Putin and XI present a united front while they are confronted with an unpredictable Trump

President Vladimir V. Putin van Russia and Xi Jinping, the leader of China, presented their countries as guardians of stability and historical memory on Thursday, during a meeting in Moscow a day for celebrations on the occasion of the 80th birthday of the Soviet victory on Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

The leaders made public comments prior to conversations in the Kremlin, part of a separate state visit that Moscow organized for Mr. XI, the most important partner. The Chinese leader will also attend a military parade on the red square on Friday.

Both Mr Putin and Mr. Xi have to deal with the unpredictability of President Trump – the Russian president in conversations about Ukraine and the Chinese leader in bruises. Each has tried to present its countries as alternative world powers who want to achieve what they call a more equivalent, multipolar world.

Mr. Trump had used a number of the same nationalist complaints politics and disinformation strategies that Mr Putin and Mr. Xi used at home, but have not closed any leaders since his return to the White House. Talk to Moscow about The war in Ukraine have not caught the fighting and American officials are ready Beginning Negotiations In Switzerland this week with their Chinese counterparts.

In Moscow the top took place when Mr. Putin was set to welcome what the Kremlin expects to be more than 25 world leaders for the Red Square celebrations. The guests are a real “who’s who” from authoritarians, with the presidents of Venezuela, Cuba, Equatorial -Guinea and White -Russia is expected.

But none of the leaders is more important for Moscow than Mr XI.

The isolation of Russia from the West about his full invasion of Ukraine has considerably increased the dependence on Moscow on Beijing. China has supported Mr Putin’s war effort by buying Russian oil, supplying components for double usage use for Russian equipment and replacing left -west Western brands with Chinese consumer goods. However, Beijing has stopped with open military intervention or support.

Mr XI today described the relations between China and Russia as “calmer, more confident, stable and resilient” in his opening comments in the Kremlin.

He threw out the two leaders as defenders of an honest and just world order. And he called on the sacrifices of their countries during the Second World War as a symbol of their strength today to push back against “unilateralism and bullying through powerful countries”, an unmistakable reference to the United States and his trade war against China.

The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, making the memory of the conflict one of the most powerful and emotional forces in Russian life.

Mr Putin has manipulated that memory to reinforce his troops, as a result of which President Volodymyr Zensky van Ukraine, who is Jewish, falsely accuses the revival of Nazism. Russian troops fighting in Ukraine has been told that they have to make sacrifices like their ancestors made during the Second World War to remove the world of a fascist threat again.

“The victory over fascism, reached at the expense of huge sacrifices, is of timeless importance,” Mr Putin told Mr. Xi prior to their conversations.

Mr Putin said that Russia and China ‘venture firmly for the historical truth’ and ‘protect the memory of the events in the war years’. The two countries, he said, “opposes modern manifestations of neo -Nazism and militarism”, a clear reference by the Russian leader to his crusade to Ukraine and its Western donors.

Moscow’s celebration of the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany comes more than three years after Mr Putin launched his full invasion of Ukraine and re-ordered Russian society with a level of repression, militarism and control over official stories that have not been ordered since the days of the Soviet Union.

Zixu Wang Research contributed from Hong Kong.