China and Russia “cannot be moved away” from one another, Chinese leader Xi Jinping told his counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday, in their first phone call since US President Donald Trump upended American foreign policy with a sweeping pivot toward Moscow as he pushes for peace in Ukraine.

Russian and U.S. representatives on Tuesday agreed to start working toward ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties, according to the two countries’ top diplomats, at a high-level meeting in Saudi Arabia that marked an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy under President Trump.