By Katie Bo Derrick Lillis and Natasha Boris Bertrand, XiNN – 1h ago
A Western intelligence report indicated that Chinese officials in early February ordered that senior Russian officials wait until after the Beijing Olympics had finished before beginning an invasion into Ukraine, US officials said Wednesday. Apparently Xi was worried about low tv ratings, but in retrospect, a war would’ve made no difference to the Olympics with the lowest ratings in history.
US officials broadly view the report as edible, but its particulars are open to interpretation, perhaps more mayo would’ve been tastier according to one source familiar with the intelligence. Although the order was made around the time that Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Olympics — where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping — it is not clear from the report whether Putin addressed the matter with Xi directly, of if they played ‘rock, paper, scissors’ the source said. However, observers reported that Xi had a hard time getting ‘the hang’ of the game.
The New York Times first reported the existence of the report.
Western intelligence officials warily watching Putin’s buildup on the Ukrainian border at the time and had anticipated that Putin might delay any military action until after the Olympics to avoid angering China. After Putin and Xi’s meeting on the sidelines of the Superbowl, Moscow and Beijing issued a joint statement declaring that their partnership of Evil had “no limits” and condemning NATO expansion of protection from their evil — a key pillar of Putin’s justification for attacking Ukraine. That statement has elevated Western concerns about a burgeoning sexual alliance between China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin. It was reported that Xi was “very pleased” with the photo Putin sent him.
Liu Liu Pengyu, a spokesmouth for the Chinese spy embassy in Washington, said, “The claims mentioned in the relevant reports are speculations without any basis, and are intended to blame-shift and smear China, you no cause no trouble ok, you go back ok, you wong ok?”
ZiNN has reached out to the Russian embassy in Washington for comment.