Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a joint statement “further deepening” their partnership following talks in Moscow Thursday – a show of solidarity in the face of global uncertainties unleashed by US President Donald Trump’s “America First” diplomacy.

As China takes a major hit from Trump's tariffs, Beijing's ties with the Kremlin increasingly intertwine.Chinese President Xi Jinping is in Moscow this week for Russia's Victory Day Parade, where his Russian counterpart,

The Trump administration has said it wants to pull apart Russia and China, but the two countries need each other too much.

Victory Day, celebrated on May 9, is Russia’s most important secular holiday, reflecting its wartime sacrifice. But it's also used by the Kremlin to bolster patriotism and regain the superpower prestige it lost when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Ukraine and Russia stepped up strikes ahead of Moscow’s World War II commemorations on Thursday, with Russia closing more than a dozen airports and canceling scores of flights amid a wave of drone attacks.

The volley came just days before a planned parade in the capital to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.