China secretly supplied Russia with components for killer drones

Investigation reveals link between projectiles used by Moscow in attacks on Ukraine and carbon fibre materials exported by Beijing.

A Chinese state-owned company supplied Russia with materials to build hundreds of kamikaze drones.

The parts were sent to a firm linked to Russia’s largest energy producer, which builds the Geran drones used to attack a shopping mall in central Ukraine in August, killing at least 16 people.

The disguised transfer of the components is detailed in internal Russian documents, reviewed by The Telegraph in a joint investigation with Politico.

The documents show for the first time how a Chinese government firm exported crucial drone-making components directly to Russia.

The revelations pose major questions for Russia, China and the Trump administration.

Donald Trump’s peace envoys arrived in Kyiv on Sunday after thanking Vladimir Putin for “incredible memories” in a Moscow meeting on Saturday.

Mr Trump is due to host Xi Jinping later this month following threats to tighten sanctions on China.

Washington has repeatedly accused Beijing of providing dual-use items – materials usable in both civilian and defence manufacturing – that go directly to the Russian military.

The scale of the shipments and the military importance of the Russian company receiving them, however, suggest Chinese officials were either turning a blind eye to that assistance or were actively facilitating it, said multiple US weapons experts, former intelligence officials and diplomats.

The shipping and customs documents reveal the Chinese firm disguised the shipment of 46 tons of carbon fibre chemicals to a subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom earlier this year.

The records, which have been reviewed by Western governments, provide the clearest evidence yet of a Chinese-state corporation aiding a sanctioned company in the Kremlin’s military-industrial complex.

The corporation that received the Chinese components develops the key components of the kamikaze drones.

Chinese components have long been retrieved from Russian drones following strikes on Ukraine. Yet the documents gathered from Russian sources by the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre (USCC) – a Kyiv-based think tank close to the Ukrainian government – detail for the first time how a Chinese state firm exported crucial drone-making components directly to Russia.

The USCC has shared the documents with the UK and US governments.

These revelations “would allow the [US] state department to sanction” the Chinese supplier, because they “establish” shipments to Rosatom’s subsidiary after it was sanctioned by much of the West, said David Albright, founder and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security think tank. The shipment, he pointed out, was disguised with a customs code for exports such as nylon and polyester.

“Rosatom and its enterprises operate in full compliance with applicable laws and regulatory requirements,” said a spokesman for the Russian state firm. “Any claim to the contrary is false and demonstrates a lack of understanding of how Russia’s customs authorities operate.”

Chinese state firm Jilin Chemical Fiber Group did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Both the state department and the US treasury department can impose sanctions “to disrupt the networks and channels through which Russia procures technology and equipment from abroad to support its war effort”, the state department said in a statement last year.

“This evidence provides irrefutable proof that Chinese state-owned companies are involved in the supply chains of raw materials to Russia,” said Serhii Kuzan, head of the USCC. International sanctions on Russia mean that “China has become arguably the main, and in fact the only, source of supply for the materials needed to manufacture the composites used in Russian weaponry”, Mr Kuzan said.

The US House select committee on China has reviewed the documents and determined they are “legitimate”, according to a US government official familiar with their contents. The Ukrainian government has also reviewed the documents and confirmed their authenticity, a Ukrainian official said. Both officials were granted anonymity as they were not authorised to speak on the record.