Key Points – Ukrainian intelligence officials have accused China of covertly supplying Russia with a wide range of critical components—including hardware, electronics, engines, and navigation systems—that are enabling Moscow to massively scale up its drone production for the war in Ukraine.
-According to Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence spokesperson Oleh Aleksandrov, Russia is aiming to produce 500 long-range drones per day thanks to this supply chain, which allegedly uses shell companies to avoid sanctions.
-These accusations, along with President Zelenskyy’s claim last month that China has cut off drone sales to Ukraine while allowing them to Russia, directly contradict Beijing’s repeated official denials of providing military aid.
Is China Giving Russia Military Hardware? Ukraine Says Yes
Beijing has long denied providing military hardware or other forms of aid to Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Ukrainian officials, however, have once again claimed to have evidence that China is not following the script.
Speaking to POLITICO this week, Oleh Aleksandrov, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service, claimed that Russia is catching up to Ukraine’s unexpected increase in drone production thanks to production lines in China. If true, it stands in stark contrast to repeated claims from Beijing that it would provide no such support.
On March 15, 2022, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Qin Gang authored an op-ed in The Washington Post, stating that the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, including Ukraine, must be respected” but that “legitimate security concerns of all countries must be taken seriously.”
While clearly defending Russia’s right to take action, or at least Moscow’s concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion, Beijing made it clear early in the war that it would not directly assist Russia in its military efforts. In February 2024, during the Munich Security Conference, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated China’s stance, asserting that China would not “sell lethal weapons to conflict areas or parties to the conflict.”
As Russia dramatically increases its supply of drones, however, Ukrainian officials are sounding the alarm on a potential supply deal struck between Moscow and Beijing.
What Ukraine Claims
According to POLITICO, Ukrainian officials believe that Chinese supply lines are giving Russia access to the parts it needs to build its own arsenal of drones.
“Chinese manufacturers provide them with hardware, electronics, navigation, optical and telemetry systems, engines, microcircuits, processor modules, antenna field systems, control boards, navigation. They use so-called shell companies, change names, do everything to avoid being subject to export control and avoid sanctions for their activities,” Aleksandrov said. “Yet officially, China sticks to all the rules. Yet only officially.”
Meanwhile, Beijing continues to deny providing assistance to Russia, calling Ukrainian accusations “baseless” and “political manipulation.”
Ukrainian officials, however, say that Russia depends on Chinese hardware for both long-range and tactical drones. If Aleksandrov’s accusations are true, it means Russia is only catching up to Ukraine in terms of drone production thanks to hardware it is unable to manufacture domestically at the same scale.
While Ukraine is producing as many as 100,000 drones per month and 100 long-range drones per day, Russia has scaled production of long-range drones to 300 per day, and is aiming to hit 500, according to Aleksandrov.
Ukraine has also accused China of cutting off access to new drones manufactured in China – specifically the DJI drones that were widely used during the early days of the conflict – while placing no such restrictions on Moscow.
“Chinese Mavic is open for Russians but is closed for Ukrainians. There are production lines on Russian territory where there are Chinese representatives,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters last month.
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
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