Chinese President Xi Jinpingwill visit Moscow next week to discuss “strategic cooperation” with its Russian counterpart and ally Vladimir Putin, bit more than a year after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Chinese leader will be in Russia from Monday to Wednesday, the Chinese foreign ministry and the Kremlin announced on Friday. Xi last visited Russia in 2019. Putin attended the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing last year, and the two leaders met in person at a regional security summit in Uzbekistan last September.

China’s foreign ministry said Xi’s is a “peace visit” aimed at “practicing multilateralism (…) improving global governance and contribute to the development and progress of the world”.

“China will emphasize its honest and objective position on the Ukrainian crisis, and will play a constructive role in advancing peace talks,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a news conference. For its part, the Kremlin said both presidents will talk about how to deepen their “strategic cooperation”.

Xi and Putin will “deepening comprehensive cooperation and strategic cooperation between Russia and China”, especially “on the international stage,” the Kremlin said in a statement, adding that “important bilateral documents will be signed.”

Xi’s visit comes nearly 13 months after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.which largely isolated Moscow internationally.

China has not condemned the invasion and has tried to present itself as a neutral actor in the conflict. His stance has been criticized by Western leaders, who believe the Asian powerhouse is providing diplomatic cover for Moscow.

The United States even accused China of considering arms shipments to Russia, which Beijing strongly denied.

China, facilitator of peace?

In a 12-point document released last month about the war in Ukraine, China called for dialogue and respect for the territorial integrity of all countries.

This Thursday, China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, in a telephone conversation with Ukraine’s head of diplomacy, Dmytro Kuleba, urged Kiev and Moscow to begin peace talks “as soon as possible”.

Kuleba said they discussed in that conversation “the importance of the principle of territorial integrity”but gave no further details.

China and Russia have strengthened their economic, military and political cooperation in recent years.within a relationship, as they say, “without boundaries”.

Xi recently helped China’s diplomatic efforts to get Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two major rival powers in the Middle East, to restore their bilateral relations.

According to Ja-Ian Chong, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, the extent of China’s peace efforts “will depend on the content of what it proposes in meetings” with Putin and eventually with the Ukrainian leadership.

“His previous peace plan was more of a set of general principles than an appropriate proposal,” the Chinese foreign policy specialist told AFP.