China hasn’t condemned the invasion and initially didn’t even call it a war. It still hasn’t acknowledged which country’s tanks crossed the other’s borders.

Xi has talked by telephone with Russian President Vladmir Putin, but he hasn’t talked with Zelensky.

“China supports Russia in resolving the issue through negotiation,” China’s official summary of the Xi-Putin call said.

Last week, China’s foreign minister called Russia his country’s “most important strategic partner” and said their relationship was “ironclad.”

Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Ministry has endorsed Russian propaganda claims that the U.S. military is running bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine. The charge is false; the U.S. has funded programs to destroy old bioweapons, not produce new ones.