Is Xi Jinping about to say do svidaniya to Vladimir Putin? Or is China’s dictator following an opening set up by Emmanuel Macron to further insinuate Beijing into European security? Karen wrote earlier this morning about how one of Volodomyr Zelensky’s key advisers reacted to Macron’s efforts to get China involved in settling the war. Oleskiy Danilov ripped Macron for negotiating “behind the Ukrainian people’s backs,” and wondering aloud whether Macron would “give up Bordeaux” if invaded … an accusation that could hammer sensitive memories from 1940, and presumably Danilov knows it.

Yet less than a day later, Zelensky himself took a “long and meaningful phone call” from XI, as the New York Times reports this morning. And Zelensky seemed pretty pleased about it afterward:

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, spoke by telephone on Wednesday, in the first known contact between the two leaders since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mr. Zelensky said he “had a long and meaningful phone call” with Mr. Xi. The Chinese state news media said the two leaders had discussed “the Ukraine crisis” and their nations’ bilateral relationship.

“I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine’s ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations,” Mr. Zelensky said on Twitter.

Well, well, well. That’s quite the turnaround from earlier in the week, when a Chinese diplomat suggested in France that the former Soviet republics should not expect recognition of sovereignty. Lu Shaye, Beijing’s ambassador to France, spouted Putin’s party line regarding Russia’s claims on its former empire:

“Even these countries of the former Soviet Union do not have an effective status in international law, since there is no international agreement that would specify their status as sovereign countries.”

China has spent the days afterward backpedaling from that claim. Their Foreign Ministry issued a statement affirming the sovereignty of the former Soviet satellites, and declared that to be the official policy of Beijing:

A spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, said China “respects the sovereign status of former Soviet republics after the Soviet Union’s dissolution” on Monday. …

Mao, when asked if Lu’s comments represented official policy, responded, “I can tell you what I stated just now represents the official position of the Chinese government.”

“The Soviet Union was a federal state and as a whole was one subject of international law in international relations. This does not negate the republics’ status as sovereign countries after the Soviet Union’s dissolution,” she added. “On the Ukraine issue, China’s position is objective, just, and clear. We will continue to work with the international community to make our own contribution to facilitating a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.”

Suddenly, Zelensky now gets a phone call from Xi and a formally appointed ambassador to back up the recognition of Ukraine’s sovereignty. That has to be seen in Moscow as a humiliation, since the entire basis of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is that it’s part of Russia and sovereign to Moscow. Up to now, Xi and the official line in Beijing have steered clear of that issue, including a diplomatic freeze-out of Kyiv.

Now, however, Xi is fully engaging with Ukraine on the basis of “bilateral” talks, an explicit recognition of equal sovereignty. Not only did Zelensky get all this, but Xi has appointed a “special envoy” to help facilitate a resolution to the war, according to Beijing’s state media:

President Xi Jinping said China will send a special representative to Ukraine to help resolve the crisis there in a phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday.

According to Xinhua News Agency, a special Chinese representative on Eurasian affairs will visit Ukraine and other countries “to conduct in-depth communication with all parties on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis”.

President Xi also told Zelenskiy that dialogue and negotiations are the “only viable way out” of the crisis.

Zelensky seems to be contradicting Danilov here, welcoming Xi’s assistance, at least for now. But the real question is this: Has Xi decided to push Putin back to arm’s distance? That would seem very odd at this late stage of the war; Xi had plenty of opportunities to pressure Putin into reversing course and pull out of Ukraine. Surely one diplomatic faux pas in Paris wouldn’t be so embarrassing as to reverse China’s overall policy of eternal brotherhood with Putin, or however else China’s state media describes it.

One has to wonder, then, whether Putin himself is either behind Xi’s initiative or at least fully in support of it. His lightning conquest has turned into a fifteen-month quagmire, and his vaunted military holds almost the same ground as Russia controlled before the war without firing a shot. Ukraine is soaking up superior arms from the West and readying a spring offensive while Putin is desperate to find cannon fodder to face against them. The infighting between the Defense Ministry and Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner militias continues to create problems for Putin, and the quagmire has now created another political crisis, ISW reports, on whether Putin should go the Full Stalin at home as well as in Ukraine:

Russian ultranationalists are continuing to advocate for the Kremlin to adopt Stalinist repression measures. Russian State Duma Parliamentarian Andrey Gurulyov – a prominent Russian ultranationalist figure within the ruling United Russia Party – stated that Russia needs to reintroduce the concept of the “enemy of the people.”[10] This concept designated all the late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s opposition figures as the enemies of society. Gurulyov frequently shares extreme opinions on Russian state television but the rhetoric among the ultranationalists is increasingly emphasizing the need for the targeting and elimination of Russia’s internal enemies. Former Russian officer Igor Girkin and Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin often echo similar calls to prosecute Russian officials who are hoping to end the war via negotiations with the West. Such attitudes indicate that the ultranationalist communities are expecting Russian President Vladimir Putin to expand repression and fully commit to the war.

The Kremlin continues to avoid adopting overtly repressive measures likely out of concern for the stability of Putin’s regime. The Russian government withdrew a bill from the Russian State Duma that would have increased taxes from 13 to 30 percent for Russians who have fled the country.[11] Russian ultranationalists have repeatedly called on the Kremlin to nationalize property belonging to Russians who had “betrayed” the country by fleeing, but the Kremlin appears to remain hesitant to introduce such unpopular measures. Unnamed sources told Russian independent outlet Verska that the Russian presidential administration does not support the return of capital punishments in Russia – another issue that recently reemerged in Russian policy discussions.[12] The Kremlin could use the threat of the death penalty to scare Russians into supporting the war effort (or remaining passively resistant to it), but Putin likely remains hesitant to destroy his image as a diplomatic and tolerant tsar.

Putin may be looking for a face-saving way out of the war while he can still get it. Xi may just be doing a solid for his eternal brother. And while Zelensky may publicly cheer the engagement of Beijing on the basis of recognized sovereignty, don’t expect Zelensky to simply hand over the Donbas out of joy. He will fight at least long enough to force Xi and Putin into serious concessions.