Praise for Xi’s phone call with Zelenskyj

DThe phone call between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and China’s head of state and party leader Xi Jinping was seen internationally as a positive sign. Praise for Zelenskyj’s conversation with Xi, who is better known as a confidante of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, came from Berlin and Washington, for example. The Ukrainian head of state himself later spoke of a “long and fairly reasonable conversation”.

“Now there is an opportunity to give new impetus to our Ukrainian-Chinese relations,” said Zelenskyy in his evening video address on Wednesday. “There is an opportunity to use China’s political influence to reassert the principles and rules on which peace should be based.”

Zelenskyy added that China, like Ukraine and the majority of the world community, is interested in the strength of sovereign nations, their territorial integrity and the avoidance of nuclear disasters. “We have agreed to continue our communication.”

Xi and Zelenskyy spoke on the phone for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. Since then, however, Xi has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin several times. Critics accuse China of not being neutral in the conflict – also because the country has not yet condemned the Russian invasion.

Federal government: phone call from Xi and Zelenskyj good signal

The federal government took the phone call between Zelenskyj and Xi as a good signal. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has a “special responsibility to end Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine,” a government spokesman said. “The fact that there is now a dialogue between Ukraine and China at the highest level is a good signal.”

The German position on the war remains unchanged, the spokesman emphasized: “The basis for the development of a fair peace in Ukraine is a Russian troop withdrawal.”