BEIJING: China on Monday denied accusations by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that it was trying to prevent other countries from attending a planned peace summit on the war in Ukraine.
Zelensky said at a security forum in Singapore on Sunday that Beijing was “working hard today to prevent countries from coming to the peace summit” due to be hosted by Switzerland later this month.
Kyiv hopes the summit will help it win broad international backing for its vision of the terms needed to end Russia’s invasion.
China criticized the conference last week, saying it would be “difficult” for it to attend if Russia did not participate.
Beijing’s foreign ministry said Monday that “China’s position is open and transparent, and there is absolutely no instance of us putting pressure on other countries.”
“On peace talks, China’s position is fair and just. It does not target any third country, and of course is not aimed at Switzerland’s hosting of this summit for peace,” spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing.
Zelensky said Sunday that more than 100 countries and organizations had signed up to the conference so far.
China insists it is a neutral party in the conflict and is striving to bring an end to hostilities through dialogue.
But Beijing has been criticized by Western nations for cultivating strong ties with Moscow and giving Russian President Vladimir Putin diplomatic and political cover to wage a war of aggression.
China denies pressuring other countries over Ukraine peace summit
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China denies pressuring other countries over Ukraine peace summit
- Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Beijing was ‘working hard today to prevent countries from coming to the peace summit’
- Beijing’s foreign ministry: ‘China’s position is open and transparent, and there is absolutely no instance of us putting pressure on other countries’
Russia strikes power plant, kills four in Ukraine barrage
KHARKIV: Russia battered Ukraine with more than two dozen missiles and hundreds of drones early Tuesday, killing four people and pummelling another power plant, piling more pressure on Ukraine’s brittle energy system.
An AFP journalist in the eastern Kharkiv region, where four people were killed, saw firefighters battling a fire at a postal hub and rescue workers helping survivors by lamp light in freezing temperatures.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “several hundred thousand” households near Kyiv were without power after the strikes, and again called on allies to bolster his country’s air defense systems.
“The world can respond to this Russian terror with new assistance packages for Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media.
“Russia must come to learn that cold will not help it win the war,” he added.
Authorities in Kyiv and the surrounding region rolled out emergency power cuts in the hours after the attack, saying freezing temperatures were complicating their work.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy provider, said Russian forces had struck one of its power plants, saying it was the eighth such attack since October.
The operator did not reveal which of its plants was struck, but said Russia had attacked its power plants over 220 times since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Daily attacks
Moscow has pummelled Ukraine with daily drone and missile barrages in recent months, targeting energy infrastructure and cutting power and heating in the frigid height of winter.
The Ukrainian air force said that Tuesday’s bombardment included 25 missiles and 247 drones.
The Kharkiv governor gave the death toll and added that six people were wounded in the overnight hit outside the region’s main city, also called Kharkiv.
White helmeted emergency workers could be seen clambering through the still-smoking wreckage of a building occupied by postal company Nova Poshta, in a video posted by the regional prosecutor’s office.
Within Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said a Russian long-range drone struck a medical facility for children, causing a fire. No casualties were reported.
The overnight strikes hit other regions as well, including southern city Odesa.
Residential buildings, a hospital and a kindergarten were damaged, with at least five people wounded in two waves of attacks, regional governor Sergiy Lysak said.
Russia’s use last week of a nuclear-capable Oreshnik ballistic missile on Ukraine sparked condemnation from Kyiv’s allies, including Washington, which called it a “dangerous and inexplicable escalation of this war.”
Moscow on Monday said the missile hit an aviation repair factory in the Lviv region and that it was fired in response to Ukraine’s attempt to strike one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residences — a claim Kyiv denies and that Washington has said it does not believe happened.
