COLD WAR II: Putin is Lucky to Have a Friend in Chinese President Xi Jinping. “It’s always good to know that your friend has your back in a fight. The Chinese government issued a statement on Thursday blaming the conflict in Ukraine on the United States and NATO while piously asking Putin to respect the sovereignty and national borders of Ukraine. The Chinese then went ahead and purchased several billion dollars of wheat from Moscow and approved a multi-billion dollar purchase of Russian gas. China, which has very little in the way of gas and oil reserves, appears poised to blunt NATO sanctions on the Russian oil and gas industries by purchasing all they can handle. And Putin’s friends in Beijing will no doubt find a way to evade the sanctions on Russia’s banks to keep the economy above water.”