Russia and China are not establishing a military alliance and are not hiding anything related to their military cooperation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said today in an interview on state television.

Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed their friendship and vowed to forge closer ties at a summit in Moscow earlier this week as Russia seeks to advance what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine.

- We are not establishing any military alliance with China. Yes, we cooperate in the field of military-technical interaction. We don't hide it. Everything is transparent, there is nothing secret, Putin added.

The Russian president also said Western powers were trying to create more global alliances, accusing the US and NATO of starting to build a new "axis" similar to the World War II alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan.

- That is why Western analysts are talking about the fact that the West is starting to build a new axis similar to the one created in the 1930s by the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy and militaristic Japan, Putin said.