What did China's 12-point paper offer Ukraine on 24 February 2023?
A retrospective on the day Beijing set out its position on ending the war, and the Moldova-related decree that preceded it.
What did Beijing put on the table on 24 February 2023? China unveiled a 12-point position paper on ending the war in Ukraine, ahead of an expected speech by President Xi Jinping on the conflict.
Kyiv responded by saying it hoped China could urge Russia to withdraw its troops in response to the paper. That was the Ukrainian reaction on the day: a hope that Beijing's diplomacy might be turned toward a Russian pullback.
Two days earlier, on 22 February 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin had revoked a 2012 foreign policy decree. The decree had underpinned Moldova's sovereignty in resolving the political status of the breakaway Transnistria region. Its revocation touched Moldova–Russia relations and Russia–Transnistria relations.
Together, the two developments marked a period in which peace diplomacy over Ukraine and Russia's posture toward neighbouring Moldova were both in the news.
