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Senior Chinese officials told senior Russian officials in early February not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, the New York Times reported, quoting Biden administration officials and a European official who cited a Western intelligence report, Reuters reported.

The Times said the intelligence report indicated senior Chinese officials had some level of knowledge about Russia’s plans or intentions to invade Ukraine before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the operation last week.

A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters that China had made the request but declined to provide details. The source declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

“The claims mentioned in the relevant reports are speculations without any basis, and are intended to blame-shift and smear China,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

The U.S. State Department, the CIA and the White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

After weeks of warnings from Western leaders, Russia unleashed a three-pronged invasion of Ukraine from the north, east and south on Feb. 24, just days after the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics ended.

Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met at the start of the Olympics on Feb. 4 and declared an upgraded “no limits” partnership in which they pledged to collaborate more against the West.

The New York Times said the intelligence on the exchange between the Chinese and Russian officials was collected by a Western intelligence service and was considered credible by officials reviewing it.

U.S. officials have confirmed previous Times reporting that Washington passed on to senior Chinese officials intelligence on the Russian troop buildup around Ukraine ahead of the invasion in the hope that Beijing would persuade Moscow to stand down its troops.

The newspaper said senior officials in the United States and in allied governments passed around the intelligence as they discussed when Putin might attack Ukraine but intelligence services had varying interpretations, adding that it was not clear how widely the information was shared.

One official the Times said was familiar with the intelligence said the material did not necessarily indicate the conversations about an invasion took place at the level of Xi and Putin.

Bonny Lin, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said it was unclear how much Xi knew about Putin’s intentions.

The ruling coalition has urged the main opposition CPN-UML to end the House obstruction. 

During a meeting of the senior leaders of the ruling alliance held at Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s official residence in Baluwatar on Thursday, they discussed contemporary political issues and ongoing House obstruction. 

The main opposition CPN-UML has been obstructing the House for the past few months demanding resignation of Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota or expulsion of 14 lawmakers including Madhav Kumar Nepal.

On the occasion, Prime Minister Deuba also thanked CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal for helping to endorse the $500 million grant compact from the Parliament, government spokesperson and Minister for Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki said. 

The ruling parties have also decided to hold talks with their party leaders about forging electoral alliance in the upcoming local level elections.

Nepal voted in favour of a UN resolution to denounce Russia for invading Ukraine.

Nepal was one of the 141 nations of the 193 member states who voted for the resolution, 35 abstained, and five voted against.

The only countries to vote in support of Moscow were Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria.

Longstanding allies Cuba and Nicaragua joined China in abstaining. India also abstained from voting.

The resolution strongly condemns the Russian’s attack on Ukraine in violation of Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter.

The resolution demanded that Russia immediately stop using force against Ukraine and also not to use force against any of the member states.

Earlier on Sunday, the United Nations had voted to call a rare session of the 193-member UN General Assembly to discuss Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

On the occasion, Nepal had voted in favour of the session. India and China had remained neutral.

The number of people sent fleeing Ukraine by Russia’s invasion topped 1 million on Wednesday, the swiftest refugee exodus this century, the United Nations said, as Russian forces kept up their bombardment of the country’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv, and laid siege to two strategic seaports, Associated Press reported.

The tally from the U.N. refugee agency released to The Associated Press amounts to more than 2 percent of Ukraine’s population being forced out of the country in less than a week. The mass evacuation could be seen in Kharkiv, where residents desperate to get away from falling shells and bombs crowded the city’s train station and tried to press onto trains, not always knowing where they were headed.

In a videotaped address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Ukrainians to keep up the resistance. He vowed that the invaders would have “not one quiet moment” and described Russian soldiers as “confused children who have been used.”

Moscow’s isolation deepened when most of the world lined up against it at the United Nations to demand it withdraw from Ukraine. And the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into possible war crimes.

With fighting going on on multiple fronts across the country, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Mariupol, a large city on the Azov Sea, was encircled by Russian forces, while the status of another vital port, Kherson, a Black Sea shipbuilding city of 280,000, remained unclear.