While Vladimir Putin is deliberately bombing the country’s energy infrastructure in double-digit minus temperatures in Ukraine, the usual warm tone prevails between Moscow and Beijing. Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun said in a phone call with his Russian counterpart Andrei Belousov on Tuesday that they wanted to strengthen “strategic coordination” between the two countries and “work hand in hand to provide positive impulses for global security and stability.” Of course, the two ministers did not mention the war in Ukraine.
But despite China’s outward display of neutrality, it has long been well documented that the factories in the People’s Republic keep Putin’s war machine running. Up to 80 percent of Russian “dual-use” goods come from the Middle Kingdom – from microprocessors to ultrasonic sensors.
In the last year the situation has worsened even further. Since Russia has been increasingly relying on so-called fiber optic drones, which are particularly resistant to electrical jammers, China has immediately increased the supply of critical components: like that Washington Post reported, Beijing exported almost 530,000 kilometers of fiber optic cable and lithium-ion batteries worth around $47 million in August 2025 alone.
Chinese technology in the war against Ukraine
The large-scale Russian war of aggression against Ukraine began with the invasion on February 24, 2022. The annexation of Crimea took place in March 2014, and shortly afterwards the conflict broke out in the eastern Ukrainian regions.
In the fall, Kyiv’s secret service expressed its suspicions for the first time that China could provide Russia with satellite information about strategic targets in Ukraine. Chinese reconnaissance aircraft were also observed in the west of the country over places that had already been attacked by Russian forces.
Putin recently used the highly dangerous Oreshnik medium-range missile against the Ukrainian civilian population several times – a state-of-the-art, hypersonic ballistic missile that can theoretically be equipped with nuclear warheads. Like a recent research by the British Telegraph shows, special Chinese machines will also be used in the production of the “Oreschnik”.
War benefits Chinese economy
Many experts argue that China’s party leadership actively supports Russia for this reasonbecause the war benefits one’s own interests. Moscow is now so economically dependent from Beijing that there can no longer be any talk of a partnership of equals: China is exploiting its position of power by extremely depressing the prices for imported oil and natural gas from Russia.
At the same time, it is certainly in President Xi Jinping’s mind that Russia’s war against Ukraine weakens the entire political West and also pools the US’s foreign policy resources. However, the last point can no longer be maintained since Donald Trump’s second term in office: The US President has finally made it more than clear that Ukraine is above all a problem that the Europeans have to solve alone.
Not only Russia, but also the Ukrainian army is heavily dependent on Chinese supply chains
Russia and Ukraine use Chinese drones
An important aspect is also often overlooked: not only Russia, but also the Ukrainian army is heavily dependent on Chinese supply chains. Because companies from the Middle Kingdom are supplying large quantities of the weapon that has long since become the most important instrument in this conflict: unmanned aerial drones.
“In the midst of war, China’s dominance of global drone supply chains has become strategically indispensable for both Russia and Ukraine,” argue Ukrainian sinologist Vita Golod and security expert Dmytro Burtsev in the trade magazine Diplomat: “Only China currently offers the production capacity, price and logistical flexibility required to sustain such consumption.”
What is comparatively new is that these are actually civilian products, but with minimal modification they can be converted into deadly weapons of war. China is killing two birds with one stone: it can continue to pretend to be neutral since it does not export weapons, and at the same time benefit extremely economically from drone sales.
Knowledge of war benefits China’s military modernization
But Beijing is by no means just concerned with economic interests. In fact, through massive drone exports, China can learn valuable lessons about how the unmanned flying objects function in a real war operation. “These findings are already shaping China’s military modernization,” write the “Diplomat” authors.
And possibly the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s newly acquired knowledge could also be used in practice – for example, when Xi Jinping announces his military threat to the democratically ruled island of Taiwan should be put into action