ISW: Jeddah summit indicates growing disagreements between China and Russia

This is stated in the report of the Institute for the Study of War.

The report mentions a Financial Times article stating that the Chinese representatives at the meeting were "constructive" and "keen to show that China is not Russia." The Financial Times also quoted a European diplomat present at the talks as saying that "mere presence of China shows Russia is more and more isolated." In addition, the Chinese delegation expressed its readiness to take part in the next such meeting, with a format that will likely also exclude Russia.

The report states that a Russian insider source claimed that Russia rejected China's 12-point peace plan for the war in Ukraine from February 2023 (which the Chinese delegation re-presented during the talks in Saudi Arabia) and that some Chinese elites secretly expressed their dissatisfaction with the Russian leadership's actions to peacefully resolve the war in Ukraine.

According to analysts, these reports of the talks in Saudi Arabia and the insider allegations, if they correspond to reality, are consistent with ISW's previous assessments that China is not fully aligned with Russia on Ukraine and that Moscow's relationship with Beijing is not the "no limits partnership" the Kremlin wants it to be.

Meeting of National Security Advisors in Jeddah

This weekend, on August 5-6, over 40 countries from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, held talks on ways to end the war in Ukraine. The meeting was held at the level of national security advisors. As previously reported in the press, Saudi Arabia was chosen as the venue for the meeting in order to encourage the world's leading countries, which have so far remained neutral, to support the Ukrainian principles for ending the war.

This is the second meeting at the level of national security advisers and political directors on key principles of peace based on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Peace Formula. As Ihor Zhovkva, Deputy Head of the Presidential Office, reported on the eve of the discussions in Jeddah, the number of participants increased from 15 to almost 40 after the success of a similar format consultation in Copenhagen on June 24. Additional countries from the Global South were also involved.

It was reported later, on August 7, that the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the international talks in Saudi Arabia to find a peaceful solution to the "crisis in Ukraine" had helped "strengthen the international consensus."