ANALYSIS – Made in China. Yes, China is actively arming Russia. Vladimir Putin says the Russian military received approximately 140,000 drones in 2023 and plans to multiply that number 10 times within a year.
As part of that ambitious goal, the Kremlin is working closely with Iran and China.
Iran has supplied more than a thousand Shahed “kamikaze” drones to Russia since the start of the invasion in February 2022. These drones have been used to exhaust Ukrainian air defenses and hit infrastructure far from the front lines.
While we have heard a lot about the Iranian connection, a recent Reuters report says that Russia has also established a clandestine weapons program in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones, or uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), for use in the war against Ukraine.
According to sources from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank, IEMZ Kupol—a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey—has developed and flight-tested a new kamikaze drone model called Garpiya-A1 (G3) in China.
Garpiya means Harpy in Russian. The drones use a Chinese engine and other components.
According to the Kyiv Post, the drones outwardly resemble the Iranian Shahed drones, with a unique bolt-on fin and Limbach L-550E engines manufactured by Xiamen Limbach, likely the Chinese subsidiary of German engine manufacturer Limbach Flugmotoren.
The Russian Defense Ministry claims the G3 can travel about 1,200 miles with a payload of 110 pounds.
Intelligence sources told Reuters that the Garpiya drones have already been used against military and civilian targets in Ukraine.
The Kyiv Post notes that this report – if proven – could mean that there is established cooperation between Chinese and Russian manufacturers in weapons production. It also points to the fact that Beijing, despite its denials, at least passively supports weapons developments in Russia through its so-called ‘private sector.’
Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at IISS, told Reuters that if confirmed, the delivery of UAVs from China to Russia would be a significant development.
“If you look at what China is known to have delivered so far, it was mostly dual-use goods – components, sub-components, that could be used in weapon systems, but what we haven’t really seen, at least in the open source, are documented transfers of whole weapon systems.”
The timing of the Reuters report coincided with US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell’s statement earlier this week that Beijing has been aiding Moscow with military development and production in exchange for advanced technologies.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently called on China to stop supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, stating that Beijing’s assistance has been a significant factor in the continuation of the conflict.
The Chinese foreign ministry responded by saying that Beijing strictly controls the export of items with potential military applications, including drones, and that there are no international restrictions on China’s trade with Russia.
Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said last month that Russia has fired nearly 14,000 strike drones since it invaded in February 2022.
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