China hits back over Zelenskiy’s peace summit claims
China has never “fanned fire or fuelled the flames” of the Russia-Ukraine war, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry has said.
The country believes all efforts should be recognised in supporting peace measures in the Russia-Ukraine war, spokesperson Mao Ning said, addressing a question on an upcoming peace summit in Switzerland in mid-June.
The remarks follow an accusation by the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Russia and China are trying to weaken his planned global peace summit.
Zelenskiy had on Sunday accused China of backing efforts to deter leaders from participating. “Regrettably, Russia, using Chinese influence on the region, using Chinese diplomats also, does everything to disrupt the peace summit. It is unfortunate that such a big, independent, powerful country as China is an instrument in the hands of Putin,” he said.
China attaches great importance to its relations with Ukraine and remains its largest trading partner, Mao said on Monday, adding that China’s position on the peace conference is very “open and transparent”. “We believe that we can get the understanding and support of all parties,” Mao said.
Key events
Russia’s foreign ministry has warned the United States against making “mistakes that may have fatal consequences” in relation to permitting Ukraine to strike targets on Russian soil, Reuters reports citing the Interfax news agency.
Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Ukrainian attempts to attack Russian early-warning radar systems would be foiled and that Moscow may respond asymmetrically to such efforts.
The remarks follow a major shift in which president Joe Biden on Thursday moved to allow Kyiv to use US weapons in counter-fire efforts within Russia near the border with the Kharkiv region. The decision followed days of mounting pressure on Biden from western allies and the Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, who argued that the delay in the use of western weapons had cost lives.
Ukraine is planning record electricity imports from European countries following a wave of Russian strikes that caused significant energy infrastructure damage over the weekend, its energy ministry said.
Imports are expected to rise to 27,178 megawatt hours (Mwh), Reuters reports.
Ukrainians in all but three regions of the country suffered outages, with the state-owned power grid operator Ukrenergo saying shutdowns impacted both industrial and household consumers.
The shutdowns follow Russia’s barrage of drone and missile attacks on energy targets that injured at least 19 people on Saturday.
Welcome to today’s Ukraine blog. The time in Kyiv is approaching 11am.
The speaker of Georgia’s parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, has signed the “foreign agents” bill into law, Reuters reports, citing Russia’s TASS news agency. Critics of the legislation have dubbed it the “Russian law” as they argue it is modelled on a 2012 Russian bill used to suppress pro-western organisations and there are concerns that Georgia could move closer to Russia.
The law – which means organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad must register as agents of foreign influence – has sparked mass street protests.
Here is a brief run-through of the latest developments on day 831 of the Russia-Ukraine war. We’ll bring you the latest updates as we get them throughout the day.
-
Almost 1,000 mourners gathered in central Kyiv on Sunday for the funeral of a high-profile journalist and volunteer combat medic who was killed in action last week.
-
Donald Trump risks being a “loser president” if he wins November’s election and imposes a bad peace deal on Ukraine, Zelenskiy told the Guardian, saying it would mean the end of the US as a global “player”.
-
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged world leaders to come to a peace conference in Switzerland this month, and accused China of discouraging attendance at the meeting. “Regrettably, Russia, using Chinese influence on the region, using Chinese diplomats also, does everything to disrupt the peace summit. It is unfortunate that such a big, independent, powerful country as China is an instrument in the hands of Putin,” he said.
-
Ukraine imposed emergency power shutdowns in most of the country on Sunday, a day after Russia unleashed large-scale attacks on energy infrastructure.
