Two days of unannounced talks between Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko at the Russian president’s Valdai residence in late June, followed immediately by the Belarusian leader’s flight to China, have triggered a wave of analysis in Kyiv about Minsk’s wartime role. No official statement, photograph or signed document emerged from the meeting, which Ukrainian commentators described as the most secretive encounter between the two since Russia’s full-scale invasion. Lukashenko’s subsequent 29 June meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing has led several Ukrainian analysts to conclude that the sequence was a coordinated diplomatic circuit, with the Belarusian leader possibly carrying messages between Moscow and Beijing.

Ukrainian analysts, writing on social media and YouTube, speculated that Putin pressed for a more active Belarusian military role—either the deployment of troops or the use of Belarusian territory for a renewed northern front—and that Lukashenko refused, as he has previously resisted reactivating drone communication towers. Vadim Denysenko, a Ukrainian analyst, assessed that a rejection would leave Putin with limited leverage over Minsk in the coming months, while allowing Lukashenko to further postpone any domestic power transition. Other voices, including prominent commentator Vitaly Portnikov, framed the talks as a moment of misaligned interests between the two leaders, with Putin weighing the risk of destabilising the Belarusian regime against the operational benefit of opening a new front against Ukraine.

Simultaneously, European officials and classified Russian documents obtained by Reuters have detailed a covert Chinese military training programme for Russian forces, personally approved by Defence Minister Andrei Belousov on Putin’s orders. The training, conducted in Beijing and Nanjing in late 2025, involved around 200 Russian personnel and covered radiological, chemical and biological protection, drone operations, explosives and electronic warfare. European officials noted that the inclusion of at least four Russian and Chinese generals signalled the strategic weight both sides attached to the exchanges. China’s foreign ministry dismissed the reports as “entirely unfounded,” reiterating its stated neutrality and peace-mediation role, while the Kremlin and a senior Russian lawmaker called the information false.

Viewed from Brussels, the revelations have sharpened an internal debate over how to address China’s dual role as a major trade partner and what EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas termed a “decisive enabler of Russia’s war.” The bloc has already sanctioned Chinese firms accused of supporting Moscow’s war effort, and officials are now assessing whether further measures are warranted. The training reports also highlighted an asymmetry: Russian forces bring battlefield experience from Ukraine, while Chinese instructors offer technical expertise but, as one internal Russian assessment noted, lack recent combat exposure. The dossier remains open, with the EU evaluating its response and no further official communication from Moscow, Minsk or Beijing on the substance of the late-June talks.