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Beijing denies telling Putin to delay Ukraine invasion

China has vehemently denied that President Xi Jinping asked Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to delay a potential invasion of Ukraine until after Beijing has finished hosting the Winter Olympic Games. Recent media reports quoted an anonymous diplomatic source saying that the Chinese president may have suggested this to his Russian counterpart in a call last month when he invited him to attend the Games. Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, yesterday dismissed the report as ‘‘sheer fiction’’. He said: ‘‘The report was purely made out of thin air.’’

World

en-nz

2022-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/281981790976881

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