On Tuesday, September 23, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the UN Security Council that China could pressure Russia to end the war in his country, following a U.S. call for Beijing to stop buying Moscow’s oil:
China is also represented here, a powerful nation on which Russia now depends completely …. If China truly wanted this war to stop, it could compel Moscow to end the invasion. Without China, Putin’s Russia is nothing.
Geng Shuang, the Deputy Chinese Ambassador to the UN responded:
Since the first day of the crisis, China has been upholding an objective, impartial position calling for a cessation of hostilities and advocating for peace talks towards a political settlement.
In contrast, U.S. president Donald Trump called China and India “primary funders” of Moscow’s war in Ukraine as they continue to purchase and use hydrocarbons from Russia.
As Washington and Kyiv urged Beijing to play a decisive role, Moscow struck a defiant tone—declaring there was “no alternative” but to press ahead with war in Ukraine.
“We are continuing our special military operation to ensure our interests and achieve the goals,” Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov declared:
We are doing this for both the present and the future of our country. For many generations to come. Therefore, we have no alternative.
