Putin calls Xi Jinping a 'friend', says he will meet him soon

Russian President Vladimir Putin has termed his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping a 'friend' and said he will meet him soon, following reports that the Kremlin leader was planning to visit Beijing in October.

"Quite soon we will have events, and there will be a meeting with the president of the People’s Republic of China," said Putin, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

"He (Xi) calls me his friend, and I am happy to call him my friend, because he is a person who does a lot for the development of Russian-Chinese relations."

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Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said in July that Putin planned to visit China for the Belt and Road Forum in October, while Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said that China had invited the Russian leader as the "main guest" at the event.

Putin evading ICC arrest warrant?

Notably, ever since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March, on suspicionof war crimes in Ukraine, the Russian leader has rarely travelled abroad.

Earlier this week, Putin announced that he was not travelling to India to attend the G20 summit in person. The Russian leader held a telephonic conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and cited his 'busy schedule' for giving the all-important summit a miss.

Watch|Russia's President to not attend September G20 Summit in India

Prior to the G20, Putin also skipped the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.During last month's BRICS summit, Russia was represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov instead of Putin. Pretoria is a signatory to the Rome Statute, meaning that it was supposed to comply with the order to arrest Putin.

According to experts, Putin is willing to visit only those countries where his security service can completely guarantee his safety, and China is one of those places.

China-Russia axis

Ever since the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, China has emerged as one of the most powerful allies of Moscow. The Xi Jinping regime has refused to blame Moscow for the war and instead, attacked the Western nations for imposing sanctions on Russia and profiting from the war.

Meanwhile, Moscow has provided discounted oil and gas to Beijing which it can no longer sell to Europe. Thus a strong China-Russia axis has formed in this region of the world, which has rejigged the geopolitical landscape.

(With inputs from agencies)

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