China will never support any sanctions against Russia and will never join them, Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Russian parliament’s upper house said, citing Chinese President Xi Jinping, with whom she met on Tuesday.

Both Russia and China believe the sanctions are illegal, ineffective and counterproductive, according to Matviyenko. They are nothing but an attempt “to exert pressure on sovereign states to change their position and to weaken them and suppress their development,” she stressed.