China trained 200 Russian soldiers in drone warfare

In July 2025, China and Russia signed a secret bilateral agreement that banned all public disclosure. Under its terms, China's People's Liberation Army trained roughly 200 Russian soldiers at military facilities in drone warfare, electronic combat, and armoured infantry tactics between November and December 2025. Some returned to fight in Ukraine. Three European intelligence agencies tracked the programme for months before it was made public on May 19, the day Putin landed in Beijing (Kyiv Independent, n-tv).

The revelation shifts China from economic enabler of Russia's war to direct military participant. The EU had the spies to uncover the operation but lacks the political system to punish it.

What the Programme Actually Built

Participants included ranking military instructors, from junior sergeants to lieutenant colonels, many selected specifically for their training roles. At PLA facilities in Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Yibin, and Nanjing, they practised drone-artillery coordination, counter-drone electronic warfare, and first-person-view drone piloting on Chinese simulators. One intelligence agency reported that graduates later conducted drone operations in occupied Crimea and Zaporizhzhia; Reuters could not independently verify this claim.

The programme was designed to scale. Each returning instructor cascades Chinese drone techniques to hundreds of operators below. This amounts to technology transfer through human capital, giving Russia access to the expertise of the world's leading drone manufacturer.

The Unanimity Trap

The EU has been ratcheting up sanctions against Chinese companies feeding Russia's war machine. The 20th sanctions package (April 2026) designated about 27 Chinese and Hong Kong entities. Commission President von der Leyen called China a "de facto" enabler of Russia's war economy.

Sanctioning shell companies, though, is a different exercise from confronting China as a state-level military actor. The EU's sanctions frameworks are broad enough, in theory, to target actors who undermine Ukraine's territorial integrity. The real barrier is political: any EU foreign policy decision targeting PLA units or Chinese military officials requires unanimity among all 27 member states (meaning any single one can block). Hungary has consistently diluted or vetoed China-related collective action, making escalation from corporate sanctions to state-level military sanctions functionally impossible.

Three Capitals, Three Distractions

Germany shows the bind most clearly. Chancellor Merz expressed hope on May 19 that Xi Jinping would pressure Putin to end the war — the same day Reuters showed China training Russia's fighters. German automakers are already haemorrhaging their China market share. Berlin cannot afford to escalate against a partner it is losing.

Italy's version differs. Three days before the Reuters story, Industry Minister Urso declared Chinese carmakers "welcome" to buy shuttered Stellantis factories, while the government quietly tightened security reviews on Chinese investments in defence-adjacent sectors. No Italian official has connected the military training revelation to the industrial courtship.

Poland directed its alarm elsewhere. Warsaw spent the week managing a cancelled US troop rotation, insisting the decision "concerns Germany, not Poland". The country with the most to fear from improved Russian drone capability barely discussed China.

The pattern across all three is the same: member states are too consumed by domestic crises and bilateral investments to form a united front against Beijing.

What Remains Hidden

The July 2025 agreement was reciprocal. Alongside Russian soldiers training in China, "hundreds" of Chinese troops trained in Russia, absorbing battle-tested drone tactics from the most drone-intensive war in modern history. If the PLA applies these lessons to its own operational planning, the exchange becomes both a European security problem and an Indo-Pacific one simultaneously. European leaders treat these two theatres as separable. Beijing, evidently, does not.

Three intelligence agencies held this story for months and surfaced it precisely as Putin arrived in Xi's capital. The timing of the leak was deliberate, but the institutional response it was designed to trigger has yet to materialise.