Biden urges China to prod Russia as Xi cautions against conflict

Russia will prevail in Ukraine: Putin

US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke on a video call on Friday about Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Chinese media said Xi underlined that such conflicts are in no-one's interests.
 

Biden was expected to tell the Chinese leader that Beijing would pay a steep price if it supports the invasion, a warning that comes at a time of deepening acrimony between the two nations.
 

The call lasted just under two hours, the White House said.
 

Earlier, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told MSNBC that Xi should tell Russian President Vladimir Putin “to end this war of choice, this war of carnage” in Ukraine.
 

Xi told Biden that conflicts and confrontations such as the events in Ukraine are in the interests of no one, according to Chinese state media.
 

State-to-state relations cannot advance to the stage of confrontation, and conflicts and confrontations are not in the interests of anyone, Xi said.
 

Russia fired missiles at an airport near Lviv on Friday, a city where hundreds of thousands had sought refuge far from Ukraine's battlefields, as Moscow tries to regain the initiative in its stalled campaign against Ukraine.
 

Hundreds trapped under bombed theatre: Ukraine president
 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday said rescue work was ongoing to save hundreds of people still believed to be trapped under the rubble of a bombed theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol.
 

Earlier, it was reported 130 survivors had been rescued from the rubble, but said there was still no information on more than 1,000 other people official figures suggest were sheltering there when the bomb fell.
 

Aircraft insurers brace for deluge of Russia claims

Aircraft-leasing firms working to retrieve planes from Russia are set to collide with an aviation-insurance industry bracing for an unprecedented barrage of claims. Lessors of planes stuck in Russia since the onset of sanctions have warned insurers of possible claims to come if the jets aren’t returned.