Does Putin want to open dialogue with the West? And what does Xi Jinping want from Europe? And where are relations between Moscow and Beijing?

Churchill described Russia as “an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, within an enigma.” The same can be said of Putin. Two years after the start of the war, the Russian President continues to oscillate between the belligerent threat and the (less frequent) defense of dialogue with the West. Two days ago, Russia threatened to attack British military installations and ordered its military to carry out training exercises for handling nuclear weapons on the battlefield. The Kremlin claimed at the time that this was a response to comments by French President Emmanuel Macron about Western troops being allowed to fight in Ukraine, and by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron about the use of British-supplied weapons. against Russian territory.

A day later, when he took office for a new six-year term, Vladimir Putin said it was up to the West to choose between confrontation and cooperation. The Russian President has made it clear several times that he believes Western countries use Ukraine as a means to one end: defeating and dismembering Russia. But, at the inauguration ceremony, and after taking the oath, Putin stressed to Russia’s political elite that he did not reject dialogue with the West, including on nuclear weapons. “The choice is theirs: do they intend to continue trying to contain Russia’s development, continue the policy of aggression, of incessant pressure on our country for years, or look for a path to cooperation and peace?”, He shot.

But why talk about dialogue when tensions between Moscow and Western capitals seem to have no end in sight?