China's Xi Vows Greater Support For Russia As Meets Lavrov
Beijing has long sought to present the SCO as a counterweight to Western-led power blocs such as NATO and has pushed for greater collaboration between its 10 members.
Top diplomats from the grouping have arrived in Beijing for a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, including Russia's Sergei Lavrov, India's Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Iran's Abbas Araghchi.
Meeting Lavrov in the Chinese capital, Xi said the two countries should "strengthen mutual support on multilateral forums", according to state news agency Xinhua.
Beijing and Moscow should work to "unite countries of the global South and promote the development of the international order in a more just and reasonable direction", Xi said, according to Xinhua.
Russia's foreign ministry said in an earlier statement that "a number of issues of bilateral political contacts at the highest and high levels were discussed".
They included preparations for President Vladimir Putin's visit to China to join a SCO summit and World War II anniversary celebrations.
Russia's TASS news agency reported that Xi met Lavrov after the Chinese president held a "general meeting" with SCO foreign ministers.
The meeting and pledges of support came just hours after US President Donald Trump warned Russia that he will impose "very severe" tariffs against Moscow's remaining trade partners if it doesn't resolve its war in Ukraine within 50 days.
China, a diplomatic and economic ally of Moscow, in response said "coercion" by the United States would not resolve the conflict.
"China firmly opposes all illegal unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction. There are no winners in a tariff war, and coercion and pressure will not solve problems," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.
Lavrov met Sunday with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to discuss Ukraine and relations with the United States.
The Russian foreign minister arrived in China following a visit to North Korea, where he received assurances of support in its conflict with Ukraine.
Beijing claims to be neutral in the war but it has never denounced Russia's more than three-year military campaign, nor called for it to withdraw its troops.
Many of Ukraine's allies believe that Beijing has provided support to Moscow.
China regularly calls for an end to the fighting, while also accusing Western countries of prolonging the conflict by arming Ukraine.
Xi noted Tuesday that "political mutual trust among member states has deepened", according to state broadcaster CCTV.
The SCO "has successfully explored a path of regional cooperation that aligns with the trends of the times and meets the needs of all parties, setting a model for a new type of international relations," Xi said.
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Int'l Business Times
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DW
7 hours ago
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The Danish minister also said Trump's new messaging on Russia and Ukraine is "very, very important in terms of accepting providing weapons, but also the sanctions scheme." Read more about Patriot missiles and why they are key to helping Ukraine. US President Donald Trump has said he is "not done" with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The remarks, made during an interview with the BBC that was published on Tuesday, came hours after he had said he was "very unhappy" with Russia during a meeting with NATO chief Mark Rutte. Since returning to the White House in January, Trump, who had previously pledged to end the war in Ukraine in a day, has tried to bring about peace talks and a ceasefire. But his attempts have fallen on deaf ears in Moscow, with Russia escalating its air strikes on Ukraine last week after Trump and Putin had spoken on the phone. During the interview with the BBC, Trump was asked if he was done with the Russian leader. 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He also tried to walk back pro-Ukraine policies favored by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden, including supporting Kyiv's membership in NATO and insisting that Russia withdraw its forces from Ukrainian territory. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The European Union's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Tuesday that the bloc's members are close to agreeing on a new round of sanctions against Russia. Foreign ministers from the EU's 27 member states are meeting in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss the bloc's support for Ukraine, among other issues. The European Commission in June proposed the 18th package of sanctions in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin's refusal to agree to a ceasefire. The sanctions target Moscow's energy exports as well as its banking sector and military industry. The sanctions proposal includes a price cap on Russian oil of 15% below the average market price, as well as bans on transactions with Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines. "We hope to reach a political agreement on the 18th sanctions package. We are very, very close. I hope it comes today," Kallas said before the meeting. One member state — reported to be Slovakia — has yet to agree to the sanctions package over concerns about the price cap on Russian oil. When asked about the price cap, Kallas said "it's alive." "We have made proposals, but it is a question of whether we can overcome the veto of one member state or not. But we are trying to work on that," the former Estonian prime minister said. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha is also due to take part in Tuesday's talks. Sybiha plans to join the meeting by video-link. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday. Lavrov, who visited Russia's ally North Korea last week, is in China to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). "Lavrov conveyed to the Chinese leader a friendly greeting and best wishes from the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin," the Russian ministry said in a statement. "The two sides discussed a number of issues concerning bilateral political contacts ... including preparations for the Russian President's upcoming visit to the People's Republic of China." The Russian president is due to travel to China for a SCO leaders' summit in September. Since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and Ukraine's Western allies imposed a range of sanctions against Russia, Moscow has increasingly relied on support from China and North Korea. An overnight Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian southwestern regions of Lipetsk and Voronezh has left several people injured and damaged homes and other buildings, Russian authorities said Tuesday. Russia's Defense Ministry said on Telegram that a total of 55 Ukrainian drones were downed overnight over five Russian regions, as well as the Black Sea. Regional governor Governor Alexander Gusev 12 drones were destroyed over the Voronezh border region, where "several people sustained minor injuries due to debris from a downed UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles)." Several apartments in residential buildings in Voronezh, which is the administrative center of the region of the same name, were damaged, as were houses in the city's suburbs, Gusev said. In the neighboring Lipetsk region, a drone crashed in an industrial zone in the city of Yelets, regional governor Igor Artamonov said on Telegram, adding that one person was injured in the attack. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine about the Russian reports of the attack, and the full extent of the damage caused was unclear.
