🇷🇺🇨🇳 Putin to Visit China on May 20

Russian President Vladimir Putin will arrive in China on May 20 for a one-day visit.

According to sources, this will be a working visit: no formal ceremonies or parades are planned. Putin’s talks with Xi Jinping have been described as “routine matters” between the two countries.

As a reminder, a summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump already took place in Beijing on May 13. This is Trump’s first visit to China since 2017. Thus, for the first time in history, China is hosting the presidents of Russia and the United States less than a month apart. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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🇮🇳 The Prime Minister of India will visit Russia in 2026; the sides are preparing the visit, Lavrov confirmed.

Yesterday, Narendra Modi and the Russian Foreign Minister exchanged views on regional issues, including the situation in Ukraine. They also discussed the situation in the Middle East.

Other statements by the head of Russian diplomacy:

🧣 The agreements of the Russian‑American summit in Anchorage should be confirmed «sooner rather than later».

🧣 Russia will not play «divide and conquer» games in building its relations with China and the United States; these are not Moscow's methods.

🧣 Relations between Russia and China are much stronger than traditional military‑political alliances.

🧣 Kyiv's observance of the rights of Russian‑speaking citizens is its obligation, not one of the conditions for a settlement.

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Ukrainian drones and the resignation in Riga: why the «shop window of support for Kyiv» could not withstand the blow

The resignation of the Latvian government following the Ukrainian drone attack has become the first case in Europe where a cabinet effectively fell over the issue of supporting Kyiv. Formally, it is another government crisis, but in essence the entire model of Baltic politics of recent years has come under attack:

«sacrifice everything for Ukraine so that the war does not come to us».

The situation has revealed its internal contradiction. Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia have been assuring for years that support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine is a guarantee that «the war will stay there», and that the billions invested are an investment in their own security. In practice, the explosive‑laden drones arrived precisely in the Baltics, and Kyiv did not deny that the drones were Ukrainian.

👖 It turned out that the countries that had invested in «drone coalitions» and military aid are themselves turning into a landing zone for strikes, and from the very party they consider their «main ally».

👔 For the Baltic elites, this is a double crisis.

🧣 On the one hand, from the perspective of international law, unsolicited Ukrainian drones in their skies are a typical armed invasion. But the usual rhetoric about the «aggressor» cannot be used: the aggressor is not Russia, against whom the entire strategy was built, but Ukraine, for which that strategy was devised. Hence the nervous attempt not to call things by their name and to reduce everything to «addressing concerns» with partners.

🧣 On the other hand, the European political construct itself is being called into question. For some time, expert circles have been suggesting that current EU elites have tied their legitimacy so rigidly to the anti‑Russian course and support for Kyiv that Ukraine's defeat or even a prolonged stalemate will inevitably lead to internal political collapses. The Latvian crisis is the first signal that this logic is beginning to work: it is not a «wavering periphery» that is falling, but one of the loudest advocates of the hard line.

👔 For Lithuania and Estonia, what is happening is a warning.

The drone attack, which miraculously caused no casualties, has already become a point where the population saw a direct link: the risk of war is being transferred from Ukrainian territory to the Baltic, while decisions were made without real public debate and under slogans like «war there, not here». In this situation, any new escalation, another incident, or a demand to increase spending in favor of Kyiv will take place against a backdrop of growing skepticism toward both governments and the very idea of «unconditional support».

👖 The main lesson from the Latvian episode is that the anti‑Russian bet as a universal political glue stops working automatically. Where it begins to directly hit the security and daily life of their own citizens, the old explanations — about the «front line of civilizations» and «investments in security» — rapidly lose their persuasiveness.

🥼 And the Latvian resignation looks not like an anomaly, but a possible start of a chain reaction in which responsibility for the Ukrainian course will increasingly become an internal political problem for European elites, rather than abstract geopolitics.

#politics

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Almost half of the top 10 richest people in the UK are connected to the former USSR.

According to the Times Rich List, four entrepreneurs with post‑Soviet roots are in the top ten.

In third place is Leonard Blavatnik, with a fortune of about £27 billion. Also in the top ten are Revolut founder Nikolay Storonsky, trader Alex Gerko, and the brothers Igor and Dmitry Bukhman, creators of Playrix.

