The Kremlin made a key announcement Saturday confirming that Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to Beijing next week for a two-day official visit, where he will hold high-level talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The meeting comes less than 24 hours after U.S. President Donald Trump concluded his own state visit to China, where he discussed trade and the ongoing conflict between the U.S.-Israel coalition and Iran with Xi.
Per the Kremlin’s official statement, Putin’s trip, scheduled for May 19 and 20, is timed to mark the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship. During the bilateral talks, the two leaders are set to cover the full scope of the two countries’ bilateral relationship, pressing global and regional security challenges, and deepening cross-border economic cooperation.
Sino-Russian ties have grown substantially closer over the past several years, a shift accelerated after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Western sanctions imposed over the war left Moscow largely isolated across much of the global stage, forcing the country to become far more economically dependent on Beijing for bilateral trade. When Putin last traveled to China for an official visit in September 2025, Xi greeted him as an “old friend”, while Putin referred to Xi as his “dear friend” in return. Following this upcoming May visit, Putin is also scheduled to return to China this coming November to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit scheduled to be held in Shenzhen.
Beyond the diplomatic developments between Russia, China and the U.S., the active conflict between Russia and Ukraine continued over the weekend, with new violence and prisoner exchanges unfolding across both sides of the front line. Over the course of Saturday, Ukraine confirmed that it had repatriated the remains of 525 fallen Ukrainian soldiers in a separate exchange with Moscow, following a larger prisoner of war swap held one day earlier. Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War announced that Russia transferred the remains, which Russian officials believe belonged to deceased Ukrainian service members. Forensic experts in Ukraine will now conduct full identification processes to name each fallen soldier and return their remains to their families.
Friday’s exchange saw the two sides swap 205 captured service members each, a move Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy framed as the first phase of a larger planned exchange that will see 1,000 prisoners of war returned to each side. Zelenskyy noted that many of the recently released Ukrainian fighters had been in Russian custody since 2022, after participating in some of the war’s bloodiest battles.
Simultaneously, Russia carried out a large-scale overnight drone attack targeting Ukraine’s southern Odesa region this past Saturday, local Ukrainian authorities confirmed. Regional governor Oleh Kiper reported that the strike hit a five-story apartment building and a smaller single-story residential structure, leaving two people injured, and also caused significant damage to Odesa’s critical port infrastructure. Ukraine’s Air Force released figures noting that Russia launched a total of 294 drones in the overnight assault, with 269 of those successfully shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.
For its part, Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed its own air defenses shot down 138 Ukrainian drones overnight across 14 different Russian regions, including the area surrounding the Russian capital Moscow. Russian officials added that drones were also intercepted and destroyed over Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, as well as over the Black Sea and Azov Sea.
The Associated Press continues to provide full ongoing coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war, accessible at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.