China trained 200 Russian soldiers in drones

In July 2025, China and Russia signed a secret bilateral agreement banning any public disclosure. Under it, China’s People’s Liberation Army trained around 200 Russian soldiers at military facilities in drone warfare, electronic combat and armoured infantry tactics between November and December 2025. Some later returned to fight in Ukraine. Three European intelligence agencies followed the programme for months before it became public on May 19, the day Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing (Kyiv Independent, n-tv).

That moves China beyond the familiar role of economic backer of Russia’s war. It points to direct military assistance. The EU had the intelligence to expose the operation, but not the political machinery to respond with the same clarity.

What the Programme Actually Built

The Russians sent were not random recruits. They included military instructors, from junior sergeants to lieutenant colonels, many chosen specifically because they trained others. 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 some graduates later carried out drone operations in occupied Crimea and Zaporizhzhia. Reuters could not independently verify that claim.

The programme was built to multiply. Each instructor returning from China can pass those techniques to hundreds of Russian operators. This is technology transfer through people, not through crates of equipment. It gives Russia access to the know-how of the world’s leading drone manufacturer.

The Unanimity Trap

The EU has already been tightening sanctions against Chinese companies that feed Russia’s war machine. The 20th sanctions package in April 2026 listed about 27 Chinese and Hong Kong entities. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has described China as a "de facto" enabler of Russia’s war economy.

But sanctioning shell companies is one thing. Treating China as a state-level military actor is another. In legal terms, EU sanctions frameworks are wide enough to target actors undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity. The obstacle is political.

Any EU foreign policy decision aimed at PLA units or Chinese military officials needs unanimity among all 27 member states. For Malta, that rule is familiar: it protects small states from being steamrolled. In this case, it also gives any one capital a veto over Europe’s response. Hungary has repeatedly diluted or blocked China-related collective action, which makes the leap from corporate sanctions to military sanctions against Beijing almost impossible.

Three Capitals, Three Distractions

Germany shows the contradiction most clearly. Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on May 19 that he hoped Xi Jinping would pressure Putin to end the war. That was the same day Reuters reported that China had trained Russian fighters. German carmakers are already losing market share in China. Berlin is trying to manage a partner it can no longer rely on, but cannot easily confront.

Italy has its own version of the problem. Three days before the Reuters story, Industry Minister Adolfo Urso said Chinese carmakers were "welcome" to buy shuttered Stellantis factories. At the same time, Rome was quietly tightening security reviews on Chinese investments in sectors close to defence. No Italian official has publicly linked the military training revelation to that industrial courtship.

Poland looked elsewhere. Warsaw spent the week dealing with a cancelled US troop rotation, insisting the decision "concerns Germany, not Poland". The EU member with the most immediate reason to fear improved Russian drone capability barely made China the centre of the discussion.

The pattern is plain enough. Member states are absorbed by domestic pressure, industrial interests and bilateral calculations. That leaves Brussels with evidence, but no common political line strong enough to act on it.

What Remains Hidden

The July 2025 agreement was reciprocal. While Russian soldiers trained in China, "hundreds" of Chinese troops trained in Russia, learning from the most drone-intensive war in modern history. If the PLA feeds those lessons into its own planning, the exchange becomes a European security problem and an Indo-Pacific one at the same time.

European leaders often treat those theatres as separate files. Beijing clearly does not.

Three intelligence agencies sat on this story for months and released it just as Putin landed in Xi’s capital. The timing was deliberate. The institutional response it was meant to provoke has still not arrived.