Last week (April 24–30), the first talks since the beginning of the full-scale war took place between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelensky. The Chinese leader expressed readiness to promote a peaceful settlement of the war, but Ukraine keeps prioritizing a just peace without territorial compromises.

At the same time, the UN strongly opposed Russian propaganda, and PACE recognized the deportation of Ukrainian children to the territory of the Russian Federation as genocide. In addition, a number of leaders of NATO member states visited Ukraine and promised to make sure our country receives security guarantees on the way to membership in the Alliance.

Xi wants to facilitate talks, the Kremlin is ready, but only when certain “goals set” are achieved

One of the important events from last week was a telephone conversation between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelensky, on April 26, which took more than an hour. This is the first contact between the leaders of China and Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. In his tweet, Zelensky called the phone call with Xi “long and meaningful.”

According to the Office of the President of Ukraine, during the negotiations, "special attention was paid to the ways of possible interaction in order to establish a just and sustainable peace for Ukraine." In addition, Volodymyr Zelensky “stressed the importance of all states refraining from supporting Russia in the war.”

Xi Jinping emphasized that relations between Ukraine and China have reached the level of strategic partnership, which stimulated the development of both countries. In the text, which was subsequently published by the government agency Xinhua, the head of China called the war in Ukraine a “crisis,” several times. In particular, he said that “on the Ukraine crisis, China always stands on the side of peace, and its core stance is to facilitate talks for peace.”

The official Beijing also underlined that “China did not create the Ukraine crisis, nor is it a party to the crisis,” but assured that China “as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a responsible major country, would not sit idly by, nor would it add oil to the fire, still less exploit the situation for self gains.” Unfortunately, the words about “adding fuel to the fire” are often used by the Kremlin, when commenting on the provision of military assistance to Ukraine.

Following the conversation, we also learned that China would send their representative to visit Ukraine and other countries for consultations on the settlement of the war. It will be the Chinese ex-ambassador to Russia (2009–2019), Li Hui. At the same time, Zelensky appointed Pavlo Ryabikin, former Minister for Strategic Industries, as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to China.

Ukraine’s partners responded positively to the dialogue with China. National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator, John Kirby, said the White House welcomed the news that there was a phone call, and believes it is important for “China to avail themselves of the Ukrainian perspective on this illegal and unprovoked invasion by Russia.”

Paris also welcomed the conversation between Zelensky and Xi: “We encourage a dialogue that contributes to a resolution of the conflict in accordance with the fundamental interests of Ukraine and international law.” The Élysée Palace said that the message had been conveyed by Emmanuel Macron to his Chinese counterpart, during a visit to China. The head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, emphasized that “any meaningful initiative towards peace needs to aim for a just peace, peace on the terms of Ukraine, whose survival is at stake.”

On the other hand, an important remark was made by NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, who recalled that the official Beijing had never condemned the Russian invasion. The Czech President, Petr Pavel, in an interview for Politico, said that China cannot be trusted to mediate peace between Russia and Ukraine, because Beijing benefits from prolonging the war.

The Kremlin was also actively responding to the conversation between Zelensky and Xi. Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin was ready “to welcome anything that could bring an end to the conflict in Ukraine and Russia's achievement of its own goals.” The commitment to peaceful initiatives that do not happen for “the fault of Ukraine” was mentioned by the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, and the Deputy of the State Duma, Leonid Slutsky.

During his visit to Hungary, Pope Francis also spoke about “ending the war.” The pontiff called for “creative efforts for the sake of peace” to silence “the soloists of war.” As a matter of fact, last week, U.S. Ambassador to Budapest, David Pressman, criticized the Hungarian government and called its urges for a ceasefire “cynical,” given that large parts of Ukraine are occupied by Russian troops. The official also said that Hungary’s blocking of meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Commission at a high level is unacceptable. This is not the first time the United States has criticized Hungary for their friendly relations with Russia.

It is interesting to observe that the EU wants to establish cooperation with key third countries, in order to fight Russia and contain China. The observers say that the EU had prepared a document that mainly focuses “on carrots, rather than on sticks.” The first four priority countries for the partnership will be Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Chile, and Brazil.

