Ukraine’s foreign minister has met China’s special envoy to Kyiv and insisted that the war-torn country would not accept a peace plan that relied on giving up territory after Russia’s invasion.
In the Ukrainian capital, China’s envoy Li Hui is seeking to promote Beijing-led negotiations to resolve the conflict. He is the most senior Chinese diplomat to visit Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022.
China, a close ally of Moscow, has not publicly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, whose foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said that peace depended on “respect of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine”.
In his meeting with Li, Kuleba “emphasised that Ukraine does not accept any proposals that would involve the loss of its territories or the freezing of the conflict”, his ministry said.
He also underscored the importance of China’s mediating role, in particular with regards to nuclear safety and the resumption of grain exports through the Black Sea.
The Wednesday meeting came as Turkey’s president announced a two-month extension of a UN-backed deal to allow Ukraine grain shipments via the Black Sea, which are crucial for ensuring supplies on global grain markets.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan thanked his “precious friend” president Vladimir Putin of Russia, his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy and UN secretary general António Guterres for their roles in extending the agreement.
Erdoğan made the grain deal announcement a day before it had been due to expire, scoring a diplomatic coup ahead of a 28 May runoff election in Turkey, when he is hoping to extend his two-decade rule.
He said Russia had agreed not to block ships from leaving two Ukrainian ports, expressing hope that the deal would be “beneficial for all the parties”.
Kyiv said it was “grateful” to the UN and Turkey for their efforts in “strengthening food security”.
UN chief Guterres said: “These agreements matter for global food security – Ukrainian and Russian products feed the world.”
Russia has repeatedly threatened to pull out of the deal, which was meant to expire on 18 May, claiming that obstacles remain to its own food exports.
It condemned what it called “disparities” in the deal’s implementation that “should be corrected as quickly as possible”.
Kyiv has meanwhile accused Russia of blocking ships by refusing to register them and conducting lengthy inspections.
“Almost 70 vessels are currently waiting in Turkish territorial waters, 90% of them are ready to deliver the products of our farmers to the world,” said Ukraine’s infrastructure minister Oleksandr Kubrakov.
Li arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday, three weeks after Zelenskiy spoke by telephone with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
He arrived for two days of talks with authorities as part of a European tour to promote Beijing’s plan to settle the conflict.
On Tuesday, Kyiv had warned that Ukraine did not need “mediation for the sake of mediation”.
“Ending the war with a compromise at the expense of Ukraine will not work,” a senior Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
Beijing has said the aim of the tour is to “communicate with all parties on the political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis”.
Xi, who visited Moscow in March and has aimed to position China as a neutral mediator, has been criticised for refusing to condemn the Kremlin’s attack on its neighbour.
