Xi Jinping is already in Russia. The Chinese president has already landed in Moscow to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on a state visit with which intends to further strengthen the close alliance between the two countries with the war in the Ukraine and the Russian isolation by the West as a background.

The Chinese president arrived at the Vnukovo-2 airport around 10:00 a.m. to spend two days in the country. Xi was received on a red carpet by the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitri Chernishenko, after which he said that he is “very happy” about Putin’s invitation. “China and Russia are good neighbors and reliable partners connected by mountains and rivers,” he noted.

An honor guard played the Chinese and Russian anthem at the arrival of the Chinese president, who has traveled to Russia for the ninth time. It is expected that around 1:30 p.m. Xi and Putin have a casual lunch in the Kremlin and this Tuesday from 12:00 there will be formal negotiations with the respective delegations, during which important agreements will be signed.

The West fears that these negotiations will serve Russia not only to strengthen its ties with China as an alternative marketbut also to evade sanctions after information about the appearance of a Chinese drone on the battlefield in Ukraine and about the supply of Chinese weapons, according to the American newspaper ‘Politico’.

The Chinese president is the most powerful and relevant ally at a time when Putin is internationally isolated by the Russian military campaign in Ukraine and who, since last week, has also been the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC), in which China sees a “double standard”.

The photo with Xi in the Kremlin is a message to the West that the two countriesthrough their “eternal” friendship and in the face of attempts to “contain them”, they make a common front against “actions of hegemony, despotism and persecution”, as the Chinese president described it in a Russian newspaper before landing in Moscow.

The Chinese president’s visit also indicates that Xi will not let Putin down, who it needs China in the face of Western sanctions. Not surprisingly, the volume of bilateral trade totaled 190,000 million dollars last year, 116% more than ten years ago.

The background of his visit in the middle of the war

In the background of Xi’s visit to Russia is the war in Ukraine, in which China has maintained an ambiguous positionsince it defends the Ukrainian territorial integrity on the one hand and on the other advocates taking into account Russia’s security concerns.

China’s peace initiative has been welcomed in Russia with nuances, because respecting territorial integrity would mean returning the occupied territories to Ukraine, while Kiev considers that the Chinese plan lacks logic and is full of contradictions, because it cannot be into account the interests of the aggressor country.

“One way or another, the issues that are addressed in this plan will, of course, inevitably will be discussed during the exchange of views on Ukraine. Without a doubt, Ukraine will be on the agenda,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said.

“Based on the essence of what happens, China maintains an impartial and objective stancemakes active efforts to help reconciliation and peace negotiations,” Xi wrote in his article.

Putin in turn wrote in the Chinese official newspaper that he is open to a “political-diplomatic solution” to the war in Ukraine, but stressed that any peace process “only depends on the willingness to hold serious talks taking geopolitical realities into account.” “Unfortunately, the ultimatum demands addressed to Russia speak only of isolation from such realities and disinterest in finding a way out of the current situation,” he said.