Zelensky withdraws from claiming that many Chinese are fighting for Russia

President Volodymyr Zelensky, from Ukraine, doubled his assertion on Wednesday that “many” Chinese nationals were fighting in Ukraine on behalf of Russia, a few hours after the Chinese Foreign Ministry rejected the accusation as “baseless”.

Mr. Zelensky said that Ukraine had identified more than 150 Chinese citizens recruited by Russia to fight in Ukraine. “We know that the real number is higher,” he wrote in an article on social networks, one day after having announced the capture of two Chinese nationals fighting alongside the Russian forces.

The Ukrainian leader has also shared a video in the post, which he said showed the interrogation of the two Chinese citizens captured. Zelensky suggested that the Chinese government, unlike North Korea, had not sent the combatants to Ukraine, but that Beijing was aware of the recruitment of its citizens by Russia.

Mr. Zelensky’s new complaint only occurred a few hours after a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Lin Jian, said Beijing “checked the relevant situation” on the two men captured by Ukraine. But he rejected the suggestion that many more Chinese citizens participated in the war and stressed that Beijing asked its citizens to avoid any involvement in armed conflicts.

“The position of China in the crisis of Ukraine is very clear and is widely recognized by the international community,” said Lin in a press briefing.

The back and forth arrives at a tense time for Ukraine and China. The Trump administration approached Moscow while trying to act as a mediator in cease-fire talks with kyiv. He also targeted in Beijing, with a strong escalation of threats and a tariff of 104% on all Chinese products that came into force on Wednesday – and that Trump later said that he would increase at 125% after Beijing announced a new series of reprisals.