Crimea is Russian and Ukraine is not a real country, so said the Chinese ambassador. One wonders how long before Lu Shaye ends up in some re-education camp somewhere back home?

Source: BBC

China has distanced itself from the remarks of one of its envoys who questioned the sovereignty of Ukraine and other former Soviet countries.

Paris ambassador Lu Shaye's comments last week caused widespread outrage, leading on calls to Beijing to clarify.

On Monday, China's foreign ministry said it respected the independence of all post-Soviet republics.
...
In an interview for the French LCI network last week, Ambassador Lu was asked China's view of the status of Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014.

The interviewer argued that under international law the region was part of Ukraine.

Mr Lu responded by suggesting that the issue was not clear cut, and that countries such as Ukraine could not rely on international law to defend their sovereignty.

"Even these former Soviet countries don't have an effective status under international law because there is no international agreement under international law to concretise their status as sovereign countries," he said.

Some major backpedalling from China to limit the damage.

On Monday Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning rejected Mr Lu's position, saying Beijing respected the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries and upheld the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter.

She said that while "the Soviet Union was a federal state and had the status of an entity of international law in its entirety in foreign affairs... this does not deny the fact that each member republic of the Soviet Union has the status of a sovereign state after the dissolution of the Soviet Union".

An advisor for President Zelensky with some withering criticism for a country that prides itself on its thousands of years of history stooping to parroting Soviet-era propaganda.