Xi has not left China since January 2020, when his country was fighting the initial outbreak of Covid by locking down the city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus first appeared.
Xi also plans to meet with more than 20 country leaders on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics, which his country is hosting, which Beijing hopes will be a victory for soft power.
On Wednesday, a top Kremlin adviser said Xi and Putin would meet in the Chinese capital, before issuing a statement reflecting their “common view” on security and other issues.
The two leaders will then attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics on Friday evening.
And reinforced rising tensions with the West relations between the two countries, and Putin was the first foreign leader to confirm his attendance at the opening ceremony on Friday.
Putin hailed the “model” of relations between Russia and Beijing during a December phone call with Xi, calling his Chinese counterpart a “dear friend.”
For its part, China called on the United States to respect Russia’s “security concerns” about Ukraine.
Moscow is looking for support after deploying 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine, and Western countries threatening Moscow with “serious consequences” if it launched an attack against Ukraine.
In the run-up to the Olympics, ties between the two countries were further strengthened, with Moscow denouncing the diplomatic boycott of Beijing by a range of Western countries and attempts to “politicize sports”.
In all, 21 world leaders are expected to attend the Games.