MOSCOW: Chinese President Xi Jinping supported Russian President Vladimir Putin in his push to get Western security guarantees precluding Nato’s eastward expansion, the Kremlin said on Wednesday after the two leaders held a virtual summit.

Putin and Xi spoke as Moscow faces heightened tensions with the West over a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine’s border. In recent weeks, Western nations engaged in diplomatic efforts to prevent a possible invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has denied harboring plans to storm its neighbour.

Putin, meanwhile, demanded guarantees that Nato will not expand to Ukraine or deploy troops and weapons there.

He told Xi on Wednesday about mounting threats to Russia’s national interests from the US and the Nato bloc, which consistently move their military infrastructure close to the Russian borders, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said.

The Russian leader stressed the need to hold talks with Nato and the US on legally binding security guarantees, according to Ushakov. Xi responded by saying he understands Russia’s concerns and fully supports our initiative to work out these security guarantees for Russia, Ushakov said.

He said Moscow’s proposals have been passed on to US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried, who visited Moscow on Wednesday and met with Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov.

In recent years, China and Russia have increasingly aligned their foreign policies to counter US domination of the international economic and political order.

Both have faced sanctions China over abuses against minorities, especially Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, and for its crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, and Russia for annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and over the poisoning and imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Beijing and Washington also remain at odds over trade, technology and China’s military intimidation of Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory.

Russia’s relations with the US sank to post-Cold War lows after it annexed Crimea in 2014 and threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in Ukraine’s east. Tensions reignited in recent weeks after Moscow massed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine’s border, a move Ukraine and the West feared may indicate plans for a new invasion.

Moscow has denied that it plans to attack Ukraine and in turn blamed Ukraine for its own military buildup in the country’s war-torn east. Russian officials alleged that Kiev might try to reclaim the areas controlled by the rebels by force.

It is within that context that Putin has pressed the West for guarantees that Nato will not expand to Ukraine or deploy its forces there.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2021