China's social media platform Weibo becomes new front in Russia, Ukraine tensions
Feb 22, 2022
Beijing [China], February 22 : China's social media platform Weibo has become a new front in Russia and Ukraine tensions with two hashtags trending on it.
At number 7 is "#Ukraine released a statement on Weibo" which has a post from the Weibo account of the Ukrainian Embassy in China releasing a statement condemning the decision of the Russian Federation to recognize the independence of pseudo organizations in temporarily occupied territory.
With the sudden announcement of Russia recognizing "the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR)" and "the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR)" as independent and sovereign states, the Ukraine Embassy to China released a statement concerning the issue in Chinese on Tuesday, bringing the issue to a top trending topic on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo, reported Global Times.
Another is "#Ukraine" under which the news is reported in a fairly non-partisan way till now just stating the facts. State media Weibo accounts are putting independence inside quotation marks.
Following Ukraine's statement, the embassy of Russia in China posted that Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed the Executive Orders on the Recognition of "DPR" and "LPR," and inked Treaties of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between Russia and the two parties.
It also shared Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya's statement at the UN Security Council on Tuesday, who said, "I remind that by the moment the Minsk Agreements were signed, the LPR and DPR had already proclaimed independence. The fact that Russia recognized this independence today makes no changes to the list of sides to the Minsk Agreements, because Russia is not a side thereto." Nebenzya added that "Another point is that Ukraine, under the Western patronage, has long been openly sabotaging the Minsk Agreements that were supposed to start being implemented back in 2015."
The ''Ukraine issue'' became a hot topic on Weibo on Tuesday, with some 900 million views and prompting nearly 200,000 discussions, reported Global Times.
"Another chess piece played by the US. It's pathetic," commented a netizen under the post of the Ukrainian Embassy to China. Others joked that "the Ukrainian war has been moved online because of the pandemic, and please forgive for any inconveniences."
