Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday hailed Beijing’s “genuine desire” to help resolve the Ukraine crisis.
Putin is scheduled to arrive in Beijing today to meet his “dear friend” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), seeking to win greater support from China for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine and isolated economy.
The visit, in which he is also to travel to Harbin for a trade and investment expo, is Putin’s first trip abroad since his March re-election and his second in just over six months to China.
Photo: AFP
“We commend China’s approaches to resolving the crisis in Ukraine,” Putin told Xinhua news agency in an interview in Moscow, which was also carried in English on the Kremlin Web site.
“Beijing is well aware of its root causes and global geopolitical significance,” Putin said, referring to a 12-point position paper published in February last year by China on reaching a political settlement to the crisis.
“The ideas and proposals contained in the document show the genuine desire of our Chinese friends to help stabilize the situation,” Putin said.
Days before Russia launched its full-scale military assault on Ukraine in February 2022, Beijing and Moscow declared a “no limits” partnership and have since boosted trade to record highs.
Moscow has looked to China as a crucial economic lifeline since the West hit Russia with sanctions over its military offensive.
China has benefited from cheap Russian fuel imports and access to vast natural resources.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant