The Guardian reports:

The Kremlin has denied a report that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, had personally warned his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

“No, I can’t confirm it,” Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Wednesday when asked about a Financial Times report that said Xi delivered the message when he visited Moscow in March.

Peskov said the two countries had issued statements at the time on the content of their talks, calling all other reports about Xi’s state visit to Moscow “fiction”.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Xi has been unwavering in his support for his “dear friend” Putin, while Beijing has helped to prop up Russia’s sanctions-hit economy.

China has also repeatedly expressed publicly its opposition to the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. In November, Xi told the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, that the international community should oppose the threat or use of such weapons and “prevent a nuclear crisis in Eurasia”.

Xi reportedly made his nuclear warning to Putin while on his first foreign trip after securing a third term as president, suggesting China was concerned about the possibility that the war in Ukraine would escalate further. [Continue reading…]