CHINESE President Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow today for two days of talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The Russian leader said on greeting Mr Xi at the Kremlin that he welcomed China’s plan to settle the “acute crisis in Ukraine,” the 12-point peace plan proposed by Beijing last month.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Mr Putin would provide China’s president with a “detailed explanation” of Russia’s current view of the war, which remains deadlocked along a 600-mile front through eastern Ukraine. 

At the two leaders’ last meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, last September, Mr Putin’s remark to Mr Xi that he “understands your questions and concerns” about the Ukraine war raised speculation of a rift in the “friendship without limits” the two countries declared in February 2022, but there was no sign of that today.

While substantive talks are not due to start until Tuesday, the presidential summit signals a continuing close relationship, with the two leaders greeting each other publicly as “dear friend.”

China’s Foreign Ministry issued a rebuke to the International Criminal Court over its “double standards,” a reference to the arrest warrant the court in The Hague issued for the Russian leader on Friday, which has prompted criticism across the global South since the court has never sought to hold US or allied leaders responsible for war crimes.

China has remained neutral since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began and has dismissed US accusations that it plans to supply weapons for the Russian war effort as “smears,” but has repeatedly criticised Nato expansion to the Russian border as a key cause of the war.

Its peace plan calls for an immediate ceasefire, respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both countries and an end to retaliatory sanctions.

Professor Li Haidong of China’s Foreign Affairs University told the Global Times newspaper that US claims a ceasefire meant accepting Russian conquests were groundless, since ending the fighting was “a precondition for Moscow and Kiev to solve their problems by talks.

“The US opposition to a ceasefire and China’s call for one presents the most obvious difference between the selfish and vicious intentions of the US … and the common wishes of the vast majority of the international community,” he said.