Putin and Xi met in Uzbekistan to plot new 'world order' and discuss Ukraine war

Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping gather with other Asian leaders in the ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand from Thursday for a regional summit touted as a challenge to Western global influence.

Xi and Putin will be joined by the leaders of India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and several other countries for the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the Uzbek city on Thursday and Friday.

The main summit day will be Friday, but it is a meeting of the Russian and Chinese leaders on Thursday that will be the most closely watched.

Both had arrived in the city ahead of the talks, with Putin emerging from his plane under sunny skies to be greeted by an honour guard on the tarmac before being whisked away in a convoy of black vehicles.

For Putin, the summit is a chance to show that Russia cannot be isolated internationally, at a time when Moscow's forces are facing major battlefield setbacks in Ukraine.

For Xi - on his first trip abroad since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic - it is an opportunity to shore up his credentials as a global statesman ahead of a pivotal congress of the ruling Communist Party in October.

And for both leaders, the summit will be a chance to thumb their noses at the West, especially the United States, which has led the charge in imposing sanctions on Russia over Ukraine and angered Beijing with recent shows of support for Taiwan.

"The SCO offers a real alternative to Western-centric organisations," Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters in Moscow this week.

"All members of the SCO stand for a just world order," he said, describing the summit as taking place "against the background of large-scale geopolitical changes".

Entry to Samarkand, a city of grand tiled mosques that was one of the hubs of Silk Road trade routes between China and Europe, was restricted in the days ahead of the summit, with its airport shut to commercial flights.

The streets and its famed markets stood largely empty as AFP journalists visited on Wednesday, and schools were to be closed for the two days of the summit.

Security was tight across the city, with a huge police presence on the streets and armoured vehicles parked downtown.

Residents told AFP of their pride in hosting the summit, pointing to Samarkand's long history as an international crossroads.

"We are proud that so many leaders of various countries are gathering in our city. Samarkand from ancient times was a legendary city," said 26-year-old Shakhboz Kombarov.

The SCO - made up of China, Russia, India, Pakistan and the ex-Soviet Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - was set up in 2001 as a political, economic and security organisation to rival Western institutions.

It is not a formal military alliance like NATO or a deeply integrated bloc like the European Union, but its members work together to tackle joint security issues, cooperate militarily and promote trade.

The summit's main joint session will be on Friday but much of the focus will be on bilateral talks.

As well as Xi, Putin will meet Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, then on Friday with Indian premier Narendra Modi and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Modi and Xi have not met face-to-face since deadly border clashes in 2020 frayed ties between the Asian rivals.

Iran is an SCO observer state and Erdogan has been a key broker in deals between Russia and Ukraine on issues like grain shipments.