China and Russia against further NATO expansion
15:10
After the meeting between the President of Russia and the President of the People's Republic of China, a communiqué was issued in which both leaders expressed their opposition to further NATO enlargement. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping talked on the occasion of the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.
In a proposal for a new security pact in Europe sent to Washington and NATO Headquarters in mid-December, Moscow demanded, inter alia, closing the door to the North Atlantic Alliance to Ukraine and Georgia, and reducing the number of NATO troops in Central and Eastern Europe. The US and NATO rejected these proposals, but are still negotiating with Russia about the de-escalation of the situation around Ukraine.
Moscow has already gathered around 145,000 soldiers around the Ukrainian borders, and 30,000 of them have come to Belarus in recent days to take part in a sudden maneuver under the name of Union Firmness.
In a communiqué following the meeting between Putin and Xi, it was stated that "increasing the security of one country must not be at the expense of the security of the other". For Moscow, this means refusal to agree to Ukraine's further rapprochement with NATO, and for Beijing – opposition to the growing US military presence in the Pacific, and especially near Taiwan.
