CHINA and Russia have formed an alliance and will be looking to extend their influence according to former Foreign Secretary Lord David Owen.

He told GB News: “I think that there is no doubt that Russia and China are aligned now. I personally think that’s sad.

“And I think it was better to try and keep China separate from Russia. But that’s their decision, then they are going to form more and more alliances which they’ll try to extend to other countries around the United Nations and build up the numbers of countries that they can speak for.

“It’s not going to be automatic, because in the past, the United States and Britain and France on the Security Council, could guarantee a majority in the General Assembly.”

In a discussion with Stephen Dixon and Ellie Costello, he added: “The General Assembly will start to move slightly in favour of Russia and China. They’re exploiting that.

“But the most essential thing to do is to call Xi’s bluff if you like, he says he’s got a peace settlement, well let’s see what it’s about.

“There’s not going to be any peace until there’s a meeting with President Putin. And I think if he says to President Putin, now is the time to meet with Zelensky, it’d be very hard for President Putin who’s in a weak position, not to take Xi’s advice.”

He added: “The person to be out there is President Zelenskyy. He has links with China. Ukraine has been supplying China with grain over many, many years and a substantial percentage, this is not a minor feature in the imports of food into China.

“Now, let’s see what will happen. I’m not sure whether it will come to anything, I hope it will.”

He said Ukraine should be able to make progress with a new offensive against Russian forces: “In my view, the tempo is going to increase now the weather’s improving.

“And I think that Ukraine is planning a really major offensive, they’ve been in a defensive role up until now.

“They’ve held that very well through the winter period but I think we’ll see there’s much more movement.

“We’ll also see how much new weaponry they’ve had from NATO countries and I think we’ll see, there’s considerable improvement.”