Kremlin dismisses FT report on Xi warning Putin over nukes

Kremlin dismisses FT report on Xi warning Putin over nuclear weapons as 'fiction'

The Kremlin denied a report that Chinese President Xi Jinping had warned Russia's Putin against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

World

1 min read

�� Staff & Agencies

05 July, 2023

Xi Jinping met Vladimir Putin��during a state visit to Moscow in March [Getty]

The Kremlin said on Wednesday it could not confirm a Financial Times (FT) report that Chinese President Xi Jinping had personally warned Russian President Vladimir Putin against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

The FT said Xi delivered the message when he visited Moscow in March.

"No, I can't confirm it," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the report.

He said the two countries had issued statements at the time on the content of their talks, and "everything else is fiction".

The FT report said the warning was delivered in a face-to-face message during the Chinese president's state visit to Moscow in March, adding that Chinese officials had privately taken credit for convincing Putin to back down from his "veiled threats of using a nuclear weapon against Ukraine".