(Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff met the Chinese ambassador to Kyiv on Wednesday and discussed a visit to Kyiv last week by a Chinese envoy and preparations for a world summit devoted to the two-year-old conflict with Russia.
Zelenskiy’s website said chief of staff Andriy Yermak and Ambassador Fan Xianrong continued the themes raised in last week’s discussions with Li Hui, China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs.
It said the discussion focused on “further joint actions” and Zelenskiy’s plan to end the conflict.
Yermak, it said, told the ambassador of the state of plans for the “peace summit” to be hosted by Switzerland and thanked China for its “interest in achieving a just peace for Ukraine”.
An account last week on the president’s website said Yermak told Li about the battlefield situation and prospects for Kyiv’s peace plan. He also presented what Kyiv described as evidence of North Korean weaponry supplied to Moscow.
Li had met a Russian deputy foreign minister in Moscow before arriving in Kyiv.
Kyiv has been trying to cultivate good relations with Beijing, and China has attended at least one of the preparatory meetings for the summit, though Russia has not been invited.
Ukraine’s peace plan calls for the withdrawal of all Russian troops from occupied territory, the restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 post-Soviet borders and a process to make Russia accountable for its actions.
Russia has ruled out any negotiations based on that premise.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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