President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Wednesday doubled down on his claim that “many” Chinese nationals were fighting in Ukraine on behalf of Russia, hours after China’s foreign ministry dismissed the accusation as “groundless.”
Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine had identified more than 150 Chinese citizens recruited by Russia to fight in Ukraine. “We know that the actual number is higher,” he wrote in a social media post, one day after announcing the capture of two Chinese nationals fighting alongside Russian forces.
The Ukrainian leader also shared a video in the post, which he said showed the interrogation of the two captured Chinese citizens. Mr. Zelensky suggested that China’s government, unlike North Korea’s, had not sent the fighters to Ukraine, but that Beijing was aware of Russia’s recruitment of its citizens.
Mr. Zelensky’s new claim came only hours after a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, Lin Jian, said that Beijing was “verifying the relevant situation” about the two men captured by Ukraine. But he dismissed the suggestion that many more Chinese citizens were taking part in the war, and stressed that Beijing instructed its citizens to avoid any involvement in armed conflicts.
“China’s position in the Ukraine crisis is very clear and is widely recognized by the international community,” Mr. Lin told a news briefing.
The back-and-forth comes at a tense time for both Ukraine and China. The Trump administration has drawn closer to Moscow while trying to act as a mediator in cease-fire talks with Kyiv. It has also taken aim at Beijing, with a sharp escalation of threats and a 104 percent tariff on all Chinese goods that went into effect on Wednesday — and which Mr. Trump later said he would raise to 125 percent after Beijing announced a new round of retaliatory levies.
The State Department spokeswoman, Tammy Bruce, on Tuesday called the report of Chinese citizens fighting for Russia “disturbing.”
“China is a major enabler of Russia in the war in Ukraine,” Ms. Bruce told a news briefing, citing Beijing’s provision of what Washington regards as dual-use items that Moscow needs to sustain the fighting.
“As President Trump has said, continued cooperation between these two nuclear powers will only further contribute to global instability and make the United States and other countries less safe, less secure and less prosperous,” she added.
Although China has claimed neutrality in the war, it has provided Russia with diplomatic and economic backing during the conflict — support that the Biden administration said had allowed Russia to sustain its offensive.
China buys large quantities of Russian oil, disregarding the price cap the Biden administration and U.S. allies placed on Russian oil sold on the international market. China also supplies Moscow with technologies that can be used on the battlefield, such as drones. Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia have met several times and deepened their ties to include more military cooperation.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr. Zelensky said Russia had been recruiting Chinese nationals through social media. He said their presence on the battlefield was further proof that Mr. Putin is not interested in peace.
“Ukraine believes that such blatant involvement of Chinese citizens in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine during the war of aggression is a deliberate step toward the expansion of the war, and is yet another indication that Moscow simply needs to drag out the fighting,” he said.
Both Russia and Ukraine have had foreign fighters in their ranks throughout the more than three years of war. In most cases, they are foreign volunteers or mercenaries, though Russia’s military has enlisted the help of North Korean soldiers.
The presence of Chinese fighters on the front lines in Ukraine has not been reported in Chinese state news media, but there have been unverified reports on social media in China of mercenaries from the country fighting in Ukraine.