Last week, the president of one of these states, Brazil, was again quite active on the diplomatic front. Lula da Silva reminded the Spanish Prime Minister of his idea to create a group of neutral states that could become intermediaries between Ukraine and Russia. But Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, supported Ukraine and urged not to forget that “there is an aggressor, Putin, and the people under attack who are fighting for their freedom and territorial integrity.”

The world opposes Russian propaganda at the UN and recognizes the deportation of Ukrainian children as genocide

Russia already routinely uses the UN platform to promote their disinformation narratives. On April 24, at a meeting of the Security Council, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, spoke out for the protection of the principles of the UN Charter.

The same as during his tour to Latin America, Lavrov tampered with the provisions of the Charter on the self-determination of peoples and the sovereign equality of states in favor of the Russian Federation. He accused the “collective West” of opposing the formation of new development centers in the world through sanctions and replacing the Charter with “a rules-based order.”

Also, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry tried to justify the so-called “special operation” and said that the “Nazi Kyiv regime” allegedly is not able to represent the interests of people who did not accept the results of the “bloody coup” of 2014.

“To remove the threat to our security that NATO has been creating for years directly on our borders, and to protect the people from the Kyiv’s public and direct threats of annihilation and expulsion from the territories where their ancestors had lived for centuries publicly,” Lavrov tried to explain the numerous war crimes of Russians in Ukraine.

Lavrov’s open hypocrisy caused a cascade of negative reactions from the Security Council member states. Britain said it needed no lessons from Russia, Albania was outraged that the aggressor had the audacity to lecture on multilateralism, universal values and sovereign equality, and Germany ignored the meeting altogether. In addition, the majority of members of the Security Council called for respect for territorial integrity and the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine. The Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations, Serhiy Kyslytsia, compared the meeting with the operating theater, where “responsible members of the council surgically remove Russian cancerous polyps from the organization’s body.”

In addition, on the next day Russia held another meeting of the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, in particular on the Palestinian issue. They did it on the Day of Remembrance of the fallen soldiers of Israel and the victims of terror on the eve of Independence Day. In protest, the Israeli delegation left the meeting, and Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan addressed Lavrov with the following words: “What would you do if this Council was convening to single out and condemn the Russian Federation and your soldiers on May, 9 — on Victory Day over the Nazis?”

Although it is currently impossible to exclude Russia from the UN Security Council, the world is trying in every possible way to counter Russian propaganda. Thus, the United States did not issue visas to Russian journalists who were supposed to cover Lavrov’s work at UN meetings. Subsequently, he was complaining that John Kirby allegedly labeled the Russian media to be propagandists who have nothing to do with the democratic vision of freedom of speech.

In response, Russia made an official demarche when they filed a note of protest to the senior diplomat of the US diplomatic mission in Moscow, and rejected the request for a consular visit to the detained American journalist Evan Gershkovich.

Also on April 27, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on cooperation with the Council of Europe. Russia wanted to remove from the document the mentioned aggression against Ukraine, but these attempts failed, and only Russia, Belarus, Nicaragua, Syria and the DPRK voted against the resolution. On the same day, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recognized the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation as genocide. PACE supported the need to collect evidence of the crime of genocide, as well as potential actions of Ukraine in the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

“This decision will significantly help our global work to bring Russia and its officials, including the head of the terrorist state, to justice for genocide, genocidal policy against Ukraine ,” Zelensky said.

The next day, on April 28, the UN Security Council held a “Arria-Formula” meeting (informal discussions of topical issues — ed.) on responding to the abduction and deportation of children during armed conflicts, where the Permanent Representative of Ukraine Serhiy Kyslytsia condemned Russian crimes against Ukrainian children and highly evaluated the PACE resolution.

“Crimes against children are the most heinous acts inherent in human nature… The most effective way to prevent such violations and abuses against children in the future is to bring all current violators to account and to ensure justice for survivors and victims.” emphasized Kyslytsia.

They are also trying to get rid of the Russian trace in diplomatic missions. Last week, Sweden expelled five Russian diplomats for activities “incompatible with their status as diplomats.”

