Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba has asked China to provide security guarantees for Kyiv, in a lengthy interview containing some of the most direct criticisms of Moscow published by Beijing’s state media.
Western powers and Ukraine have repeatedly urged China to condemn Russia’s invasion as it tries to maintain a supposedly neutral stance, with the US threatening consequences if Beijing provides military or economic support to Moscow.
“Ukraine is studying the possibility of acquiring security guarantees from permanent members of the UN Security Council, including China, and other major powers,” Kuleba was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency on Saturday.
Photo: AP
“We propose that China becomes one of the guarantors of Ukraine’s security, this is a sign of our respect and trust in the People’s Republic of China,” Kuleba added.
China in 2013 pledged to provide Ukraine with “security guarantees” if it was invaded or threatened with nuclear attack, but appeared evasive on the same issue in the wake of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.
Asked about the guarantee last month, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman suggested that such “security assurances have clear limitations on the content and are triggered under specific conditions,” in reference to a similar UN security resolution on non-nuclear states.
Chinese officials have often blamed NATO for provoking Moscow’s invasion and accused the West of escalating the conflict by sending weapons to Ukraine.
Beijing’s state media has also repeatedly amplified Russian propaganda surrounding the war and largely avoided attributing Ukrainian civilian deaths to Moscow’s military aggression.
Kuleba has only had two calls with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) since the invasion, while Wang met Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov in China last month and reiterated that cooperation between the two countries has “no limits.”
In the Xinhua interview, Kuleba also accused Russia of having “compromised” Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, saying that the consequences of the global food security crisis would threaten China’s economy.
“We also believe that this war is not in China’s interests,” he was quoted as saying.
His remarks directly referred to Russia’s actions as an “invasion” — a term that Chinese officials and state media have sought to avoid.
“The situation is not escalating because of Ukraine. We are exercising our right to defend ourselves,” he said, in an apparent rebuff of Chinese warnings against other states providing arms to Kyiv.
While Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has not yet spoken publicly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, he called Russian President Vladimir Putin the day after the invasion.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person