Ukraine Urges China To Pressure Putin As War Overshadows SCO Summit

Authored by RFE/RL staff via OilPrice.com,

• Ukraine called on China to take a more active role in pressuring Russia toward peace as Putin arrived in Beijing after the SCO summit.

• Kyiv criticized the summit’s Tianjin Declaration for omitting any reference to the war in Ukraine.

• European leaders plan to meet in Paris to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine, while Trump’s proposed trilateral peace summit remains uncertain.

Ukraine urged China to pressure Vladimir Putin to move toward peace as the Russian president arrived in Beijing following his participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he defended the war that has killed tens of thousands of people.

“Given the significant geopolitical role of the People’s Republic of China, we would welcome a more active role [for Beijing] in bringing peace to Ukraine based on respect for the UN Charter,” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement as Putin arrived in the Chinese capital on September 2.

The ministry statement noted that the SCO’s final declaration avoided mention of the conflict, which has become a full-scale war since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“We consider it eloquent that the main final document of the summit, the 20-page Tianjin Declaration, does not contain a single mention of the Russian war against Ukraine,” the statement said.

“It is surprising that the largest war of aggression in Europe since World War II was not reflected in such an important, fundamental document, while it mentions a number of other wars, terrorist attacks, and events in the world.”

It said the failure to mention Russia’s war in Ukraine in the declaration “indicates the failure of Moscow’s diplomatic efforts.”

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has consistently called on China — a close ally of Russia — to put pressure on Putin to end the war.

Another high-profile diplomatic event in China will be held on September 3 — a massive military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Many leaders — including Putin — are remaining in China after the SCO to attend the parade.

Putin Blames The West

At the SCO in Tianjin outside of Beijing, Putin sent a defiant message against the West over his invasion of Ukraine after standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Putin said the war in Ukraine came about “not as a result of a Russian attack” but because of a Western-backed coup in Kyiv, according to comments carried by the Russian news agency TASS.

That was an inaccurate reference to the Maidan protests that pushed Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014, after he scrapped plans for a trade agreement with the EU and turned toward Russia instead.

Putin added that what he called the West’s attempts to draw Ukraine into NATO posed a “direct threat to Russia’s security,” a claim that the military alliance has repeatedly denied.

Meanwhile, Kyiv’s European allies in the so-called Coalition of the Willing — led by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer — are set to meet in Paris on September 4 to discuss potential security guarantees for Ukraine.

“Together with our partners, and in coordination with NATO, we will work to define robust security guarantees for Ukraine. These are a necessary prerequisite to move credibly towards peace,” Macron wrote on X following talks with NATO chief Mark Rutte.

“We will also review Russia’s stance, as it persists in its war of aggression and continues to reject peace,” Macron added.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on August 31 said Kyiv’s European allies were working on “pretty precise plans” and a “clear road map” for a potential deployment of troops to Ukraine should a peace deal be struck between Kyiv and Moscow.

Von der Leyen, in comments published in The Financial Times, added that any such venture would have the full backing of the United States, which has swayed back and forth on potential involvement over the past year.

‘No Concrete Plans’ For Trilateral Summit

Separately, on the sidelines of the SCO, Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov said there were no immediate plans for a trilateral meeting between Putin, Zelenskyy, and US President Donald Trump, contradicting recent remarks by Trump that he was arranging such a meeting.

“Now everyone is talking about a trilateral summit…but there has been no concrete agreement on this between Putin and Trump,” Ushakov said.

Trump, who has made ending the war a top priority of his administration, has grown increasingly frustrated with Putin’s refusal to meet with Zelenskyy but has suggested he was moving toward a trilateral meeting with himself included.

Trump has also expressed anger with Russia’s nonstop campaign of air assaults on Ukrainian cities, causing civilian deaths and damage to infrastructure.

On September 2, Mykola Kalashnyk, head of the regional military administration, said an overnight Russian air strike on the city of Bila Tserkva near Kyiv killed one person and created a massive blaze at a multistory building. Attacks were also reported near the cities of Chernihiv and Sumy.

Inside Russia, the Rostov regional governor reported early on September 2 that some 320 people were evacuated from an apartment block after a Ukrainian drone attack. Details were not immediately available.