Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping had had a “long and meaningful” phone conversation on Wednesday, their first known contact since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago. Follow FRANCE 24’s live blog for all the latest developments on the war in Ukraine. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
03:10am: Russians pound frontline positions in Bakhmut, Ukraine military says
Russian forces pounded the city of Bakhmut, the months-old focal point of their attempts to capture the eastern Ukrainian industrial region of Donbas, and the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force said Ukrainian troops were pouring in ahead of an “inevitable” counter-offensive.
The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, in a report on Facebook, said fighting gripped Bakhmut and nearby areas. It said Russian forces had failed to advance on two villages to the northwest. At least a dozen localities came under Russian fire.
Separately, Serhiy Cherevatiy, spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told national television on Wednesday that in the past 24 hours, Russian forces had attacked 324 times using artillery and multiple rocket launchers.
“The Russians are destroying buildings in Bakhmut to prevent our soldiers from using them as fortifications,” Cherevatiy said.
10:07pm: Kyiv wants to get China ‘on side’
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, FRANCE 24’s Ukraine correspondent Gulliver Cragg commented on the two leaders’ first conversation since the Russian invasion.
“Ukrainians are just very very diplomatic with the Chinese; they can be extremely sharp-tongued sometimes with their Western allies, but with the Chinese it’s very much the standard diplomatic language,” Cragg noted. “The Ukrainians, I think, still hope that China’s role in this conflict could be a positive one. They fear that China might start arming the Russians […] so they want to get the Chinese on side, partly with a view to a possible mediation; partly of course they are also thinking about the contribution that China will be able to make to the eventual reconstruction of Ukraine after hostilities cease.
“But it has to be said that the page China is currently on is very much not the one that the Ukrainians would like it to be on,” Cragg added.
8:55pm: US, Europe looking at ways to improve Ukraine’s grain exports
US and European officials on Wednesday toured Ukraine’s southern port of Izmail that’s important in bringing Ukrainian grain to the world – and could become critical if a deal with Russia to allow grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports expires.
From Izmail, which has been upgraded since the start of the war with the help of US and other funding, grain is taken by barge down a branch of the Danube through Romania to its Black Sea port of Constanta for shipment onward.
US Ambassador Bridget Brink told AP after looking over the port facilities with Ukrainian and EU officials, as well as Ukrainian grain companies, that they were exploring ways to increase the exports from Danube ports.
8:28pm: EU welcomes Xi-Zelensky talks
Brussels welcomed Wednesday’s conversation between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, thought to be their first call since Russia invaded Ukraine.
“It is an important, long overdue first step by China in exercising its responsibilities as a member of the UN Security Council,” said European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer.
“China’s leadership needs to use its influence to bring Russia to end its war of aggression, restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity and respect its sovereignty, as a basis for a just peace.”
7:35pm: China is effectively saying ‘we are equal with US’
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, FRANCE 24’s Chief Foreign Editor Robert Parsons commented on the two leaders’ first conversation since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
“China is a very big player in this, and also it’s Russia’s main strategic ally,” Parsons noted. “Ukraine would like to get China involved if it could see any advantage for itself […] It’s interesting that the Chinese didn’t refer to Russia in their statement about the talks, whereas clearly the Ukrainians have done.
“But they both talk about sovereignty and territorial integrity, and Ukraine, I think will see room for manoeuvre there; room to try and get the Chinese to be more proactive on their behalf. The Chinese, for their part, quite clearly do not want to antagonise Russia.”
For China, Parsons continued, the Zelensky-Xi conversation was “about, more than anything else, was just asserting itself on the global stage; just saying […] ‘we are an equal with the United States’”.
