By Dmitry Antonov and Guy Faulconbridge MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin held a video call with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday in which he proposed further developing their strategic partnership just hours after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.

The president still won’t say whether he has had a recent conversation with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. It’s not clear why he won’t answer the question.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping vowed to take his country’s ties with Russia to a new level this year in a video conference with counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, hours after the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.

Russian President Vladimir Putin smiled and waved enthusiastically to his Chinese counterpart during virtual talks on Tuesday.

The ‘dear friends’ discuss Taiwan, the war in Ukraine, and future relations with the US, pledging to ‘defend their legitimate interests’

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had a video call hours after Donald Trump was sworn in on Monday, pledging to bring bilateral ties to "greater heights", according to state media on both sides.

Any conversation between the two would mark the first time a sitting U.S. president and Putin have spoken since the war in Ukraine began, although former President Joe Biden held phone calls with Putin multiple times in the leadup to Moscow's invasion to urge Putin against it.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wanted to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin as soon as possible to secure an end to the war with Ukraine and expressed a desire to work towards cutting nuclear arms.

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Tuesday with ... expressing his readiness to work together with Putin to “lead China-Russia relations to a higher level, to cope with the ...

Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed ties with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, as the two face a more geopolitically assertive US government led by Donald Trump, who criticised the Kremlin's war against Ukraine on the first day of his second term as president.

FILE PHOTO: Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping take part in an official welcoming ceremony for delegations' heads at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, 23 October 2024. MAXIM SHIPENKOV/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo