Putin says China's peace plan serves as the basis for negotiations if Ukraine accepts

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, this Tuesday at the reception prior to the meeting in the Kremlin.DPA via Europa Press (DPA via Europa Press)

The end of sanctions on Russia in exchange for the restitution of the entire territory of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula.

For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Chinese proposal to end the conflict could be a valid starting point for negotiations, although only some of his 12 points are convincing.

"We believe that many of the provisions of the peace plan presented by China are in line with Russian approaches and can be taken as the basis for a peace agreement when they are ready for it in the West and Kiev," the Russian head of state has assured. the conclusion of his summit in Moscow with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

The leader of the Asian power has presented his candidacy as a great international mediator in Moscow.

Ten days after getting Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore their diplomatic relations, the Chinese leader has addressed the end of the invasion of Ukraine in person with the Russian president.

His 12-point plan did not initially please either party: Beijing proposed lifting sanctions on Russia and offering it security guarantees against NATO while advocating restoring Ukraine's absolute territorial sovereignty, which includes Crimea, illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.

"I want to emphasize that in the Ukrainian plan we are guided by the principles of the UN Charter, we adhere to an objective and impartial position," said the president of the People's Republic of China, a nation that has not even recognized the annexation of the Black Sea Peninsula or the four occupied regions in eastern Ukraine: Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk.

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In any case, the parties to the conflict are wary of a peace proposal that could be a concession of time to the Russian army.

In addition, Putin reaffirmed after the meeting that the war continues.

When asked about the British delivery to Kiev of depleted uranium ammunition, the Russian president asserted that "the West has decided to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, not with words, but with deeds."

This summit is an important milestone in the Russian roadmap in the medium and long term.

The meeting began with the live performance of the anthems of the two nuclear powers, with Putin and Xi escorted by the most important officials of their governments.

Of the Russian delegation stood out the Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu;

Defense Minister Sergei Lavrov;

and the governor of the Central Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiúllina.

Putin summoned his circle after the official dinner "for a couple of internal meetings," according to the spokesman for the Russian president, Dmitri Peskov.

Xi Jinping's official trip has been treated by Russian propaganda as a historic event.

In fact, the collapse of traffic in the Russian capital has been greater than the traffic jams experienced during the celebrations of September 30 for the annexation of the occupied Ukrainian territories.

Transport in the center of Moscow was practically blocked for the second day in a row due to the huge deployment of security points inside the first ring of the city, the Sadóvoye Koltsó.

Xi did not hesitate to shake Putin's hand on camera as soon as they met in their first informal meeting on Monday.

That gesture was very important to the Kremlin.

The Chinese leader's visit comes a few days after the International Criminal Court ordered the arrest of the Russian president and his advocate for minors, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia.

"China does not see Vladimir Putin as an international pariah, and Xi Jinping will increase his personal contact with him, or at least keep him at the same level," says Dmitri Suslov, an expert at Club Valdai, a think tank with close ties to the

.

One of the common points between Moscow and Beijing is their taste for rewriting history.

Putin, who called the dissolution of the USSR "the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century", and Xi, who last year made a symbolic visit to the haven from where Mao Zedong seized power, met in Moscow at the same time as the Russian police interrogated "for rehabilitation of Nazism" more than a dozen members of the NGO that uncovered Soviet crimes.

The homes of those responsible for the Memorial Foundation, recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize last year, were searched by Kremlin agents.

Among them, the homes of its president, Yan Rachinski, and the head of its center for the defense of human rights, Oleg Orlov.

The Kremlin bows to the power of the Chinese currency

Putin flirted for years with the idea of ​​disconnecting the global economy from the dollar and promoting the ruble and other currencies as currencies of payment.

He did so as a result of the first sanctions received for the annexation of Crimea, in 2014. This Tuesday, however, he gave in to the geostrategic reality that his invasion of Ukraine has brought.

"We are in favor of using the Chinese yuan in agreements between the Russian Federation and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America," Putin told the Chinese leader.

Sanctions on the Russian financial system have not only brought down Russian exports and imports, but also its access to dollars and euros, and confidence in the ruble.

If the yuan becomes the only Russian reference currency, its dependence on Beijing will be greater.

“Our cooperation is constantly expanding.

We have achieved remarkable results before and further interaction is being carried out successfully," the Chinese president said at the start of the meeting.

Another of the important points discussed during the summit was the construction of the Siberian Power 2 gas pipeline, which will link the Russian and Chinese energy networks through Mongolia.

Beijing has partially replaced lost gas exports to the European Union, but it is a long way from supplying that market.

The new pipeline will be able to supply 50,000 million cubic meters of gas in an indeterminate future.

Its predecessor, the Siberian Power 1, will reach its total capacity of 38,000 million cubic meters by the year 2027. The sum of both will barely be around half of the gas exported to the European Union in 2019, before the crisis caused by the pandemic .

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