China's priority is to prevent the tense situation in Ukraine from getting out of control, its embassy in the United States said on Sunday, responding to media reports Moscow had asked Beijing for military equipment since launching its invasion.
"The high priority now is to prevent the tense situation from escalating or even getting out of control," spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement.
According to the report that was published by the Financial Times quoting U.S. officials, the White House was concerned that Beijing may "undermine western efforts to help Ukrainian forces defend their country."
In earlier reports, Russia was said to be showing signs of a willingness to engage in substantive negotiations over Ukraine.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said in an interview with Fox News Sunday, that the United States was putting "enormous pressure" on Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a cease-fire in its weeks-old invasion of Ukraine and to allow the creation of humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to escape.
"That pressure is beginning to have some effect. We are seeing some signs to have real, serious negotiations. But I have to say ... so far it appears Putin is intent on destroying Ukraine," Sherman said.
More than 140,000 civilians have been evacuated from conflict zones in Ukraine, the country's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in an interview on national television on Sunday.
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Elderly couple in Kyiv is helped to get to a bus taking civilians away from the fighting
(Photo: Reuters)
Vereshchuk said a humanitarian convoy once again failed to reach the besieged port city of Mariupol, due to Russian shelling.
"The column has stayed in (the Russian-occupied city of) Berdiansk, and will tomorrow again attempt to reach Mariupol," she said.
Following a Russian attack on a military base near Poland's border where NATO defenses are deployed, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said he did not believe a NATO-imposed no-fly zone over Ukraine would have prevented that adding that such a move by NATO would hurl the United States into war with Russia.
"There is very little that you can see that would make sense for this war to be escalated between two nuclear powers," Kirby told ABC's "This Week."
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Ukrainian soldiers carry the body of a comrade killed in battle near Irpin
(Photo: AFP)
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday that Britain would continue to pursue more options for bolstering Ukraine's self-defense.
Johnson added that Britain will work with its partners, including at Tuesday's meeting of the Joint Expeditionary Force countries in London, to pursue more options for bolstering Ukraine's self-defense.