Russian President Vladimir Putin is to meet China's Xi Jinping Thursday for the first time since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Russia and China share a strong bond, facing off against the West, but the friendship is threatened by the unresolved issue of 600,000 square kilometres of Chinese territory near Vladivostok, occupied by Russia since 1860.
The Putin-Xi meeting will take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a security alliance created by Beijing in 1996, made up of core members China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Iran were later added as full members.
