Insiders say that Russia is working on a secret project to build war drones in China

Two sources from a European intelligence service and documents seen by Reuters say that Russia has set up a weapons program in China to make long-range attack drones that will be used in the war against Ukraine.

IEMZ One of the documents says that Kupol, a branch of the Russian government-owned weapons company Almaz-Antey, worked with Chinese experts to build and test a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3). The work was detailed in a report that Kupol sent to the Russian defense ministry earlier this year.

It was later reported by Kupol to the defense ministry that a plant in China was able to make a lot of drones, including the G3, so they could be used in the “special military operation” in Ukraine, which is what Moscow calls the war.

Kupol, Almaz-Antey, and the Russian Ministry of Defense were all asked to comment on this story but did not do so. China’s foreign ministry told Reuters that it was not aware of such a project and that the country had strict rules on the sale of drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles.

Research fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Fabian Hinz, said that if the delivery of UAVs from China to Russia is proven, it would be a big deal.

“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. “So far, this is what has been said. But what we haven’t seen, at least in the open code, are clear records of whole weapon systems being moved.

Still, Samuel Bendett, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said that Beijing would be reluctant to face international sanctions for helping Moscow’s war machine. He also said that more evidence was needed to prove that China was manufacturing Russian military drones.

The White House National Security Council was very worried about the Reuters story about the drone program. They said it looked like a Chinese company was helping a U.S.-sanctioned Russian company do something dangerous.

The White House hasn’t seen any evidence that the Chinese government knew about the deals. However, a spokeswoman said that China needs to make sure that companies aren’t giving Russia deadly weapons for its military.

Reports sent from Kupol to the Russian defense ministry say that the G3 can go about 2,000 km with a 50-kilogram payload. Kupol was hit with U.S. sanctions in December 2023. Samples of the G3 and some other Chinese-made drone models have been sent to Kupol in Russia to be tested further, this time with the help of Chinese experts, they said.

The papers don’t name the Chinese drone experts who worked on the project they describe, and Reuters wasn’t able to find out who they were.

According to two different documents reviewed by Reuters, Kupol received seven military drones made in China, including two G3s, at its headquarters in the Russian city of Izhevsk. These documents are invoices sent to Kupol in the summer by a Russian company that two European intelligence sources said acts as a go-between for Chinese suppliers. One of the bills asks for payment in Chinese yuan, but it doesn’t say when the goods will be delivered or name the Chinese suppliers.

As of February 2022, when the Ukraine war started, two intelligence sources said that the arrival of the sample drones to Kupol was the first solid proof that whole UAVs made in China had been sent to Russia.

The person or people asked that neither they nor their company be named because the information was private. They also asked that certain information about the papers, like the exact dates, be kept secret.

“DOUBLE THE STANDARDS FOR ARMS SALES”

Reuters was shown five papers to back up their claims that there was a Russian project in China to make drones for use in Ukraine. These included two Kupol reports to the ministry in the first half of the year and two invoices. The program has not been talked about before.

Kupol didn’t give more specific locations for project sites in his reports to the government. Reuters also couldn’t find out if the defense minister gave the company the go-ahead to start making the proposed number of weapons in large quantities.

Beijing has said many times that China and Chinese companies have not given Russia weapons to use in Ukraine and that China is still neutral. When asked about this article, China’s foreign ministry told Reuters that China’s stance was different from other countries that had “double standards on arms sales” and had “added fuel to the flames of the Ukrainian crisis.”

The ministry responded earlier this month to a story by Reuters that China had started making the Garpiya-A1 long-range military drone in Russia using Chinese engines and parts. They said that there were no international restrictions on China’s trade with Russia.

According to these new papers, Kupol, which is owned by the government, has gone even further by buying whole UAVs from China.

There is a race going on between Russia and Ukraine to make more drones, which have become very useful tools in the war.

David Albright, the head of the Institute for Science and International Security research group and a former U.N. weapons inspector who has done a lot of research on how China and Russia can work together to make drones, told Reuters that Kupol could get around Western sanctions against Russia by setting up a factory in China where it could get access to advanced chips and experts.

But Bendett at CNAS said Beijing should be careful: “Any factory that officially builds UAVs for the Russians puts China at risk of some of the harshest effects of the sanctions, so it’s not clear how much China would be willing to risk.”

When asked for a comment on this story, the Ukrainian government didn’t answer.

EQUAL TO THE U.S. REAPER DRONE?

Reports that Kupol sent to the defense ministry say that the G3 is an improved version of the Garpiya-A1 drone. Experts from China remade it based on plans of the Garpiya-A1, they said.

In eight months, Kupol said, the Chinese project would be ready to make a 400-kg REM 1 attack UAV that was created in China. Two European intelligence sources said that this system would be like the Reaper drone from the United States.

Sources say that TSK Vektor, a different Russian defense company, worked as a go-between for Kupol and the Chinese suppliers on the project. They said that the Russian companies worked with a Chinese company in Shenzhen called Redlepus TSK Vector Industrial, but they didn’t say what part Redlepus played.

TSK Vektor and Redlepus didn’t answer when asked for comments.

Kupol, TSK Vektor, and Redlepus want to build a joint Russian-Chinese drone research and production center in the Kashgar special economic zone in China’s Xinjiang province, according to a different paper that Reuters looked at.

Reuters couldn’t figure out who made the paper, which had the logos of three companies on it, or who it was meant for. It was said that the 80-hectare “Advanced UAV Research and Manufacturing Base” could make 800 drones every year. There was no information given about when it would be ready to use.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that his military had gotten about 140,000 drones in 2023 and that they planned to get ten times as many this year.

He told a meeting in St. Petersburg about making drones, “Whoever responds faster to demands on the battlefield wins.”