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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 16 May 202616 May 2026<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin will pay an official visit to China from May 19 to 20, the Kremlin has announced.<\/p>\n
Putin and his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, plan to \u201cfurther strengthen the comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation\u201d between Moscow and Beijing, the Kremlin said in a statement.<\/p>\n
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Putin is also scheduled to discuss economic and trade cooperation with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s TASS news agency reported that the visit is timed to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, a key Moscow-Beijing agreement signed in 2001.<\/p>\n
News of Putin\u2019s forthcoming trip arrives one day after United States President Donald Trump departed China<\/a> following the first presidential visit to Beijing in almost a decade.<\/p>\n Although Trump and Xi touted several broad trade deals, they appeared to make little public progress on key sticking points related to Taiwan or the US-Israel war<\/a> on Iran.<\/p>\n They also touched on the Russia-Ukraine war,<\/a> in which China is officially neutral and Xi has presented himself as a mediator.<\/p>\n Still, Xi\u2019s \u201cno limits\u201d alliance with Putin \u2013 announced just before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 \u2013 has undercut that stance<\/a>.<\/p>\n China has also denied reports from Reuters and other news agencies showing that Chinese firms have single-handedly sustained Russian drone production, in part by shipping engines mislabelled as \u201cindustrial refrigeration units\u201d to drone assembly plants.<\/p>\n \u201cWe discussed \u2013 well, it\u2019s one that we\u2019d like to see settled,\u201d Trump said in remarks reported by the Kyiv Post.<\/p>\n Trading partners<\/p>\n As Washington and Beijing\u2019s relationship has been beset by tension, Chinese-Russian relations have only appeared to deepen in recent months.<\/p>\n Although the duo are not formal military allies, they maintain extremely close political and economic ties, with China stepping in<\/a> to buy Russian oil and goods after Western nations cut ties with Moscow.<\/p>\n Before a four-day trip to China<\/a> last August, Putin decried \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d Western sanctions and heaped praise on Beijing.<\/p>\n China is now by far Russia\u2019s biggest trading partner by volume, and transactions are almost entirely carried out in Russian roubles and Chinese yuan, Putin said at the time.<\/p>\n Last month, Xi pressed for \u201ccloser and stronger strategic coordination\u201d between Beijing and Moscow in a meeting with<\/a> Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.<\/p>\n