Washington, DC(CNN)Russia has asked China for military support, including drones, as well as economic assistance for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, according to conversations CNN had with two US officials.
The requests came after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, one of the officials said. That official declined to detail the Chinese reaction but indicated that the Chinese had responded.
Potential assistance from the Chinese would be a significant development in Russia's invasion. It could upend the hold Ukrainian forces still have in the country as well as provide a counterweight to the harsh sanctions imposed on Russia's economy.
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
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