Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he understood Chinese President Xi Jinping’s questions and concerns about the situation in Ukraine, but praised China’s leader for his “balanced” position on the conflict.
The two leaders held their first face-to-face meeting since the war on Thursday at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit held in the Uzbek city of Samarkand.
Xi said he was pleased to meet “his old friend” again after Putin said the U.S. attempts to create a unipolar world would fail. The Chinese president did not mention Ukraine in his public remarks.
