Russia has a secret war drone project with China, intel sources say

London: Russia has established a weapons program in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in the war against Ukraine, according to two sources from a European intelligence agency and documents reviewed by Reuters.

IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey, has developed and flight-tested a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3) in China with the help of local specialists, according to one of the documents, a report that Kupol sent to the Russian Defence Ministry earlier this year outlining its work.

Russian President Vladimir Putin looks at drones during his visit to the Special Technology Centre in St. Petersburg, Russia.Credit: AP

Kupol told the ministry in a subsequent update that it was able to produce drones including the G3 at scale at a factory in China so the weapons could be deployed in the “special military operation” in Ukraine, the term Moscow uses for the war.

Kupol, Almaz-Antey and the ministry did not respond to requests for comment for this article. China’s Foreign Ministry said it was not aware of such a project, adding that Beijing had strict control measures on the export of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, a defence think-tank, said the delivery of UAVs from China to Russia, if confirmed, would be a significant development.

Russian President Vladimir Putin viewing a drone in Izhevsk in 2023.Credit: AP

“If you look at what China is known to have delivered so far, it was mostly dual-use goods – it was components, sub-components, that could be used in weapon systems,” he said. “This is what has been reported so far. But what we haven’t really seen, at least in the open source, are documented transfers of whole weapon systems.”

Still, Samuel Bendett, an adjunct senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Security, a Washington-based think-tank, said Beijing would be hesitant to open itself up to international sanctions for helping Moscow’s war machine.

The White House National Security Council said it was deeply concerned by the report, which it said appeared to be an instance of a Chinese company providing lethal assistance to a US-sanctioned Russian firm.

The White House had not seen anything to suggest the Chinese government was aware of the transactions involved, but China has a responsibility to ensure companies aren’t providing lethal aid to Russia for use by its military, a spokesperson added.

Britain’s Foreign Office called on China to stop providing diplomatic and material support to Russia’s war effort.

“We are extremely concerned by reports that Russia is producing military drones in China,” a spokesperson said.

“This adds to a growing body of open-source evidence that Chinese companies are enabling Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. The supply of weapons would be a direct contradiction to statements from China that it would not provide weapons to relevant parties of the conflict.”

The G3 can travel about 2000km with a payload of 50kg, according to the reports from Kupol, which was placed under US sanctions in December 2023. Samples of the G3 and some other drone models made in China have been delivered to Kupol in Russia for further testing, again with the involvement of Chinese experts, they said.

Kupol has taken delivery of seven military drones made in China, including two G3s, at its headquarters in the Russian city of Izhevsk, according to the two separate documents reviewed by Reuters.

The two intelligence sources said the delivery of the sample drones to Kupol was the first concrete evidence their agency had found of whole UAVs manufactured in China being delivered to Russia since the Ukraine war began in February 2022.

They showed Reuters five documents in all, including two Kupol reports to the ministry in the first half of the year and two invoices, to support their claims of the existence of a Russian project in China to manufacture drones for use in Ukraine.

The sources asked that neither they nor their organisation be identified due to the sensitivity of the information. They also requested certain details related to the documents be withheld, including their precise dates.

Beijing has repeatedly denied that China or Chinese companies have supplied Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine, saying the country remains neutral.

Ukrainian air defence intercepts a a drone midair over Kyiv.Credit: AP

In response to questions for this article, the Foreign Ministry said China’s position presented a contrast with other nations with “double standards on arms sales” whom it said had “added fuel to the flames of the Ukrainian crisis”.

The ministry said earlier this month that there were no international restrictions on China’s trade with Russia, when responding to a Reuters report that Kupol had started to produce the Garpiya-A1 long-range military drone in Russia using Chinese engines and parts.

The new documents reported here indicate state-owned Kupol has gone further by sourcing complete UAVs from China.

A drone is seen in the sky seconds before it fired on buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine.Credit: AP

Both Russia and Ukraine are racing to ramp up their production of drones, which have emerged as highly effective weapons in the war.

The sources said another Russian defence firm called TSK Vektor acted as the intermediary between Kupol and Chinese suppliers in the project. They said the Russian firms worked with a Chinese company called Redlepus TSK Vector Industrial, based in Shenzhen, without specifying Redlepus’ role.

A separate document reviewed by Reuters reveals plans involving Kupol, TSK Vektor and Redlepus to establish a joint Russian-Chinese drone research and production centre in the Kashgar special economic zone in China’s Xinjiang province.

The 80-hectare “Advanced UAV Research and Manufacturing Base” would be able to produce 800 drones a year, the document said.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his military had received around 140,000 drones in 2023 and that Moscow planned to increase this number tenfold this year.

“Whoever reacts faster to demands on the battlefield wins,” he told a meeting in St Petersburg about drone production.

Reuters

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