It was only six weeks ago that Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, met shortly before the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics and released a sweeping 5,000-word statement that reaffirmed their no-limits relationship.
As Moscow massed tens of thousands of soldiers on the border of Ukraine, together the pair in their 38th in-person meeting in nine years disavowed NATO, the United States-European military alliance forged in the Cold War and now grappling with a resurgent Russia.
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