Russian president Vladimir Putin has called on Moscow and Beijing to deepen their strategic ties, as he spoke with “dear friend” Chinese president Xi Jinping on a video call.
Putin waved at Mr Xi over the call as he proposed outlining plans to develop the “comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation” between Russia and China, strengthening a geopolitical alliance which seeks to weaken western hegemony.
In a video released by the Kremlin of the conversation, Putin said: "I agree with you that cooperation between Moscow and Beijing is based on a broad commonality of national interests and a convergence of views on what relations between major powers should be.
"We build our ties on the basis of friendship, mutual trust and support, equality and mutual benefit. These connections are self-sufficient, independent of domestic political factors and the current global situation."
Moscow and Beijing’s foreign policies play an important stabilising role in international affairs, Putin added.
The two autocrats have long sought to present the West as being in decline, as China continues to serve as America’s greatest economic threat and Putin’s war of attrition against Western-supplied Ukrainian forces grinds on.
With the war approaching the three-year mark and a new era beginning as Donald Trump enters the White House, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky urged European leaders to establish themselves as strong global players.
“All European countries must be willing to spend as much on security as is truly needed, not just as much as they have gotten used to during years of neglect,” he told world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. “If it takes 5 per cent of GDP to cover defense then so be it, 5 percent it is.”
Defence spending should not need to be compensated at the expense of healthcare or pensions, he added, saying that is “not fair”.
In the speech, for which he received rapturous applause, Mr Zelensky also warned that Putin will return to Europe with an army 10 times the size of that which invaded Ukraine in 2022, if a future diplomatic solution does not have “strong security guarantees”.
Kyiv has increased the regularity of its long-range strikes into Russia as it looks to damage energy infrastructure and military facilities.
Ukrainian forces struck a Russian aviation factory in the Smolensk region and an oil depot in the Voronezh region on Tuesday, according to Ukraine’s military.
Voronezh’s Liskinskaya oil depot was struck for the second time in the past week, after a Ukrainian strike on January 16 hit fuel and lubricant tanks and started a fire at the Rosneft-run facility, Kyiv’s General Staff said.
Russia’s Defence Ministry says it intercepted 55 Ukrainian drones in a large-scale overnight attack on Tuesday, including 10 drones over the Smolensk region and six over the Voronezh region. Ukraine says it downed 72 of 131 drones fired by Russia overnight.
Meanwhile, a top German official warned on Monday that Russia is rearming faster than had previously been thought - and that it could be preparing to attack a Nato country.
“The Russian armed forces are not just able to compensate for the enormous personnel and material losses, they are successfully rearming,” Germany’s Maj Gen Christian Freuding said.
Although Putin is not necessarily planning an attack on any Nato state, Gen Freuding said he is “clearly creating the conditions for it”. The head of Germany’s military task force in Ukraine noted that production and supplies are growing in Russia, with Iran and North Korea helping to replenish its heavily-used stockpile of missiles, drones and tanks.
