Hong Kong
UJ
—
China’s top diplomat announced that a “path to peace is emerging” in Ukraine during a G20 foreign ministers meeting on Thursday, coinciding with the Trump administration’s intensified efforts to collaborate with Russia to resolve the conflict.
At the meeting held in South Africa, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi engaged in discussions with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, marking their first significant talks since US President Donald Trump dramatically altered Washington’s approach to the situation by aligning closely with Moscow.
This shift has allowed top Trump officials to conduct discussions with Moscow, bypassing Kyiv, while also directing significant criticism toward Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with an American official expressing that the US’s patience with Kyiv is dwindling.
The G20 foreign ministers’ conference, which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not attend, highlighted how rapidly evolving diplomatic activities have sidelined Europe and China and sparked concerns about changing power dynamics in a complex geopolitical climate.
Wang informed other attendees in Johannesburg that China “supports every initiative aimed at achieving peace, including the recent agreements between the US and Russia.”
He further remarked that a “path to peace is emerging” regarding the ongoing conflict.
A Russian statement indicated that the consequences of the war and US relations were among the subjects discussed between Wang and Lavrov, who both acknowledged their deepening cooperation amidst the conflict.
Regarding Ukraine, both nations appeared to concur on the necessity of addressing the “root causes” of the conflict—an evident reference to NATO—with Russia attributing this viewpoint to Wang, and China attributing it to Lavrov.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, the relentless assault has resulted in countless deaths and the displacement of approximately 10 million individuals, leading to widespread devastation in Ukrainian cities and accusations of war crimes against Moscow’s troops, who remain entrenched in various eastern and southern regions of Ukraine.
Despite Russia’s incursion, both Beijing and Moscow have pointed to NATO expansion as the fundamental cause of the conflict, reflecting their shared opposition toward a US-led alliance framework they perceive as countering their interests.
Earlier this week, Lavrov commended Trump as being the “first Western leader” to publicly assert that NATO’s expansion was the impetus behind the Ukrainian conflict.
Russia has long asserted that the enlargement of the US-led defense alliance threatens its security, justifying its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This justification is widely dismissed by Western leaders as unfounded.
The significant alteration in the United States’ stance on the conflict was highlighted on Thursday when Trump’s national security advisor Michael Waltz expressed the president’s “frustration” with Zelensky following a meeting between the Ukrainian leader and US envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv.
“President Trump is evidently very frustrated with President Zelensky — particularly due to the fact that he hasn’t engaged in discussions and hasn’t been receptive to the opportunities we have presented,” Waltz stated during a news briefing in Washington, referring to an economic offer that the Trump administration has struggled to persuade Kyiv to accept.
“I believe he will eventually come around, hopefully sooner rather than later,” Waltz remarked, reiterating his previous comments urging the Ukrainian leader to “sign the deal.”
The current proposition includes the US taking 50% of Ukraine’s rare earth mineral revenues as compensation for past financial assistance, without any assurance of future aid, as previously reported by UJ.
Waltz’s remarks came amid a growing divide between Trump and Zelensky, raising concerns about how Ukraine’s interests will be represented in future negotiations aimed at ending the war.
Trump has intensified his longstanding criticism of Ukraine’s president in recent days, echoing Kremlin narratives that inaccurately claim Kyiv initiated the war with Russia and challenging Zelensky’s right to govern after he postponed an election due to the invasion.
Following Zelensky’s response, which accused the US president of engaging in “disinformation,” Trump escalated the tensions on Wednesday, referring to Zelensky as “a Dictator without elections” in a pointed post on his platform Truth Social.
After a meeting with envoy Kellogg on Thursday, Zelensky underscored Ukraine’s commitment to sustaining strong relations with the United States.
“General Kellogg’s meeting rekindles hope, and we require robust agreements with America—ones that are truly effective,” Zelensky stated in his evening address to the nation.
“Economy and security must always work in conjunction, and the specifics of the agreements are essential: the higher the quality of the details, the better the outcome.”
Kellogg and Zelensky’s team had deliberated on Ukraine’s prisoners of war, and “the necessity for a reliable and clear security guarantee system to prevent a return of the war,” the Ukrainian president remarked.
Kellogg acknowledged Ukraine’s imperative for security guarantees upon his arrival in Kyiv on Wednesday. Notably, there was no joint press conference after the talks due to a request from the US side, according to a Zelensky aide who spoke to UJ.
This meeting came on the heels of a session earlier this month between Zelensky and US Vice President JD Vance at a security conference in Munich.
On Thursday, national security advisor Waltz defended Washington’s strategy of “shuttle diplomacy,” which involves engaging with Russian and Ukrainian representatives separately.
