In a Kremlin statement released Saturday, Russia’s president is set to arrive in Beijing the week after Donald Trump finished a state visit to China, where Trump also met Xi. The Kremlin said Putin’s two-day trip is scheduled for May 19-20.
The Kremlin said the visit is timed to line up with the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship. It said the two leaders would discuss bilateral relations as well as “key international and regional issues” and economic cooperation.
Relations between China and Russia have deepened in recent years, particularly as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has left Moscow more isolated internationally and heavily reliant on Beijing for trade after Western sanctions, the AP report said. When Putin visited China in September 2025, Xi welcomed him as an “old friend,” and Putin addressed Xi as a “dear friend.”
Putin is also scheduled to visit China again later this year for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen in November, the report said.
Separately, Ukraine said it repatriated the bodies of fallen soldiers Saturday following an earlier exchange with Moscow involving prisoners of war. Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said Russia returned 528 bodies that, “according to the Russian side, may belong to Ukrainian servicemen.”
The headquarters said experts would now take “all necessary measures aimed at identifying the deceased who have been repatriated.” The repatriation came after Russia and Ukraine swapped 205 prisoners of war on Friday, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was the first phase of a planned swap of 1,000 prisoners of war from each side.
In parallel with the prisoner-exchange-related developments, regional officials in Ukraine said Russia launched overnight drone attacks against the southern Odesa region on Saturday. Regional head Oleh Kiper said Russian drones struck a five-story apartment block and a one-story residential building, injuring two people, and that the city’s port was also damaged.
Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched 294 drones overnight and that 269 were shot down. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its forces shot down 138 Ukrainian drones overnight over 14 Russian regions, including Moscow, and said drones were also destroyed over the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and in the Black and Azov seas.
On Ukraine’s side of the conflict, Ukrainian attacks killed two civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region on the western border with Ukraine, local officials said. One man was killed when a Ukrainian drone hit a vehicle in the village of Krasnaya Yaruga, while another died when his home was hit in a strike on the village of Dubovoye, and officials said an apartment block in the region was also damaged.