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BEIJING: President Xi Jinping told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Friday that China was pleased to see Moscow and Washington improving their relations, state media said.
Putin and US President Donald Trump are set to hold talks in a bid to end the war in Ukraine. Both sides have confirmed preparations for a summit are underway and have suggested that a meeting could take place next week, although no firm date or venue has been set.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that Xi had talked to Putin on Friday at the Russian leader’s request.
Putin briefed Xi on the “situation of recent contact and communications” between the US and Russia, as well as the situation in Ukraine, it said.
“China is glad to see Russia and the US maintain contact, improve their relations, and promote a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis,” state news agency Xinhua’s English service quoted Xi as telling Putin.

Moscow and Beijing have deepened their ties since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
China has never denounced Russia’s war nor called for it to withdraw its troops, and many of Ukraine’s allies believe that Beijing has provided support to Moscow.
It insists it is a neutral party, regularly calling for an end to the fighting while also accusing Western countries of prolonging the conflict by arming Ukraine.
In the call on Friday, Xi “pointed out that complex issues have no simple solutions” and said “China will always... support making peace and promoting talks,” CCTV reported.
Putin is set to visit China on a trip beginning in late August.
He will attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
He will also hold talks with Xi.
China has been mentioned in media reports as a possible venue for the Putin-Trump summit, with speculation that Trump could join Putin there in early September. The Kremlin has not ruled out such a meeting.

DNIPROPETROVSK, Ukraine: Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield expressed little hope for a diplomatic solution to the war with Russia, as US President Donald Trump’s Friday deadline for the Kremlin to make peace arrived and he eyed a possible summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor.

Trump, exasperated that Putin didn’t heed his calls to stop bombing Ukrainian cities, almost two weeks ago moved up his ultimatum to impose additional sanctions on Russia, as well as introduce secondary tariffs targeting countries that buy Russian oil, if no Kremlin moves toward a settlement were forthcoming. It was unclear what steps Trump intended to take Friday.

Trump’s efforts to pressure Putin into stopping the fighting have so far delivered no progress. Russia’s bigger army is slowly advancing deeper into Ukraine at great cost in troops and armor while it relentlessly bombards Ukrainian cities. Russia and Ukraine are far apart on their terms for peace.

Ukrainian forces are locked in intense battles along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line that snakes from northeast to southeast Ukraine. The Pokrovsk city area of the eastern Donetsk region is taking the brunt of punishment as Russia looks to break out from there into the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine has significant manpower shortages.

Intense fighting is also taking place in Ukraine’s northern Sumy border region, where Ukrainian forces are engaging Russian soldiers to prevent reinforcements being sent from there to Donetsk.

In the Pokrovsk area of Donetsk, a commander said he believes Moscow isn’t interested in peace.

“It is impossible to negotiate with them. The only option is to defeat them,” Buda, the Spartan Brigade commander, told The Associated Press. He used only his call sign, in keeping with the rules of the Ukrainian military.

“I would like them to agree and for all this to stop, but Russia will not agree to that; it does not want to negotiate. So the only option is to defeat them,” he said.

In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, a howitzer commander using the call sign Warsaw, said troops are determined to thwart Russia’s invasion.

“We are on our land, we have no way out,” he said. “So we stand our ground, we have no choice.”

Trump said Thursday that he would meet with Putin even if the Russian leader will not meet with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. That has stoked fears in Europe that Ukraine could be sidelined in efforts to stop the continent’s biggest conflict since World War II.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an assessment Thursday that “Putin remains uninterested in ending his war and is attempting to extract bilateral concessions from the United States without meaningfully engaging in a peace process.”

“Putin continues to believe that time is on Russia’s side and that Russia can outlast Ukraine and the West,” it said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Friday that Europe should take the lead in efforts to
end the conflict.

Orbán said the leaders of Germany and France should go to Moscow “to negotiate on behalf of Europe.” Otherwise, “we will be sidelined in managing the security issues of our own continent,” Orbán told Hungary’s state broadcaster.

Orbán, who is a harsh critic of the European Union to which his country belongs, said Europe’s concerns that a Trump-Putin summit might not address the continent’s interests meant it should seize the diplomatic initiative.

“This war cannot be ended on the front line, no solution can be concluded on the battlefield,” he said. “This war must be ended by diplomats, politicians, leaders at the negotiating table.”