• Frank-Walter Steinmeier said China and Europe want peace.
• Throughout the hour-long chat, the German president backed Ukraine.
• China and Russia will begin a weeklong naval exercise on Wednesday.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier encouraged Chinese President Xi Jinping to use his influence to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to cease the war in Ukraine during a phone call on Tuesday, according to a German government news release.

Steinmeier underlined the “common interest of China and Europe in an end to the war,” with the prerequisite that Russian troops withdraw. Steinmeier “asked Xi to use his influence on Russia and to influence Putin in this sense,” according to the news release.

Steinmeier also thanked President Xi “for the clear rejection of nuclear threats by Russia.”

The German president reaffirmed Germany’s resolve to support Ukraine throughout the hour-long talk.

He claimed that Europe has taken measures to prepare for the energy crisis and would not yield to Russian threats.

Steinmeier stated that Russian aggression had improved Ukraine’s defensibility and Europe’s unity, telling the Chinese president that “Putin had profoundly miscalculated.”

Latest development: As the two partners scale up cooperation in an increasingly tense western Pacific, China and Russia will start a week-long combined live-fire naval exercise in the East China Sea on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry.

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