More than 150 Chinese citizens fight in Ukraine together with the Russian army, which is based on the border of Ukraine before a large spring offensive, according to Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy said that a significant number of Chinese citizens were involved in the war of Russian President Vladimir Putin in his country on Wednesday night in his night speech.
The Ukrainian leader described the possible participation of Chinese citizens as an important escalation and asked the United States and other support allies, and added that “this must fulfill a firm and principle response.”
If the Chinese government had knowledge of the deployment of the troops, it would make China the second country after North Korea to send military personnel to help Kremlin in its three -year attempt of annexar Ukraine.
Zelenskyy’s statements occurred when his military boss said that a new Russian offensive had begun in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi said that the Russian forces have intensified the assaults in “all the main directions”, even in the regions of the East of Sumy and Jharkiv.
“This offensive has already begun,” he said according to the Ukrainian media.
Such an offensive would ask questions about the seriousness with which the Kremlin is taking the efforts of the Trump administration to negotiate peace between Moscow and kyiv and serve to undermine the sincerity of sending to Putin-Ally Kirill Dmitriev to Washington this month for diplomatic conversations. Dmitriev is the highest official in Kremlin since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Zelenskyy’s new accusations occur after he said on Tuesday that the Ukrainian army had captured two Chinese citizens fighting with the Russian army.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lin Jian, said later that China was asking citizens to stay away and did not get involved in armed conflicts.
Lin gave a new statement on Thursday, urging the relevant parties to refrain from “irresponsible” comments and add that Beijing was not part of the war and that he supported and “actively promoted the peaceful settlement of the crisis.”
Zelenskyy said earlier this week that the two Chinese citizens who had captured their forces were found in the country’s Donetsk region with personal documents, including bank cards, and that the Russian units had “significantly more” than two Chinese citizens. On Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the accusation “had no basis on the events.”
Zelenskyy told reporters on Wednesday that he was ready to exchange the two Chinese nationals captured “only for Ukrainian soldiers” in Russian captivity.
“They are more talkative than the prisoners of North Korea, so we can see,” he said, referring to two North Korean soldiers that Ukraine captured in January.
Russia is trying to attract Chinese soldiers through social media platforms, said, added that the 155 recruits that Ukraine had identified arrived in Moscow after enlistment and spent four days experiencing medical exams followed by two months in training centers. Zelenskyy did not specify when they arrived.
Ukrainian Security Service through AFP – Getty Images
NBC News has not independently verified the Ukrainian figures. A Kremlin spokesman declined to comment when asked about Chinese soldiers on Wednesday.
The Kremlin silence occurred when the National Crime Agency of the United Kingdom said that British prosecutors discovered that a former governor appointed by Russia of the city of Sevastopol de Crimea Annexed, Dmitrii Ovsiannikov, guilty of violating the governmental sanctions of the United Kingdom in Russia, making it the first person condemned by doing so.
South Korea estimates that 11,000 North Korean soldiers have already been deployed to fight along with the Russians, but the difference between the impoverished and secret nation and the second largest economy in the world that is involved in a war against an ally of the United States and Europe would be geopolically seismic.
The Ukraine Air Force said Thursday that Russia had launched 145 Shahed drones manufactured in Iran during their territory during the night, with four civilians killed in the last 24 hours. Three civilians were injured in the Ukrainian capital, kyiv said, Ukrainian officials, and the Sumy region was bombarded almost 300 times during the previous 24 hours.
The Russian army was probably “trying to form a buffer zone” along the international border of Ukraine in Sumy Oblast, the War Study Institute, a group of Washington -based defense experts in its Wednesday evaluation.
