Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke to Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, fulfilling a longstanding goal of Kyiv which had publicly sought such talks for months.
Zelenskiy, describing the hour-long phone call as "long and meaningful", signalled the importance of the chance to open closer relations with Russia's most powerful friend, naming a former cabinet minister as Ukraine's new ambassador to Beijing.
