US tells China not to send arms to Russia for Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence suspects China is considering supplying Russia with weapons and ammunition, an involvement in the Kremlin’s war effort that would pose a “serious problem,” the Secretary of State said. ‘State Antony Blinken. .

Blinken said the United States had long feared that China was supplying weapons to Russia. He recalled Chinese President Xi Jinping’s promise to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin of “unlimited” partnership when they met just weeks before Putin sent his troops to Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Since then, the ties between the two countries have only grown stronger.

“We have been following this very, very closely. And for the most part, China has pledged to provide rhetorical, political and diplomatic support to Russia, but we have reports that worry us that they may be considering providing deadly support to Russia in the war against Ukraine,” Blinken said in a statement. ., an interview that aired on Sunday, the day after he met Wang Yi, a senior Chinese Communist Party foreign policy official, on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich.

“It was important for me to make it very clear to Wang Yi that this would be a serious problem,” Blinken said.

With Putin determined to show progress on the battlefield as the war draws closer to a year, Russian forces have gone on the offensive in eastern Ukraine.

“The Ukrainians remain very strong, the Russians are taking terrible losses in this campaign,” Blinken added. He calculated that Russia had 97% of its ground troops in Ukraine.

The Russians are also eager to conquer more territory before Ukraine receives the most advanced weapons recently promised by the United States and its European allies.