Next to all the AI slop appearing every minute there are still the classic disinformation items channeled through the main stream press.
Today’s Financial Times presented this ‘scoop’:
Xi Jinping told Donald Trump that Putin might ‘regret’ invasion of Ukraine (archived)
Xi Jinping told Donald Trump during their talks last week that Russian President Vladimir Putin might end up regretting his invasion of Ukraine.
According to several people familiar with the US assessment of last week’s summit in Beijing, the Chinese president made the comments during wide-ranging talks that touched on Ukraine …
My first thought when reading those lines was ‘nonsense’. Why would Xi make a negative remark about the leader of China’s most important ally to the leader of its most ferocious enemy?
The first incongruity which catches the eye is the difference between the headline – “Putin might ‘regret’” – and the actual text – “Putin might end up regretting”. Those are quite different statements. The first one asserting a possible present state while the second describing a potential future one.
Then comes the sourcing. Someone in the U.S. wrote an assessment on last week’s Trump-Xi summit. Would an assessment include a quote on something that was, if at all, a side item in the meeting?
Some people claim to be ‘familiar’ with the assessment. What does that mean? They did read its executive summery? And why are several of those people talking to the Financial Times?
The claim does not make sense. The sourcing is extremely weak. Moreover the ‘leak’ is obviously timed to disturb today’s arrival of President Putin of Russia in China for his meeting with President Xi.
To sow distrust between ‘hostile’ allies through fake stories is a well known tool of a U.S. divide and conquer strategy.
China by the way vehemently denied the claim:
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Another favored fake news outlet is Reuters which today is also trying to disturb the China-Russia summit:
Exclusive: Russians covertly trained by China return to fight in Ukraine, sources say
May 19 (Reuters) – China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters.
The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on July 2, 2025.
It is well known that China and Russia are in a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership’ which includes bilateral weapon sales, joint military exercises and troop exchanges.
There is nothing nefarious about such training exchanges between allies. Decades ago, when I was in the German army, there were regular exchanges with British, French and U.S. troops. I have learned how to shot the cannon of a U.S. M1 Abrams tank and U.S. exchange soldiers learned how to handle German Leopards. There were no press releases about such routine training event but nobody would ever have called them ‘covert’.
According to Reuters some 200 Russian went to China to train with Chinese troops. Some of those soldiers also did a tour in Ukraine. That may well have happened.
But why does the Reuters write-up make it seem that the Chinese taught Russians about drone warfare. If those trainings were really about drones it were most likely the Russians who, having way more practical experience with drones in combat, taught the, untested by war, Chinese soldiers.
Pieces like the FT and Reuters ones above are regularly launched to create an atmosphere of hostility towards Russia, China and other ‘enemies’.
They are neither factual nor do they make any sense when read with scrutiny but they do poison the public sphere.