China’s Xi lands in Moscow ahead of Putin meeting: Live updates

Chinese President Xi Jinping has landed in Russia at the start of a three-day state visit, Russian state news agency Tass reported.

The Chinese leader’s plane landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport around 12:59 Moscow time, a TASS correspondent noted.

— Holly Ellyatt

President Vladimir Putin will provide Chinese President Xi Jinping with detailed “clarifications” on Russia’s point of view on the Ukraine conflict during Xi’s state visit to Russia that begins on Monday, the Kremlin said.

During a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the two leaders would discuss themes in a peace plan for Ukraine proposed by Beijing last month.

“One way or another, the topics that figured in this plan will inevitably be touched upon during the exchange of views on Ukraine” between Putin and Xi, Peskov said.

“But here, of course, exhaustive clarifications will be given by President Putin, so that President Xi can get a first-hand view of the current moment from the Russian side.”

China’s 12-point paper, which called for dialogue between the two sides, contained no roadmap for how to end the war, now in its 13th month. Ukraine cautiously welcomed it but the United States was dismissive, given China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion.

Xi was due to arrive in Moscow around 1030 London time and to hold one-to-one “informal” talks with Putin on Monday afternoon, followed by dinner. Formal talks are scheduled for Tuesday.

Asked if China could become an intermediary between Moscow and Washington, Peskov declined to answer directly.

“For the time being, we see a continuing line on preventing any slowdown in hostilities. Washington, the State Department and the U.S. National Security Council are talking about this openly and officially,” he said.

Moscow accuses the United States and other Western countries of pouring weapons into Ukraine in order to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia. Washington and its allies say they are arming Ukraine to help it defend against an unprovoked Russian invasion and imperial-style land grab.

“The United States is sticking to its position, which is aimed at further provoking the conflict, preventing any decrease in the intensity of hostilities and pumping weapons into Ukraine,” Peskov said.

— Reuters

Over the past three weeks, Russian forces have made what Britain’s Ministry of Defense called “creeping gains” around the Ukrainian-held Donbas town of Avdiivka, immediately north of Donetsk city.

“The Russian operation has largely been carried out by the 1st Army Corps of the Donetsk People’s Republic; local personnel who will know the terrain well. Avdiivka has been on the front line of the Donbas conflict since 2014; the city is now largely destroyed,” the ministry noted in an intelligence update on Twitter Monday.

“The sprawling Avdiivka Coke Plant complex is likely to be seen as particularly defendable key terrain as the battle progresses,” it added.

The ministry noted that, tactically, the situation is similar to that in the larger town of Bakhmut, farther north, where intense fighting has been raging for months.

“Ukrainian forces continue organised defence, but their supply lines to the west are increasingly threatened by the Russian envelopment operation,” the ministry said.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia’s much-anticipated spring offensive against Ukraine has likely reached its high-water mark, leaving Ukraine’s defenders “well positioned to regain the initiative and launch counteroffensives,” according to research released late Sunday.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a new assessment that Russia’s 2023 attacks have yielded few gains and left Moscow planners desperate to reconstitute hard-hit military units.

The failures have come about despite the 300,000 soldiers mobilized by Russia late last year explicitly for the spring offensive.

“If 300,000 Russian soldiers have been unable to give Russia a decisive offensive edge in Ukraine it is highly unlikely that the commitment of additional forces in future mobilization waves will produce a dramatically different outcome this year,” the research said.

CNBC is unable to independently verify ISW’s assessment, though it aligns with others’ analysis including that of Ukrainian commanders. Russia’s Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

ISW is a research firm whose board members are mostly retired U.S. military personnel, diplomats and political leaders.

—Ted Kemp

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have praised each other’s leadership and their countries’ alliance as a three-day state visit by Xi to Moscow begins Monday.

Lauding Russia-China relations in an article released by several Russian and Chinese news agencies ahead of the visit, Xi said “both countries uphold an independent foreign policy and see our relationship as a high priority in our diplomacy.”

“Russia was the first country I visited after I was elected President 10 years ago. Over the past decade, I have made eight visits to Russia. I came each time with high expectations and returned with fruitful results, opening a new chapter for China-Russia relations together with President Putin,” Xi said.

Xi added that there was a “clear historical logic and strong internal driving force for the growth of China-Russia relations” that had come a long way in the last decade.

Meanwhile, Putin said in an article that he considers President Xi a “good old friend” with whom he has developed the “warmest relations.”

Putin said the “significant” visit by Xi “reaffirms the special nature of the Russian-Chinese partnership, which has always been built on mutual trust, respect for each other’s sovereignty and interests,” in comments published on the Kremlin’s website and in the Chinese People’s Daily newspaper.

The leaders are expected to discuss a deepening of Sino-Russian political and economic cooperation during the visit, with a number of unspecified bilateral agreements expected to be signed.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War said ahead of the meeting that the presidents are also “likely to discuss sanctions evasion schemes and Chinese interest in mediating a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine.”

China has called for a cease-fire to the war in Ukraine but has refused to condemn Moscow’s unprovoked invasion.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the occupied city of Mariupol at the weekend, visiting several districts of the city that was largely destroyed by Russian forces earlier on in the war.

In a carefully choreographed visit, Putin traveled to the port city in southern Ukraine by helicopter before he was seen driving and inspecting parts of the city and talking to local residents. On Saturday, he had reportedly visited Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

While there, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin was seen reporting to Putin on construction work in the city, with the Kremlin issuing a statement noting that Putin was informed on “the construction of new residential microdistricts, social and educational facilities, housing and communal service infrastructure, and medical institutions.”

The visit has been seen as a show of defiance by the Kremlin after the International Criminal Court issued on Friday an international arrest warrant for the Russian president over alleged war crimes carried out during the invasion of Ukraine.

Kyiv accuses Moscow of carrying out a number of war crimes in Mariupol, including the bombing of a theater in which hundreds of civilians were sheltering, as well as the shelling of a maternity hospital. Russia claimed the theater had been bombed by Ukraine’s Azov battalion and said the hospital was being used as by Azov fighters as a base, despite evidence to the contrary.

After a prolonged and bloody siege between Russian forces and fighters from the Azov battalion, who had holed themselves up in the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, Ukraine’s forces finally surrendered and Russia declared it had complete control of the city in May.

Mykhaylo Podolyak, an aide to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, slammed Putin’s surprise trip to Mariupol on Twitter, saying the president had come to “admire the ruins of the city” and that the visit showed “cynicism and a lack of remorse.”

— Holly Ellyatt

Chinese President Xi Jinping is making a landmark three-day state visit to Moscow on Monday as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to shake global relations between the East and the West.

China has become Russia’s most important ally in recent years, but Beijing has tried to avoid any overt show of support for Moscow’s ongoing war in Ukraine or — “special military operation” — as Putin calls it, instead calling for a cease-fire and offering to broker a peace deal.

Xi’s visit to Moscow is nonetheless a political coup for Putin, who has looked increasingly isolated on the global stage following the invasion of Ukraine that has not been as simple as Moscow is believed to have expected it to be.

In the meantime, international sanctions have been piled on Russia, forcing it to look further afield to its erstwhile trading partners in Asia for business. And last Friday, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin over alleged war crimes committed during the invasion of Ukraine.

— Holly Ellyatt