Putin shows closeness to Xi and Erdogan at regional summit in Astana

Russian President Vladimir Putin has used one of his rare trips outside Russia to show his ties with several leaders and seek rapprochement with others who may have a role in the future of the war in Ukraine. The Russian leader arrived in the Kazakh capital, Astana, on Wednesday, where he is taking part in the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (a regional security forum) scheduled for this Thursday. In addition to the general meeting, Putin has met with the president of China, Xi Jinping, one of his main supporters; the Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan; the acting president of Iran after the death of Ebrahim Raisi, Mohammad Mokhber, and the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, a new friend of Russia as well as an enemy of Armenia, supposedly an ally of Moscow. Erdogan has assured Putin that a ceasefire in Ukraine is possible under the auspices of Turkey, a member of NATO.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has gained importance following the West’s break with Russia and China’s parallel rapprochement with Moscow. The platform does not achieve the status of a military bloc, like NATO or the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), but its members – which do not include the main Western partners in Asia, Japan and South Korea – discuss defence and trade issues at its table.

Putin has travelled outside Russia 19 times since he launched the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The Russian leader has concentrated his official visits on his most loyal partners: Belarus, China, the former Soviet countries of Central Asia and Iran have taken up almost all of Putin’s trips, who has been the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court since March 2023 for war crimes; specifically, for the forcible transfer of Ukrainian minors away from their homes and families.

Putin was scheduled to meet seven leaders over the next two days: his host, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev; Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif; and the leaders of Mongolia (Mendsayhany Enkhsaikhan), Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran and China, the latter two countries providing important aid to Russia in its offensive against Ukraine. According to the Bloomberg agencyWestern intelligence suspects that Beijing and Moscow are designing an improved model of Iran’s Shahed drone, a weapon that has become a nightmare for Ukrainian cities.

The war in Ukraine and the US elections in November are two of the main topics at the Astana summit. The American newspaper Political published this Wednesday that Donald Trump’s alleged plan for the future of NATO This includes negotiating with Putin the transfer of Ukrainian territories to Russia and not accepting Kiev into the Atlantic Alliance. The spokesman for the Russian president, Dmitri Peskov, has denied that he had held any such negotiations with the Republican candidate.

Crossed interests

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation includes nations that are bitter rivals, such as India and Pakistan, full members and at odds since their partition in 1948; and Turkey, a NATO country that has had its ups and downs with Russia in all kinds of conflicts from Libya to the Caucasus, passing through the Black Sea.

Erdogan, considered a skilful politician in Russia, and Putin met for an hour, during which they discussed, according to Peskov, Israel and Gaza, Syria, Ukraine and “all the sensitive issues that have accumulated between the two countries.” Ankara supplies arms to kyiv, while allowing Russia to circumvent sanctions and acting as a mediator with Moscow.

The Turkish leader has been waiting for an official visit by Putin to Turkey for almost a year: “I will definitely go,” the Russian leader promised. Erdogan, for his part, has stated that Ankara will redouble its efforts to reach a negotiation with kyiv. “Turkey can lay the foundations for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine,” the Turkish president said.

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping met again on Wednesday after their meeting on May 16 in the Chinese capital. The Russian leader reiterated that “their comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction is going through the best period in its history,” while the Chinese leader urged them to maintain “friendship forever” in an international scenario “that is far from simple.”

Although the two countries have entered into a “new era” of friendship and have declared that their great rival is the United States, the geopolitical game is more complicated than their joint statements convey. A month after the meeting with Xi, Putin visited North Korea for the first time in 24 years in search of weapons.

Kim Jong-un’s regime has found that the Kremlin’s need for ammunition is a way to break its isolation. Moscow, which has arrested numerous scientists in recent years for allegedly spying for China, has signed a mutual defence treaty with the North Korean regime that alters the strategic balance in the region.

Central Asia, the gateway to Europe on China’s ancient Silk Road, is also a desirable target for Beijing. “The charming land of Kazakhstan; its splendid and original culture; its vast and magnificent landscape; and its kind and friendly people are most impressive,” Xi praised the Kazakhs in a statement in which he emphasized that their commercial relations began “more than 2,000 years ago” and promised to strengthen their protection and “strategic partnership.”

Xi Jinping has promised protection to Tokayev, even though it was Putin who kept the Kazakh president in power with his troops during the civil protests of January 2022. Just a month and a half before the invasion of Ukraine, the Kazakh government called on its allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) for the first time since the formation of this platform as an alternative to NATO.

Armenia also appealed for help from the Russian-led alliance during Azerbaijan’s offensives — supported by Turkey — in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave since 2020. However, Putin ignored the pleas and maintained a neutral position that benefited the Azerbaijani leader. Today, Putin and Aliyev will hold a meeting, while Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan is considering leaving the CSTO and turning his attention to the European Union.

“We have a lot of issues to discuss, even though we are in contact almost once a month,” Aliyev told Putin at the start of their meeting. In the part of the meeting that was made public, both leaders focused on the North-South corridor, which will link Russia with Iran and India through Azerbaijan, and on increasing their trade exchanges from 2022, the year in which Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh with Moscow on the sidelines.

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