BEIJING, March 7. /TASS/. China will maintain its constructive role in the Ukrainian conflict settlement and will resort to all efforts regarding this issue, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday.
"China will continue resorting to active measures in order to settle this critical situation in Ukraine," the Chinese minister said adding that one of the most important tasks during this conflict was to provide safety for foreign citizens.
China’s top diplomat also said that under the current escalation of the situation it is extremely important to act in line with the UN Charter. "We hope that another round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations will start soon and it will yield a certain progress," he said.
On February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees at the ceremony in the Kremlin on recognizing the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Putin met with DPR and LPR (the Lugansk People’s Republic) leaders, Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik, and signed with them the treaties on friendship, cooperation and mutual aid between Russia and both republics.
On February 24, Russian President Putin said in a televised address that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories.
When clarifying the unfolding developments, the Russian Defense Ministry reassured that Russian troops are not targeting Ukrainian cities, but are limited to surgically striking and incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure. There are no threats whatsoever to the civilian population.