Ukraine war briefing: Beijing confirms historic Xi-Trump-Putin meeting under discussion

Beijing has confirmed that it is discussing a historic meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the US president, Donald Trump, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said at a press briefing this week in Beijing that China “is in communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the three heads of state”, which could take place on the sidelines of the Apec summit in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen this month.

Russia would probably use the summit to nudge China and the US closer to Moscow’s positions on Ukraine, said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center. However, Trump has been warned by his advisers to steer clear of Ukraine as a topic of the discussions, said Danny Russel, a former senior state department official who served in Barack Obama’s administration and who is now a distinguished fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Ukraine again came under attack from Russia on Saturday, after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for allies to supply Kyiv quickly with missiles for the US-made Patriot system to defend Ukrainian cities. Zelenskyy on Friday had warned that the Ukrainian military was bracing for new ⁠strikes ​by Russian forces against important infrastructure. “We ⁠have intelligence at this time that Russia is preparing new strikes on energy, on ⁠bridges across the Dnipro, on civilian infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said ​in his nightly ‌video address. “The ‌air force and the armed forces of Ukraine ‌as a whole are preparing for defence. It will not be easy.”

Kyiv, along with other Ukrainian cities, has been subjected to near-constant attacks for several weeks. A missile attack by Russian forces ⁠early on Saturday damaged a residential ⁠building in the Ukrainian capital, according to Mayor ​Vitali ‌Klitschko. The city’s military administration, also writing on Telegram, said two people were injured and a building housing a kindergarten was ‌damaged. Officials continued to warn residents of the potential for more strikes hours ​after the attack.

President Zelenskyy says he wants specific guarantees from western allies on how postwar security support would function when the war with Russia finally ends. Zelenskyy’s comments in an interview aired late Thursday followed two days of discussions among allies in Brussels that focused on postwar security and reconstruction. They also came before planned three-way talks next week in Abu Dhabi between Ukraine, Russia and the United States, the first trilateral peace discussions since February. “What matters is that it’s clear on paper,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with Ukraine’s private 1+1 television broadcast late Thursday. “The question isn’t dozens of points, but simply an understanding of the outcome: If Russia starts [attacking] again, what will happen? Who will do what, with what means, and when?”

The Brussels meetings brought together officials from the US, UK, France, Germany and the European Union, along with representatives from the World Bank and the US investment group BlackRock, Ukrainian lead negotiator Rustem Umerov wrote in an online post. “We separately discussed the threats from Russia to Ukraine and all of Europe, as well as joint steps to counter them,” Umerov wrote.