The Kremlin’s announcement on Saturday that President Vladimir Putin will travel to Beijing for a two-day visit beginning Monday underscored the deepening alignment between Moscow and Beijing, as Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its fifth year and Western sanctions continue to squeeze its economy. The trip, timed to mark the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship, will see Putin meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping — who last September welcomed him as an “old friend” — for talks the Kremlin said would cover bilateral ties, economic cooperation, and “key international and regional issues.”
The visit comes less than a day after U.S. President Donald Trump concluded his own state visit to China, where he discussed trade and the U.S.-led war in Iran with Xi. The sequencing placed Beijing at the center of a complex diplomatic geometry in which the world’s three largest military powers are each pursuing competing agendas while maintaining high-level contacts with the same Chinese leadership.
Several thousand miles to the west, the grinding war between Russia and Ukraine continued to produce casualties and exchanges of fire. On Saturday, Ukraine received the bodies of 528 soldiers returned by Russia, the country’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement. Forensic experts will now work to identify the remains. The repatriation followed a prisoner exchange on Friday in which each side freed 205 captives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the swap as the first phase of a planned exchange of 1,000 prisoners of war from each side. Some of the Ukrainians released had been held since 2022 and had fought in the war’s fiercest battles, he added.
Overnight, the conflict’s aerial dimension remained intense. Russia launched 294 drones at Ukraine, 269 of which were shot down, Ukraine’s Air Force reported. In the southern Odesa region, drones struck a five-story apartment block and a one-story house, injuring two people, regional head Oleh Kiper said, adding that the port was also damaged.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its forces shot down 138 Ukrainian drones overnight over 14 Russian regions, including the Moscow area, and over the annexed Crimean peninsula. Ukrainian attacks killed two civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region on the western border, local officials said: one man died when a drone hit his vehicle in Krasnaya Yaruga, and another was killed when his home was struck in Dubovoye. An apartment block was also damaged in a separate attack.