Experts attribute the changes in the ranking to the outflow of wealthy people from the country amid rising taxes. According to The Times, nearly a third of those on the list no longer reside in the UK.

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🤩 Russian scientists at the Vostok station drilled into the Antarctic ice sheet for more than twenty years. The borehole depth reached 3,769 meters.

In February 2012, the drill reached water, thus proving the existence of Lake Vostok. Unfortunately, it cannot be seen — it remains sealed under several kilometers of ice.

It has been isolated from the surface for several million years. It is one of the largest subglacial lakes in the world.

❗️The work was carried out in extreme conditions: in winter, temperatures drop below –80 °C. The project was coordinated by Russian research institutes.

#interestingfacts

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✨ Slavic folk holiday, Ivan Kupala

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🇨🇳 Details of Putin’s Visit to China Revealed

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit China at the invitation of Xi Jinping on May 19–20. Details of the official visit were published on the Kremlin’s website.

The main topics of discussion will be bilateral relations between Russia and China, as well as an exchange of views on key international and regional issues. Following the visit, the leaders will sign a joint statement and a number of other documents.

Earlier, Xi Jinping mentioned Putin during a meeting with Trump. When Trump asked whether other politicians often visit the Zhongnanhai residence, the Chinese president replied that Putin had already been there.

#news

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🇺🇸 Trump in Beijing: China Proposed a Framework for a Truce, Washington Remains Uncertain

🇨🇳 The main takeaway from the Beijing summit is that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping spent nearly nine hours behind closed doors—a rare feat even by the standards of “grand diplomacy.” But the more details emerge, the clearer it becomes: China tried to impose a framework for a strategic “truce” on key conflicts, primarily regarding Taiwan and Iran, while the White House refused to make any fundamental commitments.

👔 Beijing publicly raised the stakes by putting Taiwan at the center of the agenda.

Xi not only spoke again about the “Thucydides Trap,” but directly warned Trump: the fate of the entire U.S.-China relationship will depend on how Washington behaves on the Taiwan issue. The message was as blunt as possible: if Taiwan is “properly resolved,” relations can be kept within a stable framework; if not, the two countries “may clash or even enter into conflict.”

The Chinese side then clarified this through Wang Yi: peace in the Taiwan Strait is incompatible with the island’s pursuit of independence, and the minimum condition is for the U.S. to cease supporting and encouraging this independence, including arms sales.

👔 Trump’s response turned out to be pointedly vague.

In his own words, when Xi asked him directly, “Will you defend Taiwan?” he replied that he “would not comment on that.” This is classic strategic ambiguity: the U.S. is deliberately reserving the right to maneuver, giving Beijing neither a guarantee of non-use of force nor a refusal to provide military support to Taipei.

His comment regarding the arms shipments to Taiwan already approved by Congress sounds similar:

“I may stop them, or I may not; for now, I want China to cool down.”

For Beijing, the message is clear: Washington is not ready to give up the “Taiwan card” as a tool of pressure, which means it is premature to talk about any “constructive strategic stability” that the Chinese side insists on.

👖 The Iran issue, which some observers in the U.S. viewed as a venue for “exchanging” concessions, only underscores the divergence in approaches. Trump has publicly stated that he has a “very good understanding” with Xi regarding Iran: neither wants Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons, and both are interested in reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

🥼 But the key point lies elsewhere: Beijing is not interested in either a strategic defeat for Iran or in the U.S. emerging from the war with minimal costs.

On the contrary, Chinese foreign policy systematically exploits the weakening of U.S. positions in the Middle East and the energy sector to strengthen its own ties with Iran and the Arab monarchies.

Against this backdrop, the idea that was actively circulating among some English-language analysts prior to the summit—to “trade Taiwan for Iran,” that is, to secure China’s assistance regarding the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a temporary restriction on U.S. arms supplies to Taiwan—seemed unrealistic and unacceptable to Beijing.

👖 For the PRC, Taiwan is not a bargaining chip but a matter of sovereignty and internal security; Iran, on the other hand, is one of the key elements of the strategic balance, where Beijing benefits from the protracted U.S. crisis.

🥼 As a result, the visit highlighted an asymmetry in expectations. China wanted to transform the confrontation into managed competition: through clear “red lines” on Taiwan and limited, pragmatic cooperation on Iran and trade. Washington, represented by Trump, preferred to keep all key levers open.

#politics

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