week. quote, the veil is threadbare, it fools no one. the way in which china handles this conflict will have bearing on the future overall eu-china relationship. a breakthrough is not expected to come out of today's high-level virtual summit. and that is due, in part, to the nature of the relationship between russia and china. they have been doubling down on their prewar relationship. that was made clear when, earlier this week, you had those meetings between the russian foreign minister sergey lavrov and his chinese counterpart and gave no indication that china was going to join the chorus of western condemnation against russia and its assault on ukraine. in fact, just a day into those meetings, we heard this from the ministry of foreign affairs, the spokesperson said that there was, quote, no ceiling for china-russia cooperation. no ceiling for us to strive for peace. no ceiling for us to safeguard security, and no ceiling for us to oppose hegemony.