Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on a two-day trip to Beijing next week, the Kremlin said Saturday.
The announcement came less than 24 hours after President Trump finished his state visit to China, where he also met Xi to discuss trade and the U.S. war in Iran.
In a statement, the Kremlin said that Putin’s trip, planned for Tuesday and Wednesday, had been scheduled to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship.
It said that 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 since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 left Moscow shunned on the global stage and heavily reliant on Beijing for trade because of Western sanctions.
When Putin visited China last September, Xi welcomed his counterpart as an “old friend.” Putin also addressed Xi as “dear friend.”
The Russian leader is also scheduled to visit China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the city of Shenzhen in November.
The war in Ukraine
Ukraine repatriated the bodies of fallen soldiers Saturday following an earlier exchange with Russia involving prisoners of war.
Russia returned 528 bodies that, “according to the Russian side, may belong to Ukrainian servicemen,” Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement.
Experts will now “take all necessary measures aimed at identifying the deceased who have been repatriated,” it said.
The exchange comes after Russia and Ukraine swapped 205 prisoners of war on Friday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was the first phase of a planned swap of 1,000 POWs from each side. Some of the Ukrainians had been held by Russia since 2022 and fought in some of the war’s fiercest battles, he added.
Meanwhile, Russia launched overnight drone attacks against Ukraine’s southern Odesa region on Saturday, regional authorities said.
Russian drones struck a five-story apartment block and a one-story residential building, injuring two people, said regional head Oleh Kiper. The city’s port was also damaged, he added.
Russia launched 294 drones overnight, 269 of which were shot down, Ukraine’s air force said.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that its forces shot down 138 Ukrainian drones overnight over 14 Russian regions, including Moscow. Drones were also destroyed over the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea as well as the Black and Azov seas, it said.
Ukrainian attacks killed two civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region on the 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. An apartment block in the region was also damaged in a separate attack, officials said.
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