Putin meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Moscow after his visit to Ukraine – live

Russian President Vladimir Putin has met with top officials directing his military operation in Ukraine, state media said today.

The chairman, who faces an arrest warrant for war crimes, also met with Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, who is responsible for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The meeting took place at the Rostov-on-Don command post in southern Russia, the TASS news agency reported.

South Africa is aware of its legal obligation, a spokesman for President Cyril Ramaphosa said Sunday, referring to a planned visit by Vladimir Putin after an international court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader.

Russian President Putin was due to visit South Africa in August to attend a BRICS summit.

“As a government, we are aware of our legal obligation. However, we will remain in touch with various relevant stakeholders until the summit,” said spokesman Vincent Magwenya.

Although there is no official confirmation of Putin’s visit, he is expected to attend the 15th BRICS summit as in 2013.

But such a visit would leave the Ramaphosa government, which has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in a precarious position following the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant issued on Friday.

“We note the arrest warrant report issued by the ICC,” Magwenya said.

“There remains South Africa’s commitment and very strong desire for the conflict in Ukraine to be resolved peacefully through negotiations.”

The war has opened up opportunities for Beijing that it once thought would be much later, writes Mary Dejevsky.

Read Mary’s full article here:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian officials say an unprecedented war deal allowing grain to flow from Ukraine to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger is a growing threat and high food prices are pushing more people into the drive poverty, has been extended.

* Xi Jinping walks a diplomatic tightrope as he travels to Moscow on Monday to present China as a global peacemaker while strengthening ties with Putin, his closest ally, who is becoming increasingly isolated from the West.

* Russia, China and Iran completed three-way naval exercises in the Arabian Sea that included artillery barrages on targets at sea and in the air, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

* Three senior US security officials held a video call with a group of their Ukrainian counterparts to discuss military aid to Kiev, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff said.

* Ukrainian forces outside the stricken eastern city of Bakhmut are managing to hold off Russian units to allow ammunition, food, equipment and medicines to be delivered to the defenders, the army said on Saturday.

* Russia’s Wagner mercenary group plans to recruit about 30,000 new fighters by mid-May, its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday.

* Reuters could not verify battlefield reports.

* A deal allowing for the safe export of Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea has been extended by at least 60 days – half the time allowed – after Russia warned that any extension beyond mid-May would be conditional on the lifting of some Western sanctions would depend.

* Putin may not see the inside of a cell any time soon, but his war crimes warrant issued by the International Criminal Court could affect his ability to travel freely and meet other world leaders who may be less inclined to to speak to a wanted man.

* The ICC issued an arrest warrant on Friday, charging Putin with the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Moscow denies committing any atrocities in the conflict and dismissed the arrest warrant as outrageous but meaningless to Russia.

Countries supplying arms to Russia could only be “peripherals in the free world,” said Volodymyr Zelenksy.

The Ukrainian president made the comments in a video shared on Twitter overnight as fighting continued at the front lines.

“All who produce weapons for terror against Ukraine, who help Russia to foment aggression, especially by supplying Shahed drones, who support Russia’s destruction of international law, can only be marginal to the world,” he said.

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Germany must arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he enters its territory and the International Criminal Court orders the state party to execute it, the country’s Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said today.

An arrest warrant for Mr Putin has been issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, accusing him of war crimes of taking hundreds of Ukrainian children from orphanages.

The court accused Mr Putin and his child rights officer Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova of “unlawfully deporting” children “from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.

President Xi Jinping is an unlikely peacemaker. His government is responsible for unspeakable atrocities against the Muslim Uyghur people in the Xinjiang region, the suppression of protests, the rule of law and democracy in Hong Kong, and routine violations of human rights throughout the People’s Republic.

Its forces have swarmed and intimidated Taiwan for many years, threatening its neighbors in the South China Sea. But now China’s tyrannical supreme leader is going around the world to negotiate peace deals. It’s an enigma.

Mr. Xi is indeed on a career path of sorts. After getting Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore diplomatic ties, ending their ruthless proxy war in Yemen, he travels to Moscow next week to preach the ways of peace to Vladimir Putin, a tough client.

To read The Independent’s editors here: