China says it supports Russia, says Wagner revolt is ‘internal affair’

China on Sunday described an aborted revolt by a Russian mercenary force as an “internal affair” and expressed support for the Kremlin’s efforts to take care of national stability.

“That is Russia’s internal affair,” said a Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesperson in a statement. “As Russia’s friendly neighbor and comprehensive strategic partner of coordination for the brand new era, China supports Russia in maintaining national stability and achieving development and prosperity.”

Individually, China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu met Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko on Sunday.

Either side “highly praised the present state of Russia-China relations,” based on a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Additionally they talked about “prospects for further strengthening foreign policy coordination and cooperation between Moscow and Beijing at multilateral platforms,” the Russian foreign ministry said, adding the 2 countries will “work together to consistently strengthen” relations.

On Friday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia’s paramilitary organization Wagner Group, accused Russia’s defense ministry of deliberately bombing Wagner fighters and claimed that Moscow’s justification for invading Ukraine was based on lies.

His troops reportedly took control of the strategic Russian city of Rostov-on-Don before advancing to inside 200 kilometers from Moscow on Saturday. But lower than 24 hours later, Prigozhin abruptly announced his fighters would turn back and halt their advance toward the capital.

Shortly after, Belarus released a press release that Prigozhin accepted Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s suggestion for the Wagner group to halt its operation in Russia and take further steps to ease tensions.

Russian state media reported that the Wagner leader will now move to neighboring Belarus and criminal charges against him could be dropped.

China’s statement pledging to support Russia in maintaining national stability suggests it’s “not providing direct military support” to Russia, based on Ian Bremmer, president and founding father of global political risk research and consulting firm Eurasia Group.

“[China is] considering that they will not be providing any military support for Russia, even when Putin’s back was up against the wall, when he might need gone down, once they didn’t know what was going to occur,” said Bremmer, stating that there was “almost no coverage within the Chinese state media.”

“They principally said, this can be a Russian internal matter, which by the best way, is what the Americans were saying as well, what NATO was saying as well,” Bremmer told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday.

“China’s going to purchase loads of Russian commodities. They are going to provide to the Russians loads of low level chips and the remainder — but they are not providing direct military support,” said Bremmer.