US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that China and India’s concerns about Russia’s war in Ukraine reflected global concern about the months-long conflict and said he believed it was “increasing pressure on Russia to end the aggression. ”
“I think what you’re seeing is just a manifestation of the fact that this aggression was an aggression against the interests of people all over the planet,” Blinken said at a State Department press conference.
As the West worked to isolate Vladimir Putin over his country’s invasion of Ukraine, the Russian President turned further to nations like China.
But during a meeting Thursday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Putin acknowledged Beijing’s “questions and concerns” about the war, which Russia continues to claim is a “special military operation.”
And in a stunning rebuke on Friday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has remained silent on the issue, told the Russian president that “today is not a war.”
“We have spoken to you many times over the phone on the subject that democracy, diplomacy and dialogue are all these things that touch the world,” Modi told Putin in Uzbekistan.
The Kremlin reported that Putin told the Indian leader: “I know your position on the conflict in Ukraine, your concerns that you constantly express. We will do everything to end this as soon as possible.”
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Friday that she believes the relationship between Moscow and Beijing is “a relationship of comfort, not necessarily a relationship of trust or a relationship that will combine their efforts on all things”.
“This is not a full marriage in all ways, shapes and form, but they will certainly work together, but they will also work to the benefit of each other,” Sherman said in a conversation with Washington Post Live.
“It was very interesting that President Putin made a remark that he knew Xi Jinping had concerns about what he was doing in Ukraine,” he said. “Very interesting for Putin to say that.”
Sherman said she is “certain that Xi Jinping is looking for an advantage while Russia continues its unprovoked, premeditated and terrifying invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign country.”
“Xi Jinping has always talked about sovereignty and territorial integrity, so that doesn’t match the principles he wants for his own views, whether it’s Hong Kong or Tibet or Taiwan,” he said.
Blinken reiterated on Friday that Russia’s war is “an aggression not only against Ukraine and its people, it is an attack against the very principles of international relations that help maintain peace and security.”
He said the war in Ukraine was a violation of the UN charter, calling Russia “the number one violator of the charter right now.”
“And of course, all the implications that has, including, for example, food insecurity. We have spent a lot of time, a lot of focus in recent months trying to address the food security challenges that have been dramatically exacerbated by Russia’s aggression. We already had Covid, we already had climate change that had profound effects on food insecurity. Add to that conflict, we now have over 200 million people facing severe food insecurity,” Blinken said.
“This is something that leaders in countries around the world feel because their people feel it. And so I think it increases the pressure on Russia to end the aggression,” he said.
