Ukraine crisis: China to provide humanitarian aid, praises Russia ties

China’s Red Cross will provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine “as soon as possible”, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday, as he praised his country’s friendship with Russia as “rock solid”.

China has refused to condemn Russia’s attack on Ukraine while asking Western countries to respect Russia’s “legitimate security concerns.”.

Wang said the causes of the “Ukraine situation” were “complex” and had not happened overnight.

“Solving complex problems requires calmness and rationality, rather than adding fuel to the fire and intensifying contradictions,” he told a news conference on the sidelines of the annual meeting of China’s parliament.

China is willing to continue to make its own efforts to resolve the humanitarian crisis and the country’s Red Cross will “as soon as possible” provide a batch of aid to Ukraine, Wang said, without giving details.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping hours before the start of last month’s Winter Olympics in Beijing and they signed a wide-ranging strategic partnership aimed at countering U.S. influence and said they would have “no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation”.

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