Volodymyr Zelenskyy May Meet With Xi Jinping Next Month, Reuters Reports

Chinese President Xi Jinping may meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy next month, according to Oleksandr Chalyi, a former Ukrainian official, who spoke in Beijing on Thursday at the opening of China’s largest annual military diplomacy event.

Chalyi, a former deputy foreign minister, mentioned during one of the initial sessions of the Xiangshan Forum that diplomatic relations with Beijing had improved, making a meeting possible.

Although Beijing positions itself as neutral in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it maintains close strategic ties with Moscow and did not participate in the Summit on Peace for Ukraine in June.

In July, Ukraine’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, met his Chinese counterpart in Beijing, as Zelenskyy considers another possible summit in November, which may include Russian participation.

Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, stated on the sidelines of the forum that China remains open to joining a future summit, emphasizing that it does not want its diplomatic efforts “to go to waste.”

Western nations have raised concerns over China’s increasing military cooperation with Russia. In July, China and Belarus conducted joint military drills just a few kilometers from the border of NATO member Poland.