Party body that steers Chinese foreign policy.
China's peace initiative is met with international skepticism before any concrete details are known.
Experts assume that the move is primarily characterized by the fact that China sees the war in Ukraine through the lens of its geopolitical rivalry with the United States.
fek/til/dpa
