A photographer recounted how he witnessed a conversation between Kuchma and the Chinese leader about nuclear weapons

I took a few photos… and was thinking of leaving, but then Jiang Zemin—who spoke Russian, having once worked in Dniprodzerzhynsk—turned to Kuchma, pointed at me, and asked, “Can we talk in front of him?” And Kuchma says, “Yes, you can.” I was forced to stay for the entire three hours of the negotiations. And it was truly… such a pleasure for me, because Jiang Zemin is very fond of Confucius. And I love reading Confucius. And he spoke the whole time using Confucian parables. And at that moment, he was persuading Kuchma not to give up nuclear weapons