The Chinese authorities claim that despite their “unlimited partnership” with Russia, they do not supply it with military technology that could be used for aggression against Ukraine.
However, an investigation by Bloomberg, based on documents obtained by the editorial office, indicates the opposite. According to the agency, a plant was created with the participation of Chinese partners and using production facilities in Khabarovsk, which became one of the key suppliers of drones for the Russian army’s operations in the partially occupied Kherson region.
The plant of the Aerohit company, which receives state funding, plans to increase drone production to 10,000 units per month this year and expand the range with more modern models, The Moscowtimes writes. Bloomberg has several documents on the supply of Veles to the front or orders from the Ministry of Defense in 2024.
At the same time, the largest Russian enterprise producing drones, located in the special economic zone “Alabuga”, produces about 3,000 drones monthly (although these are larger attack drones – modified Iranian Shahed, which Russia uses to bomb Ukrainian cities). In Khabarovsk, at the enterprise located next to the airport, they make multifunctional drones “Veles”. According to the company’s website, they “allow for prompt observation of the territory” and conduct electronic reconnaissance, since “unlike most typical FPV drones on a high-speed Chinese frame, Aerohit solutions have extra space for new electronics.” According to the March order, available to Bloomberg, 100 “Veleses” were sold for 8 million rubles. Overall, the documents, from late 2022 to June 2025, show how Russia has established procurement of Chinese components and technology and disguised supplies by using intermediaries in other sectors, such as aviation catering, agricultural and seafood transportation.
While Russia has until recently lagged behind Ukraine in drone innovation, that has begun to change this year. In recent months, the Russian military has significantly increased the force of its shelling of Ukrainian cities, now using more than half a thousand drones in a single raid. It has begun to actively use drones with fiber-optic cables, which are resistant to electronic warfare methods. It was with their help that the military unit of the Rubicon Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies, created by order of the Ministry of Defense in 2024, was able to push the Ukrainian military out of the Kursk region, cutting off supply routes by establishing control in the air and non-stop attacks.
Now the Rubicon is fighting near Konstantinovka, which is the supply center of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donetsk region and which the Russian army has surrounded on three sides. With its appearance, the situation has changed significantly to the detriment of the defenders, several Ukrainian soldiers fighting on the front lines and American volunteer Rebecca Masiorowski, who works in a field hospital, told The New York Times.
After the Chinese authorities tightened restrictions on drone exports in 2023, some local companies broke off relations with Russian partners, while others, on the contrary, intensified them, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg.
Back in the fall of 2022, the Komaks company (owned by former KGB officer Konstantin Basyuk, who has been a Russian senator from the occupied Kherson region since December 2022) began negotiations with the special economic zone in Harbin and the Khabarovsk airport on the construction of a warehouse with special tax and customs conditions to facilitate imports, as well as on setting up nearby production of drones using Chinese parts and technologies. Then the Harbin Polytechnic University, which actively works with the Chinese army (for which it was included in the US sanctions list), was involved in the cooperation.
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