These steps were timely because journalists of broadcasters from several Nordic countries found that many employees of Russian diplomatic missions could be undercover agents. The journalistic community also investigated Russia’s long-term plans to influence the Baltic states, where the Kremlin planned to maintain the maximum Russian presence in civil society.

Commenting on the Russian actions, Advisor to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podolyak said that Moscow impudently humiliated democracy and freedom.

“Russia must be recognized as a sponsor of terrorism and expelled from everywhere,” he said.

NATO security guarantees, pro-Russian Hungary, and shells from the EU

On April 24, the head of the Estonian government, Kaja Kallas, paid a working visit to Ukraine. Following the meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, she signed a joint declaration where leaders of the countries agreed to coordinate their actions to obtain security guarantees for our state on the way to its NATO membership.

On April 27, in aninterview with ETV, Kaya Kallas said that the only security guarantee that really works is NATO membership. According to her, Estonia convinces the allies to provide Ukraine with clear prospects of joining the Alliance after the war.

This prospect is also laid down in the bipartisan draft resolution of the US House of Representatives on the conditions of Ukraine’s victory. The authors of the document, presented on April 26, believe that lasting peace should be ensured by integrating Ukraine into NATO and other Euro-Atlantic institutions.

Earlier, on April 20, Volodymyr Zelensky reported that he expected to officially receive an invitation to the Alliance at the NATO summit in Vilnius, on July 11-12, 2023. In addition, according to Advisor to the Head of the Office of the President, Mykhailo Podoliak, in Vilnius Ukraine wants to receive a calendar plan or action plan for joining NATO.

The idea of security guarantees for Ukraine before its accession to the Alliance is also supported in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. The heads of government of these countries, Mateusz Morawiecki, Peter Fiala, and Eduard Heger, published a joint article in Foreign Affairs, on April 24. There, they expressed the view that NATO should outline for Ukraine a clear path to its membership in the Alliance when the appropriate conditions come. Before that, they shall be be ready to provide Kyiv with security guarantees that will once and for all remove the “gray zone” status from Ukraine.

According to Czech President, Peter Pavel, who with his Slovak counterpart Zuzana Čaputová visited Ukraine on April 28, security guarantees will not have the features of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which stipulates that an attack on one Alliance country shall be an attack on the entire Alliance. “But we can look at the guarantees in various forms that were provided to Finland after the announcement of its plans to join the Alliance, … or the Israeli model,” said Peter Paul at a briefing following the trip.

At the same time, the speaker of the Hungarian Parliament, Dora Duro, said that Ukraine's accession to NATO without major security risks can be possible only if such a step is approved by Russia in the format of the agreement. Volodymyr Zelensky responded to these words, claiming that Hungary’s behavior and its relations with Russia do not correspond to the status of a NATO country.

In parallel, Ukraine advocates its accession to the EU. Last week, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal paid a working visit to Italy. Following the meeting, the head of the Italian government, Georgia Meloni, said that her country would help Ukraine to fulfill the criteria necessary for full membership in the EU as soon as possible, and accelerate the process of starting accession negotiations.

As for the latter, the EU Ambassador to Ukraine Matti Maasikas confirmed that in June the European Commission would publish a preliminary assessment of Ukraine’s progress in reforms necessary to open negotiations on EU membership.

Last week, Ukrainian diplomats also promoted the need to speed up the supply of ammunition and weapons. This was emphasized by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, at the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the EU, which took place on April 24 in Luxembourg.

“The defeat of Russia is a guarantee of a normal life for Europe. No other task is more important than that. To achieve it, Ukraine needs more weapons and ammunition, and all this must be delivered as soon as possible," the Minister said.

Moreover, EU diplomat Josep Borrell promised that the supply of ammunition should accelerate in the coming days.

A propos, at the end of March 2023, the EU countries agreed on a program according to which they plan to purchase one million shells for Ukraine for EUR 2 billion, within the year. However, since then, EU countries have faced disagreements over how to spend the EUR 1 billion reserved for joint contracts. For example, France offered to buy shells only from manufacturers from EU countries.

The French position disappointed other countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland. They expressed skepticism about the fact that European industry is able to quickly produce a sufficient number of shells and meet the urgent needs of Ukraine.