Putin wants Xi at the Ukraine negotiating table with Trump. Here’s why
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reported plans of a trilateral summit between his country, the United States, and China highlight the influence of Beijing on the four and a half year conflict. Putin floated the idea of the meeting in a phone call with President Donald Trump earlier this month, per the Wall Street Journal, citing […]
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reported plans of a trilateral summit between his country, the United States, and China highlight the influence of Beijing on the four and a half year conflict.
Putin floated the idea of the meeting in a phone call with President Donald Trump earlier this month, per the Wall Street Journal, citing a former Russian intelligence officer briefed on the matter. The meeting of the three leaders wouldn’t include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky or any of Ukraine’s European allies, a prospect that has triggered alarm in Ukraine and across European capitals. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov confirmed the pitch to the outlet, claiming all three parties were open to it.
” data-large-file=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/putin-wants-xi-at-the-ukraine-negotiating-table-with-trump-heres-why.webp” src=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/putin-wants-xi-at-the-ukraine-negotiating-table-with-trump-heres-why.webp” alt=”Putin Trump XiTraditional Russian wooden dolls called Matryoshka depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, U.S. President Donald Trump, center, and Chinese President Xi Jinping.” class=”wp-image-4771276″ srcset=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/putin-wants-xi-at-the-ukraine-negotiating-table-with-trump-heres-why.webp 1024w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/putin-wants-xi-at-the-ukraine-negotiating-table-with-trump-heres-why.webp?resize=300,200 300w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/putin-wants-xi-at-the-ukraine-negotiating-table-with-trump-heres-why.webp?resize=768,512 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”>Traditional Russian wooden dolls called Matryoshka depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, U.S. President Donald Trump, center, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, are displayed for sale at a souvenir shop in Moscow, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)
“There is no clear understanding yet regarding the meeting itself or its potential agenda, although all three parties acknowledge the hypothetical possibility of such a meeting taking place,” he said.
While Putin’s desire to hold talks with the U.S. over Ukraine comes as no surprise, given America’s involvement in the conflict, it was China’s invitation that caught the eye. China has remained officially neutral throughout the war. But Putin’s desire to get Chinese President Xi Jinping to the summit to end the war betrays Beijing’s visible yet key role in the war.
The week Russia launched its invasion in 2022, nearly all Western countries launched the biggest raft of economic sanctions in history, hindering Moscow’s access to global markets. Many analysts expected Russia’s economy to crumble within weeks, but its shift to the Chinese market has helped keep it afloat and pushed the two countries closer together.
While China is viewed largely as a supporter of Russia in the conflict, its support for Ukraine has been equally vital. Ukraine’s much-vaunted drone program, which has allowed it to keep up its fight against Moscow, is entirely reliant on China.
A research paper from the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International found that Chinese drones account for over 90% of the consumer market, 70% of the enterprise market, and 92% of the first responder market.
Russia and Ukraine have both made major innovations in drone technology, but nearly all of these innovations are done with Chinese parts — motors, batteries, frames, cameras, flight controllers, and transmission modules in Ukrainian and Russian drones. While Ukraine touts its domestic drone production, as the Diplomatpointed out, this “often means assembling systems from Chinese components.”
Though the war has afforded China a laboratory for observing the performance of its drone technology, it has also come with plenty of costs. Dr. Yun Sun, senior fellow and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, told the Washington Examiner that Beijing views the war as a “potential opportunity to draw diplomatic leverage and draw diplomatic capital,” but that it hasn’t “worked great in their favor,” given concerns about its impact on China’s relationship with Europe.
“I think the Chinese have come to see the war in Ukraine as more of a drain, rather than an opportunity,” she added.
Much talk and analysis of Putin’s planned trilateral summit has cast the event as an attempt by him to position Russia as a great power on par with China and the U.S., making his country the biggest beneficiary. But Sun disagrees, viewing China as the one most hoping for the meeting, though it can’t say so openly, as doing so would risk spending significant political capital.
“China would love to see this, or to portray this as an opportunity for the three powers to come together with China as a peer of the United States and Russia,” Sun said, putting China in friendlier company than usual.
“I don’t necessarily see that as Russia’s primary angle. I think Russia’s primary angle is how to end the war.”
Russia’s primary goal, Sun speculated, is “face-to-face time with President Trump without Europe and or Ukraine in the room.” Adding China to the fray would give more of an aura of legitimacy to the meeting and give them the de facto backing of a power that’s already a close partner.
The idea of a summit between the three leaders has been floated since August, but hadn’t gained steam. The Kremlin’s decision to go public with the proposal, through Peskov’s confirmation to the Wall Street Journal, may indicate that it feared the plan was failing to gain ground.
Trump has broken with the consensus of the last administration, which viewed the war in Ukraine as an existential struggle for liberty that must be won at all costs after Ukraine held its ground for the first couple of months. He’s been much more willing to pressure Ukraine into a deal on terms the previous administration would find intolerable, though on grounds he believes are realistic.
Trump’s announcement of a deal with Russia earlier this month, involving the U.S. purchase of a significant amount of Russian diesel fuel, helped trigger a near-unprecedented rupture in U.S.-Ukraine relations. Zelensky began openly attacking Trump, going even further after Starshield began imposing limitations on Ukraine’s usage. The Ukrainian leader has also begun attacking U.S. domestic politics, not-so-subtly hinting at the prospect of a Republican defeat in the midterm elections.
The American president took to Truth Social on Sunday to voice his own frustrations, bashing Zelensky over his handling of the war and portraying Ukraine’s situation as hopeless.
“Zelensky doesn’t care, and frankly, with all of the money that Europe is famously giving him, and that Crooked Joe Biden gave him in the past, he doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” Trump wrote. “He could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now. His country is in shambles, a large portion of his land is lost, his oceans and seas are gone, and his male population is low, wounded, and/or dead. I WANT THIS WAR END!”
China’s primary concern, Sun argued, was its relationship with the U.S., which has been going notably well as of late. Its relationship with Russia is viewed as a safe fallback that could prove valuable if that relationship sours again.
“The most important relationship for China is definitely the one with the United States, but that relationship is currently going fairly well,” she said, adding that its main value it takes from the relationship with Russia is strategic.
“Remember, today the U.S.-China relationship is going well, but it was not going well for the previous eight years, under President Trump’s first term, and under President Biden. So I think the Chinese view Russia as a useful, not ally, but a partner for alignment when the weather turns sour again,” Sun argued.