Int'l Business Times
9 hours ago
- Int'l Business Times
Rome, Navalny Widow Blast Italy Invite For Pro-Kremlin Maestro
Italy's culture minister joined the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday in condemning an invitation for maestro Valery Gergiev to perform near Naples, saying it risked being propaganda for Moscow. Russian conductor Gergiev, a personal friend of President Vladimir Putin who has since December 2023 led Moscow's world famous Bolshoi Theatre, has been shunned by the West since the start of the Ukraine war for failing to denounce Russia's invasion. But he has been invited to conduct what organisers described as an "unforgettable symphony concert" on July 27 at the former royal palace of Reggia di Caserta, near Naples in southern Italy. Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation has called for the concert to be cancelled and his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, pressed the case in an editorial on Tuesday in Italian daily La Repubblica. "Any attempt to turn a blind eye to who Valery Gergiev is when he's not conducting and to pretend that this is merely a cultural event with no political dimension... is pure hypocrisy," she wrote. Just hours later, Italian Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli issued a statement warning the concert "risks sending the wrong message". "Ukraine is an invaded nation and Gergiev's concert could transform a high-level... musical event into a platform for Russian propaganda," he said. "For me, this would be deplorable." Giuli is a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's hard-right government, which has strongly backed Ukraine since Russia's invasion in February 2022. He noted the concert was part of a programme of events promoted and paid for by the region of Campania. Campania regional leader Vincenzo De Luca, from the centre-left Democratic Party, has defended the concert, saying that "culture is a tool to keep dialogue open". On social media on Friday, he noted an Israeli conductor was also on the programme, adding: "We don't ask those men of culture to answer for the political choices of those who lead their respective countries." He repeated his position on Tuesday, condemning Putin's actions in Ukraine but saying that refusing to engage in dialogue "only serves to fuel the rivers of hatred". But Navalnaya, whose husband died in an Artic penal colony last year in what she and his supporters say was a killing on Putin's orders, was scathing. "As Putin's cultural ambassador, Valery Gergiev implements Russia's soft power policy. One of his current goals is to normalise the war and Putin's regime," she wrote. She described the Caserta concert as a "test balloon" for boosting Putin's image in Europe and noted it was being praised by Russian authorities. "Forgive me, but if the Kremlin is happy with you in 2025, then you are definitely doing something wrong," she wrote. Other members of the Democratic Party have called for the concert to be cancelled, as have other cultural figures outside Italy. Peter Gelb, general manager of New York's Metropolitan Opera and a staunch supporter of Ukraine, told AFP that Gergiev "is no less than an artistic stand-in for Putin". He added: "There can be no 'cultural exchange' with mass murderers and kidnappers of children, which is the current modus operandi of the Russian regime." Gergiev has stood by Putin's policies for more than two decades and performed propaganda concerts in honour of Russian military victories in the past. In one of his most criticised moves, Gergiev conducted a concert in the ruins of Syria's Palmyra after Moscow's intervention in the country on the side of dictator Bashar al-Assad. He also conducted a triumphant concert in Georgia's Tskhinvali region after the Russian invasion in 2008, just a few metres (feet) from a detention centre where Georgian civilians were being held.
