Kremlin Says After Xi-Blinken Talks It’s Confident in China-Russia Ties 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, June 19, 2023. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, June 19, 2023. (Reuters)
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Kremlin Says After Xi-Blinken Talks It’s Confident in China-Russia Ties 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, June 19, 2023. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, June 19, 2023. (Reuters)

Russia is not worried about potential US attempts to influence China's policy towards Moscow, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, commenting on US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's visit to Beijing where he held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

During a rare visit to Beijing by Blinken, China and the United States agreed on Monday to stabilize their intense rivalry so it did not veer into conflict, but failed to produce any major breakthrough.

Blinken said however that he had asked the Chinese government to be very vigilant about the possibility that Chinese firms may be providing Russia with technology that it could use in its war in Ukraine, something Moscow calls a "special military operation."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Beijing had the sovereign right to forge ties with other countries and that the process of trying to build predictable relations between China and the United States was an important one.

Russia did not think there was a risk of US-China talks causing problems for Moscow, he said.

"Our strategic partnership relationship with China make us confident that (Beijing's) development of relations with other countries will never be aimed against our country," Peskov said.

Hit with sanctions by the United States and the European Union over Ukraine, Russia has sought in Beijing a market for its energy exports and a partnership in a global anti-Western axis that would challenge the existing world order.

Xi visited Russia in March, pledging friendship, but maintaining an "impartial position" on the Ukraine conflict. A peace plan proposed by Beijing has so far produced no breakthrough.



Suspect in Killing of Top Russian General Charged with Terrorism

A detainee, named as Uzbek national Akhmad Kurbanov and considered by investigators as a suspect in the murder of chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Igor Kirillov along with his assistant, sits inside an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Yulia Morozova
A detainee, named as Uzbek national Akhmad Kurbanov and considered by investigators as a suspect in the murder of chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Igor Kirillov along with his assistant, sits inside an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Yulia Morozova
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Suspect in Killing of Top Russian General Charged with Terrorism

A detainee, named as Uzbek national Akhmad Kurbanov and considered by investigators as a suspect in the murder of chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Igor Kirillov along with his assistant, sits inside an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Yulia Morozova
A detainee, named as Uzbek national Akhmad Kurbanov and considered by investigators as a suspect in the murder of chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Igor Kirillov along with his assistant, sits inside an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Yulia Morozova

The suspect in the killing of top Russian general Igor Kirillov has been charged with an act of terrorism resulting in the death of a person, a notice on the website of the Moscow court said on Thursday.

Russia said on Wednesday it had detained an Uzbek man who had confessed to planting and detonating a bomb in Moscow which killed Kirillov, who was the chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, on the instructions of Ukraine's SBU security service.

Russia's Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, said in a statement on Wednesday that the unnamed suspect identifed as Akhmad Kurbanov had told them he had come to Moscow to carry out an assignment for Ukraine's intelligence services.
In a video published by the Baza news outlet, which is known to have sources in Russian law-enforcement circles, the suspect is seen sitting in a van describing his actions.

He describes placing the device on the electric scooter and parking it outside the apartment block where Kirillov lived.
Investigators cited him as saying he set up a surveillance camera in a hire car which, they said, was watched in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro by people who organized the killing.
The suspect, who is thought to be 29, is shown saying he remotely detonated the device when Kirillov left the building. He says Ukraine had offered him $100,000 and residency in a European country.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia's Foreign Ministry, said Moscow would raise the assassination at the United Nations Security Council on Dec. 20.