The Financial Times reported that during Donald Trump’s recent visit to Beijing, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping told the U.S. president that Russian President Vladimir Putin might end up regretting his invasion of Ukraine. A PRC Foreign Ministry spokesperson, the Trump administration, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov all denied the report. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in March that Russia is now losing almost two dead soldiers for every one wounded — and Seth Jones of CSIS said Russian soldiers leave their wounded on the battlefield to die.
The Ukraine War Keeps Getting Worse for Russia and Putin
Putin on Direct Line Back in 2019. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
During last week’s visit by US President Donald Trump to Beijing, his host, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary and penultimate ruler Xi Jinping, made an unexpected comment about the war in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Xi “might end up regretting his invasion of Ukraine”.
The statement attributed to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) dictator was reported by several individuals who were privy to an official US intelligence and political assessment of the summit between the two leaders. The same sources also said the PRC Communist Party chief made these comments regarding Putin during a discussion with Trump that covered a multitude of topics.
Among the items they addressed were not only the situation in Ukraine but also the possibility that the American, Chinese, and Russian leaders could form a common-cause effort to oppose the International Criminal Court (ICC) ‘s actions in The Hague. The Trump administration has opposed the court’s actions in the past and has described it as guilty of political bias, overreach, and infringement of US sovereignty. Other US officials have denounced the ICC as a tool of “lawfare” against Washington’s interests.
Putin is currently wanted on an international arrest warrant from the ICC issued in March 2023 “for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children,” to quote the language in the warrant.
In interactions with Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, Xi had never been so direct about the possibility that the Russian invasion had been a mistake. He seemed to venture into territory that the former KGB Lt. Col.’s “no limits” partner had not broached in any previous statements about the war.
Xi’s past meetings with Biden had always been described in the usual diplomatic boilerplate as “frank and direct”, particularly in conversations regarding Russia and Ukraine. Despite the openness said to have existed between the two, Xi had not been reported to have offered any assessment of Putin and the war to the 46th US president.
Putin in 2022. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Timing of Revelation
The timing of Xi’s comments being revealed now is somewhat suspect, as they became public just before Putin was to arrive in the PRC for a summit with Xi.
The increasingly beleaguered Russian leader arrived only four days after Xi had hosted the US president for his first official visit to the PRC in almost a decade and for only their second meeting since Trump returned to the White House in 2025.
The comment Xi supposedly made about Putin’s “Special Military Operation” that the Russian leader originally said would only last ten days was reported in the Financial Times. But when asked to confirm the story this past Tuesday, a PRC Foreign Ministry spokesperson in Beijing described the details as “completely false”. The US President also denied the report’s veracity and told a group of reporters, “No, he never said that.”
The denial was echoed by Putin’s Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who told the Kremlin press corps, “the Chinese have already refuted this.” The Trump Administration’s official press summary of the important points discussed or decided during the meetings with XI was also bereft of all mention of Putin or the Ukraine war.
The White House also denied the story that Trump had proposed a triumvirate of leaders working to obstruct the ICC’s actions and jurisdiction.
T-72 Russian Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Slowly Turning Fortunes
Despite Xi’s supposed comment, whether it occurred or not, the general sentiment in most European capitals is that it aligns with the reality Putin finds himself in.
There is no suggestion that the dynamic in the war has suddenly “flipped” in favor of Ukraine, but there is the overall clear sense that, as the Economist reported just last week, “Russia is stumbling on the Battlefield.”
“Overall, it feels like an inflection point in the war,” Sir Lawrence Freedman, an emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, told the publication. “If the Russians have nothing to show for their efforts, I would not be surprised if in some places things start crumbling.”
In March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia was suffering almost two dead soldiers for every one wounded, an almost 50 percent increase from a year ago. “The stoicism and fatalism of Russian soldiers must be wearing thin,” commented Sir Lawrence.
Ukraine War Problems Putin Can’t Ignore
Another factor contributing to any erosion of morale among the Russian military is that rising casualty rates are being partly caused by badly wounded soldiers being left lying on the ground to die.
Medical evacuations have never been a priority for Moscow’s military. “They simply leave their wounded on the battlefield,” says Seth Jones, a senior military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC.
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About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, with a specialization in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
