Putin announced “unprecedented” relations with China amid falling trade turnover, uncertainty over Power of Siberia 2 and Xi Jinping’s first personal assessment of the war in Ukraine

In a video message released Tuesday morning on his visit to China, Vladimir Putin said that “Russian-Chinese relations have now reached a truly unprecedented level.” This level, however, was not enough to agree on prices for gas supplies through the Power of Siberia-2 pipeline, on which, despite last year’s statements by Gazprom head Alexei Miller, there has been no progress. Before Putin’s visit to China, a leak appeared in the Financial Times that in a conversation with Donald Trump, Xi Jinping for the first time gave a personal assessment of the war in Ukraine.
Details. In a video message released by the Kremlin, Putin talks about the “special nature” of relations between Russia and China. “Russia and China look confidently into the future and are actively developing contacts in politics, economics, and defense, expanding humanitarian exchanges, and encouraging interpersonal communication,” Putin said, noting that “these are the issues that will form the agenda of the upcoming negotiations in Beijing.” He also stated that “Russian-Chinese trade turnover continues to grow.”

• ️ On Monday, on the eve of the visit, the topics of the upcoming negotiations were also outlined by presidential assistant Yuri Ushakov. According to him, Putin and Xi Jinping will discuss cooperation on hydrocarbons and, in particular, the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline. “This topic will be discussed in great detail,” Ushakov said. He also said that Putin and Xi Jinping will discuss “the most important issues, important and sensitive issues of relations” between the countries.

In fact , according to Chinese customs data cited by Bloomberg, trade turnover between China and Russia in 2025 amounted to $228 billion, which is 6.9% less than in 2024.

• ️ Russia hopes that turmoil in energy markets caused by the war in the Middle East will make China more flexible in negotiations on gas prices under the Power of Siberia 2, sources close to the Russian government told Bloomberg. Chinese officials have expressed interest in speeding up negotiations, but so far there has been no significant progress, one Russian official said.
• ️ According to a source close to Gazprom, the company offered a very competitive price for gas through the Power of Siberia-2, but the Chinese partners showed no willingness to move forward. The goal is to agree on gas prices by September, the source said.
• ️ Progress on any deal depends on Xi Jinping, and so far there are few signs that Russia will be able to easily reach an agreement, Bloomberg writes. Negotiations on the price could take years, Reuters wrote . In 2014, Xi Jinping announced the construction of a pipeline connecting the Galkynysh gas field in Turkmenistan to northwestern China, but the project has yet to be completed due to pricing disputes and other difficulties.
• ️ In the fall, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller announced the signing of a legally binding memorandum on the Power of Siberia-2, increasing gas supplies to China via the Power of Siberia and the construction of the Far Eastern Route gas pipeline. However, Beijing has not confirmed these agreements, saying only that more than 20 bilateral agreements have been signed.
• ️ The balance of power in relations between Moscow and Beijing has shifted sharply in China's favor after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which could allow Xi Jinping to extract sensitive military technologies and better terms in energy deals from Russia, writes The Economist.
• The FT reported, citing several sources, that Xi Jinping said during talks with Trump last week that Putin might end up regretting the decision to invade Ukraine. One of the sources familiar with the meetings between the Chinese leader and former US President Joe Biden noted that Xi Jinping had not previously given his own assessment of Putin and the war.