After more than a year of no direct communication, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had a phone conversation on April 26 2023. According to the Chinese record of the call, “the two sides exchanged views on China-Ukraine relations and the Ukraine crisis”, but globally it was seen as an attempt by Beijing to step in as peacemaker.
Meanwhile, Zelensky tweeted that he “had a long and meaningful phone call” with Xi, and later expanded on his Telegram channel saying that particular attention was “paid to the ways of possible cooperation to establish a just and sustainable peace for Ukraine”.
