Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping professed friendship and pledged closer ties at a summit in Moscow early this week, as Russia struggles to make gains in what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“We are not creating any military alliance with China,” Interfax quoted Putin as saying. “Yes, we have cooperation in the sphere of military-technical interaction. We are not hiding this.

“Everything is transparent, there is nothing secret.”

Putin also said Western powers were trying to form more global alliances, accusing the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of starting to build a new “axis,” bearing some resemblance to Germany, Italy and Japan’s World War Two alliance.

“That is why Western analysts...are talking about the West starting to build a new axis similar to the one created in the 1930s by the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy and militarist Japan,” Putin said.