"In love, there is always one who kisses, and one who offers the cheek." That French proverb was borrowed by Winston Churchill's daughter to describe the British prime minister's relationship during World War II with US president Franklin D. Roosevelt. When observing the optics of Xi Jinping's three-day state visit to Moscow, we ask about the stakes of the first trip to Russia by China's president since Vladimir Putin's decision to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine.