The Private Admission China Is Furiously Denying

The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Xi Jinping, in private talks with Trump during the May 14–15 Beijing summit, told the U.S. president that Vladimir Putin may come to regret invading Ukraine.

China's Foreign Ministry called the FT report "completely fabricated out of thin air." Trump himself said Xi "never said that." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed to China's denial and declared the matter closed.

The Financial Times stood by its story. Their sourcing: "several people familiar with the U.S. assessment of the Beijing summit."

Somebody is lying. Either China's Foreign Ministry is covering for Xi, or the FT's sources are making things up. Given Beijing's track record of public denials contradicted by private behavior, the evidence suggests the former.

A Departure From Past Summits

Xi has never made this kind of personal assessment of Putin before.

According to officials familiar with past U.S.-China engagements under former President Joe Biden — as reported by the Financial Times — Xi kept Ukraine discussions "frank and direct" but strictly avoided offering personal judgments about Putin or Russia's strategic choices.

He crossed that line with Trump. The timing matters: the war is in its fifth year, Russia is stuck in a grinding stalemate, and Xi is watching Putin burn money and men on a war that hasn't delivered the quick victory Moscow promised.

Trump's ICC Proposal

During the Beijing summit, Trump reportedly proposed that the U.S., China, and Russia cooperate against the International Criminal Court. The suggestion: all three nations share an interest in undermining the ICC's authority.

The White House declined to comment. If accurate, Trump was offering to align the world's most powerful democracy with two authoritarian states to gut an international legal body.

Putin Got a Photo Op — And Nothing Else

Putin arrived in Beijing on May 19 with what Kremlin sources described as "serious expectations." He got a warm reception. He did NOT get the deal that matters.

The Power of Siberia 2 pipeline — a 1,600-mile, $15 billion project designed to pump 50 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas into China annually — went nowhere. Again.

Russia has been desperate to close this deal for six years. It would replace the European gas revenue Putin lost when he invaded Ukraine. China keeps saying no, or near-no.

Kremlin spokesman Peskov was reduced to talking about Putin and Xi reaching "basic parameters of understanding" on the pipeline and discussing "the route and how it will be built." No start date. No contract. No deal.

The joint China-Russia statement from the summit mentioned oil, gas, and coal cooperation in generic terms. It did NOT mention Power of Siberia 2 by name. That's a deliberate omission.

Meanwhile, Trump announced after his own Beijing summit that China agreed to buy American oil and gas — with Chinese ships heading to Texas, Louisiana, and Alaska. China is actively diversifying away from Russian energy dependence. Putin is watching his leverage evaporate.

The Secret Military Training Program Nobody Wants to Talk About

China's "neutrality" claims face a direct contradiction.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that approximately 200 Russian troops attended secret military training exercises in China in late 2025. The focus: drone warfare tactics — the exact technology reshaping the Ukraine battlefield.

Reuters obtained a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on July 2, 2025, which named specific training locations including facilities in Beijing itself. The agreement also provided for Chinese troops to receive training in Russia.

Some of the Russian trainees were senior military instructors — meaning they went back and multiplied their knowledge through Russia's frontline forces.

Reuters corroborated the document with internal Russian military reports from late 2025 confirming that Russian personnel were training in China and studying Chinese drone tactics.

Xi privately told Trump Putin might regret the war. Then China secretly trained his soldiers to fight it better. That is not neutrality. That is strategic deception at the highest level.

Zelensky Is Already Watching His Northern Flank

While Beijing plays both sides, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Thursday evening of a potential new Russian offensive — this time targeting Kyiv from the north, potentially enabled by Belarus.

"It is precisely from there that the Russians are considering scenarios for additional attacks against Ukraine — targeting our northern regions, our Chernihiv-Kyiv direction," Zelensky said.

NATO scrambled jets after a drone incursion near Vilnius, Lithuania. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned NATO may need to "react firmly." The war is spilling beyond Ukraine's borders, slowly but unmistakably.

What This Means

Xi privately told Trump Russia made a mistake in Ukraine. Then he hosted Putin, skipped the gas pipeline deal that would rescue Russia's economy, and got caught running a secret drone warfare training program for Russian troops.

China is not neutral. China is managing both relationships simultaneously — squeezing concessions from the U.S. while keeping Russia dependent and weakened enough to be useful. Taiwan remains a central question in Beijing's strategic calculations.