In an address to delegates on Sunday, Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun said his country had been careful not to support either Russia or Ukraine.
“On the Ukraine crisis, China has been promoting peace talks with a responsible attitude,” Dong said. “We have never provided weapons to either party of the conflict. We have put strict controls on exports of dual-use items, and have never done anything to fan the flames. We stand firmly on the side of peace and dialogue.”
Zelenskyy also thanked countries, including the United States, Germany and the Netherlands, for their military assistance, particularly with air defence systems. Zelenskyy cited a Russian attack on Sunday with nearly 100 missiles – something he said had happened hundreds of times – and noted “no country could handle this alone”.
He later said that although he was grateful to the US for allowing Kyiv to use US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to fire across the Russian border in the Kharkiv region, it was not enough.
He said Russia was using many airfields to launch attacks on Ukraine “knowing that Ukraine will not fire back because it has no responding systems and no permissions”.
