China has issued an apparent rebuke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after he alleged that Beijing is aware its citizens are fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian urged “relevant parties” not to make “irresponsible remarks”.

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“We advise the relevant parties to recognise China’s role correctly and clear-headedly,” Lin said, without directly naming Ukraine or Zelenskyy.

The comments followed Zelenskyy’s statement on Wednesday that Kyiv has evidence at least 155 Chinese nationals are deployed to support Moscow’s invasion. A day earlier, he claimed two Chinese citizens had been captured by Ukrainian forces.

The “overt involvement of Chinese citizens in combat operations … is a deliberate step towards expanding the war”, Zelenskyy said.

In response, Lin said Beijing always instructs its nationals to steer clear of foreign conflicts “and especially refrain from participating in any party’s military operations”.

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His remarks appeared to suggest that any Chinese nationals fighting in Ukraine may have done so independently.

Ukraine’s Ukrainska Pravda newspaper, citing the Ukrainian military, reported that one of the captured Chinese nationals had paid $3,480 to a middleman in China to join the Russian army, hoping to obtain Russian citizenship.

The captive reportedly said he was trained in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Luhansk region as part of a group of Chinese nationals, some of whom had legal issues back home, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

Russia and Ukraine allow foreigners to enlist in their armies.

China presents itself as a neutral party in the Ukraine war and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the United States and other Western nations.

But Beijing has provided strong diplomatic support for Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022 and has also offered an economic lifeline through the trade in energy and consumer goods.

Russia has previously come under fire for enlisting fighters from North Korea. According to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, about 4,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war so far.