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Washington, DC (CNN)Russia has asked China for military assistance in
Ukraine, including drones, as it continues its unprovoked invasion, a
senior US official told CNN.

Potential assistance from the Chinese would be a significant development
in Russia's invasion, and could upend the hold Ukrainian forces still have
in the country.

When asked by CNN about the reporting of Russia's request for military
aid, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the US, said in a statement, "I've never heard of that."

Liu expressed concern for "the Ukraine situation" -- calling it "indeed disconcerting" -- and said China has and will continue to provide
humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

Liu said: "The high priority now is to prevent the tense situation from escalating or even getting out of control. ... China calls for exercising utmost restraint and preventing a massive humanitarian crisis."

The Russian embassy in the US did not immediately respond to CNN's request
for comment.

News of Russia's request comes before White House national security
adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi,
in Rome on Monday as part of a follow-up conversation to President Joe
Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping's virtual meeting last November, according to National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne.

Sullivan told Dana Bash on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that China providing Russia with support is a "concern."

"We also are watching closely to see the extent to which China actually
does provide any form of support, material support or economic support, to Russia. It is a concern of ours. And we have communicated to Beijing that
we will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its
losses from the economic sanctions," Sullivan said.

Russia expanded its offensive to western Ukraine on Sunday, firing
missiles near the city of Lviv and hitting a large military base close to
the Polish border, reportedly killing dozens of people as the war draws
closer to NATO's territory.

Local authorities say 35 people were killed and 134 injured at the
military base, in what Ukraine's Minister of Defence Oleksii Reznikov
described as a "terrorist attack" on peace and security "near the EU-NATO border."

US officials, including White House press secretary Jen Psaki, have been increasingly critical of Beijing's response to Russia's war in Ukraine.

While Beijing has seemingly tried to strike a neutral tone on the
international stage, Chinese domestic media coverage has promoted Russian disinformation campaigns and described the war as a "special military operation." Psaki also tweeted Wednesday that Beijing "has seemingly
endorsed" false Russian claims that the US is developing chemical weapons
in Ukraine.

"Our assessment right now is that (China is) abiding by the requirements
that have been put in place, but we would continue to encourage any
country to think a lot about what place they want to -- what role they
want to play -- in history as we all look back," Psaki said during a news conference Wednesday.

Sullivan told Bash on Sunday that the US has made it clear to Beijing that there will "absolutely be consequences" for "large-scale" efforts to give
the Kremlin a workaround to US sanctions.

"We will not allow that to go forward and allow there to be a lifeline to Russia from these economic sanctions from any country anywhere in the
world," he said.

Still, Sullivan said that while the US believes "China, in fact, was aware before the invasion took place that Vladimir Putin was planning something,
they may not have understood the full extent of it."

"Because it's very possible that Putin lied to them the same way that he
lied to Europeans and others," Sullivan told Bash.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/13/politics/jake-sullivan-meeting-chinese- counterpart-ukraine/index.html

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