Beijing must speak out against Russian invasion, says Zelensky

Ukrainian president’s comment comes as first grain ship from Odesa reaches Turkey

Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping meet in Beijing on 4 February, 2022 (via REUTERS)

China should oppose the Russian invasion rather than maintaining a neutral stance, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

The Ukrainian president told an online event on Wednesday that he wanted Beijing to join the list of countries who have condemned Moscow’s aggression.

However, China’s close relationship with Russia makes this a distant possibility. And there has been speculation that Beijing may double down its position on the Ukraine war as payback for the controversial trip of US politician Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, a visit strongly criticised by China and Moscow.

The Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin proclaimed in early February that their countries’ friendship had “no limits”. This message was reinforced by Xi in June, when he told Putin that China would support Russia’s "sovereignty and security".

In response to China and Russia’s recent declaration of friendship, the US said it was clear that despite Beijing’s rhetoric of neutrality over the war in Ukraine, it was “still investing in close ties to Russia”.

Zelensky’s words on China come as a UN-brokered grain deal between Moscow and Kyiv in July reaped its first success, after a ship carrying 26,527 tonnes of Ukrainian corn reached Turkey.

The Razoni, a vessel which sails under the Sierra Leone flag, arrived at the entrance to the Bosphorus Strait on Tuesday evening, 36 hours after it left the Ukrainian port of Odesa.

It was inspected on Wednesday morning by a team of international inspectors, according to the Turkish defence ministry. The ship will then travel to Lebanon.

Until the grain agreement was reached, Ukraine was unable to use its ports to export cereal due to a Russian blockade of its ports. As a result, Moscow was accused of stoking a global food crisis.

Kyiv now hopes to export 60 million tonnes of grain, a third of which has been held in silos and the remainder of which will come from this year’s harvest. It will initially use Odesa and the nearby ports of Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk.

Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor who is close to Putin, hailed the Razoni’s arrival in Turkey, implying that the grain deal could pave for the way for a ceasefire. "The good news is that the Kremlin wants a negotiated solution," he said on Wednesday.

However, the Ukrainian president dismissed the significance of the ship’s safe passage from Ukraine, saying it did not amount to much.

"Just recently, thanks to the UN in partnership with Turkey, we had a first ship with the delivery of grain, but it’s still nothing. But we hope it’s a tendency that will continue,” he said.

He added that his country urgently needed to export 10 million tonnes of grain to help its ailing economy.

"The war... is almost killing the economy. It’s in a coma," Zelensky said. "Russia’s blocking of the ports is a great loss for the economy.”