Zelensky Urges China’s Xi to Visit Ukraine
Ukrainian president warns that Moscow would be emboldened by a victory in the eastern city of Bakhmut
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is urging Chinese leader Xi Jinping to meet with him as Beijing maneuvers itself as a potential peacemaker with strong ties to Moscow.
Mr. Zelensky’s overtures are a test of China’s push to expand its influence on the global stage while maintaining Beijing’s claim of neutrality in the Ukraine war. Mr. Xi met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week in a visit that reaffirmed the countries’ economic and political partnership. Now Kyiv is seeking to counter Russia’s embrace of China with its own diplomatic efforts.
“We are ready to see him here,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video interview with the Associated Press. Mr. Zelensky told reporters last month that Ukrainian diplomats had signaled to Beijing his willingness to meet.
“We would like to meet,” he told reporters. “It’s in the interests of Ukraine today.”
Mr. Xi hasn’t spoken with Mr. Zelensky since the start of the war, but Beijing released an ambiguous position paper calling for peace talks last month and indicated it wants to play a greater role in any settlement.
“We do maintain communication with all relevant parties, including Ukraine, but I currently have no information to provide on the communication between leaders,” said Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when asked about Mr. Zelensky’s invitation during a regularly scheduled news conference on Wednesday.
Mr. Xi had been expected to call Mr. Zelensky for the first time since the start of the war after his trip to Moscow, The Wall Street Journal has reported. But Mr. Zelensky told the Associated Press there had been no recent contact between the leaders.
“I want to speak with him. I had contact with him before the full-scale war. But during all this year, more than one year, I didn’t have,” Mr. Zelensky said. The Ukrainian leader told the AP the Chinese president didn’t voice full support for the Russian assault on Ukraine during Mr. Xi’s visit to Russia last week.
Washington has been wary of Mr. Xi’s recent diplomacy and accused him of providing cover for Mr. Putin. The U.S. said last month that China was considering delivering artillery and drones to Russian forces. China, which has become an important economic lifeline for Russia as it faces Western sanctions and has sold it microchips and other technology that can be used for military purposes, so far doesn’t appear to have provided lethal weapons, U.S. and Ukrainian officials say. China has denied it is contemplating such action.
Asked about Mr. Zelensky’s appeal to the Chinese leader, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday said Moscow highly appreciates China’s balanced position on Ukraine and had no right to advise on Mr. Xi’s contacts.
Ukraine has broadened its outreach to world leaders besides its close Western allies. Japan’s prime minister visited Kyiv earlier this month, and Kyiv has also worked with Saudi Arabia, a conservative monarchy with a burgeoning relationship with Moscow, to help broker a prisoner exchange with Russia last year. Mr. Zelensky also sent a letter to Mr. Xi that was delivered to Chinese officials at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year.
“Ultimately, China has more interest in strengthening its ties with Russia than it does with Ukraine,” said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund. “If you look at it from Zelensky’s point of view, why not engage with China, because ultimately China could have influence on Russia. I doubt anybody has a lot of leverage over Putin but Xi Jinping has a good relationship with him.”
Separately, Ukraine said its forces shot down a Russian warplane near the eastern city of Bakhmut while repelling multiple attempts by the Kremlin’s forces to seize the town, which has become an important prize in the broader war.
Bakhmut, a small city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, has become a central battleground in Russia’s assault on the country, with the fight there taking on increasing symbolic and strategic importance to both sides after more than six months of brutal combat. Ukraine’s forces have held out in the town against overwhelming Russian firepower after the Kremlin’s forces began targeting the area last summer.
Mr. Zelensky said that if Russia were to succeed in capturing Bakhmut, Moscow could begin building international support for a negotiated settlement that would force Ukraine into unacceptable compromises, according to his interview with the AP.
“If he will feel some blood—smell that we are weak—he will push, push, push,” he said.
If Russia were to seize Bakhmut, he said Mr. Putin would “sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China, to Iran.”
Ukraine’s air force said in a statement early Wednesday that its gunners had shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber on the Bakhmut front a day earlier.
“The enemy makes further attempts to seize the town of Bakhmut. However, our defenders courageously hold the city, while repelling numerous enemy attacks,” the Ukrainian military general staff said in its morning update on the fighting.
Russian forces, led by the paramilitary Wagner Group, have dedicated immense firepower and wave upon wave of newly recruited fighters in an attempt to capture Bakhmut in recent months. The battle has leveled much of the city and inflicted heavy losses on both sides, causing some western military analysts to question the wisdom of Ukraine continuing to hold the city.
Moscow’s assault on the city gathered momentum in January when Russian forces captured the nearby mining town of Soledar. That momentum has slowed in recent weeks with the tempo of Russian attacks abating and Wagner’s leader complaining about a lack of ammunition. A Ukrainian commander in the area said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s efforts to exhaust Russian forces in Bakhmut helped it recapture territory elsewhere in the country.
Meanwhile, Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, visited Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant, which has been the subject of global safety concerns since Russian forces seized it last year, the Ukrainian nuclear energy agency said. Mr. Grossi said earlier this week that he would visit the plant to assess its safety and security.
Separately on Wednesday, explosions rocked the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol in southeastern Ukraine, cutting power to parts of the city, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials.
“Melitopol—it’s loud! Several explosions at once are heard in all districts of the city,” said Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, in a post on his Telegram channel. “The occupiers are fussing.”
Russian state newswire TASS reported that the early morning explosions in Melitopol damaged the city’s power supply system and cut off electricity in parts of the city and nearby villages. There were no casualties.
The Ukrainian military also warned of “a high probability of further missile and airstrikes across Ukraine” on Wednesday. Russian forces have launched numerous missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian civilian housing and infrastructure far behind the front lines in recent months, part of what Ukrainian and Western officials say is a strategy to demoralize the broader population at a time when front lines in eastern Ukraine have remained static.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Operational Command South said its missile and artillery units destroyed a motorboat that was used to move a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group between the Dnipro islands as well as an Orlan-10 winged observation drone.
Georgi Kantchev contributed to this article.
Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com and Austin Ramzy at austin.ramzy@wsj.com