The media does not give details about the negotiations, it only reports that the meeting took place on the sidelines of the Shangri-La security summit.
Agency Bloomberg referring to the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Volodymyr Gavrilov (judging by the pictures of LB.ua, he attended the meeting as part of the Ukrainian delegation), wrote that the Chinese Minister of Defense during the meeting offered Reznikov “every possible means” to resolve the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.
Bloomberg writes that China “continues to insist on the role of a peacekeeper in the conflict, despite its close political and economic ties” with the aggressor country of the Russian Federation. According to Gavrilov, the Ukrainian delegation during the meeting sought to deepen Beijing’s understanding of the situation on the battlefield.
Following the talks with the delegation of the Chinese Defense Ministry, Gavrilov expressed hope for “certain dynamics” and said that Beijing was “ready for communication in order to expand contacts between the Ukrainian and Chinese military leadership.”
Since the beginning of the Russian attack on Ukraine, China has tried to maintain a neutral position and has not directly condemned Moscow’s actions.
However, after a year of full-scale war, Beijing stepped up its position: On February 24, 2023, the document was made public “China’s position on the political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine” , which consists of 12 points, which was welcomed in Moscow and skeptically perceived in the West. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that part of the paragraphs in this document corresponds to interests of Ukraine, and Kyiv does not agree with a part. At the same time, the Zelensky document does not consider it a plan, according to him, it is about China’s “thoughts” on the settlement.
In April 2023, Zelensky’s first telephone conversation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping took place since the start of a full-scale war. On the same day China for the first time voted for a UN resolution, in which, among other things, the Russian Federation was called the aggressor (later, the Chinese representation at the UN claimed that Beijing’s position had not changed and the country did not approve of the definition of Russia as the aggressor, and the vote was not connected with the conversation between Zelensky and Xi Jinping).
Following the conversation between Zelensky and Xi Jinping, Beijing decided to send a special representative to visit Ukraine and other countries, who will negotiate with all parties to “settle the military conflict.” This special envoy was 70-year-old Li Hui, who served as China’s ambassador to Russia from 2009 to 2019.
On May 16–17, Li Hui visited Ukraine. Zelensky, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba and other representatives of the country’s authorities met with him. During his visit to Kyiv, the Chinese Special Representative stated that “there is no panacea for overcoming the crisis.” Kuleba, at a meeting with a Chinese diplomat, said that Ukraine does not accept any proposals that provide for the loss of its territories or the freezing of the conflict.
After visiting Kyiv, Li Hui visited Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, and Brussels, and traveled to Moscow on May 26.
On June 2, Li Hui expressed the opinion that Ukraine and Russia have “many difficulties” to sit down at the negotiating table to end the war, but “the parties are not completely without consensus.”
2023-06-03 14:03:00
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