China’s foreign minister Wang Yi has hit back at Nato’s “groundless accusations” that Beijing is helping Russia in its war on Ukraine.

He has also warned the Western alliance against stirring up confrontation.

Mr Wang’s comments, made in a call with his Dutch counterpart, came hours after leaders of Nato member states gathered in Washington DC and issued a declaration that mentioned the war.

They accused China of being a “decisive enabler” of Russia through its “large-scale support for Russia’s defence industrial base”, in some of their harshest remarks yet about Beijing.