MOSCOW (AP) – Russia’s foreign minister says President Vladimir Putin’s planned trip to China will give powerful new impulse to ties between the two nations.
Speaking Tuesday at a Moscow conference, Sergey Lavrov described expanding ties with China as Russia’s top foreign policy priority.
Lavrov said the two nations share opposition to a unipolar world, a veiled reference to perceived U.S. global domination.
He added that Moscow and Beijing oppose “double standards” as well as attempts at “diktat and blackmail” in global affairs.
Amid a bitter strain in Russia-West relations over the Ukrainian crisis, the Kremlin has sought to bolster ties with Beijing to soften the impact of Western sanctions.