Putin rejects claims of military alliance between Russia, China

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday refuted the media reports regarding any “secret” military partnership with China. While addressing the state, President Putin asserted that Russia and China are not creating a military alliance and the cooperation between their armed forces is “transparent”, TRT World reported.

The clarifications from Putin’s side came nearly a week after his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping made a visit to Moscow. Before his most-touted visit, multiple media reported that Putin and Jinping might sign arms deals, amid the fact that Russian armed forces lost significant war tools during the ongoing “special military operation” against Ukraine. Earlier, Putin made it clear that there was no chance of any military cooperation between the duo. 

However, he bolstered his argument that both countries have a military-technical alliance. “We are not creating any military alliance with China. Yes, we have cooperation in the sphere of military-technical interaction. We are not hiding this,” the Russian media quoted him as saying. Everything is transparent, there is nothing secret.”

It is worth mentioning Putin had visited Beijing days before he announced a brutal war against its neighbouring nation. According to multiple media reports, during his China visit, both nations had signed a “no limits” partnership accord. 

Since then, both leaders had interacted virtually and shared their mutual interests.  Last week, when Xi visited Moscow, it was expected that the Chinese leader would mediate the most touted Russia-Ukraine peace deal but instead, he signed several energy deals.