Putin to Visit China Very Soon, Kremlin Confirms

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit China in the very near future, the Kremlin has announced.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on May 14 that preparations for the trip are almost complete.

“This visit is being prepared. It’s safe to say that preparations and finishing touches have already been completed. It will take place very soon,” Peskov told journalists, according to Russian state media RIA Novosti.

He added that the exact dates would be announced soon.

The statement came as U.S. President Donald Trump was in Beijing this week for a state visit from Wednesday to Friday.

Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have met more than 40 times since Xi assumed power over the Chinese Communist Party in 2013.

Their most recent face-to-face meeting was in Beijing in September 2025 during events marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.

During a bilateral meeting during that time, Putin and Xi reaffirmed their deepening partnership, with Moscow’s energy giant Gazprom announcing a new agreement to build a major natural gas pipeline linking the two countries.

Addressing Xi as a “dear friend,” Putin said that Moscow’s relationship with Beijing has attained “an unprecedentedly high level,” according to a transcript of the meeting released by the Kremlin.

Xi, for his part, lauded the Chinese regime’s ties with Russia as an international model that has “stood the test of changes in the world,” according to the regime’s foreign ministry.

In February 2022, the two leaders signed a joint statement declaring a strategic partnership in which “friendship between the two States has no limits” and stating there are “no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”

The document was released during Putin’s visit to Beijing for the Winter Olympics, less than three weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Since then, economic ties between Russia and China have strengthened. Russia has become a major supplier of oil and gas to China, while bilateral trade has grown significantly.

The two regimes also coordinate on international issues, including at the United Nations and within groups such as BRICS.

The partnership is not a formal military alliance, but the countries hold joint military exercises and have increased cooperation in technology and finance.

Dorothy Li contributed to this report.