Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China, February 4, 2022. Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE IS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY/File Photo
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LONDON, Aug 10 (Reuters) – China, which Russia has sought as an ally since it was cold-blooded by the West over its invasion of Ukraine, has called the United States the “main instigator” of the crisis.
In an interview with Russian state news agency TASS published on Wednesday, Chinese Ambassador to Moscow Zhang Hanhui accused Washington of backing Russia into a corner with repeated expansions of the NATO defense alliance and support for forces seeking to bring Ukraine into the European Union. not Moscow.
“As the initiator and main instigator of the Ukrainian crisis, Washington, despite imposing unprecedented comprehensive sanctions on Russia, continues to supply weapons and military equipment to Ukraine,” Zhan said, quoted by TASS.
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Their ultimate goal is to wear down and crush Russia with prolonged war and the stick of sanctions.
The ambassador’s reasoning closely followed one of Russia’s own justifications for its invasion of Ukraine, which has resulted in thousands of deaths and the destruction of entire cities, as well as forcing more than a quarter of the population to flee their homes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing in February to meet President Xi Jinping as Russian tanks massed on the Ukrainian border, agreeing to what both countries hailed as a “no-holds-barred” partnership, surpassing any alliance of the time of the Cold War. Read more
In the interview, Zhang said that Sino-Russian relations have entered “the best period in history, characterized by the highest level of mutual trust, the highest degree of interaction and the greatest strategic importance.”
He opposed last week’s visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own, and said the United States was trying to use the same tactics in Ukraine and Taiwan , to “revive the Cold War mentality, contain China and Russia, and provoke great power rivalry and confrontation.”
“Non-interference in domestic affairs is the most basic principle for maintaining peace and stability in our world,” Zhang said, applying the principle to criticize Washington’s Taiwan policy but not Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia calls the invasion a “special military operation” and says it was necessary not only to maintain its own security, but also to protect Russian-speakers from persecution.
Ukraine and the West say these are baseless pretexts for an imperial war of aggression against a neighbor that gained independence when the Moscow-led Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
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Reuters report; edited by Mark Heinrich
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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