The Beijing trip is his first visit to a major world power since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February. His overseas travel plans have been curtailed since March, when the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
In a previously unannounced speech at the opening ceremony, he spoke of his country’s deep links with China and shared his “aspiration for equal and mutually beneficial cooperation”, praising the Belt and Road initiative for “aiming to form a fairer, multi-polar world”.
Putin met Mr Xi, who he described as his “old friend”, at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on the sidelines of the forum, which has been attended by a Taliban minister and the Kazakh president along with representatives from 130 other countries.
He said the two leaders had spent an hour and a half discussing “confidential issues”.
The Chinese president hailed “mutual trust” between Russia and China and said it was “continuously deepening,” according to the Xinhua news agency.
Mr Xi noted that he had met Putin “42 times in the past 10 years and developed a good working relationship and a deep friendship”.
The two leaders increasingly have a shared vision for a new international order to counter the US and other democratic nations, and met as Joe Biden arrived in Israel for one of the most high-stakes diplomatic missions of his presidency.
Both leaders are at odds with the US approach to the escalating conflict in the Middle East, offering an alternative strategy by criticising Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocities and calling for a ceasefire.
