Russia has established a weapons program in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in the war against Ukraine, according to two sources from a European intelligence agency and documents reviewed by Reuters.
As reported by Reuters, IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned weapons company Almaz-Antey, has developed and flight-tested a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3) in China with the help of local specialists, according to one of the documents, a report that Kupol sent to the Russian defense ministry earlier this year outlining its work.
Kupol told the defense ministry in a subsequent update that it was able to produce drones including the G3 at scale at a factory in China so the weapons can be deployed in the “special military operation” in Ukraine, the term Moscow uses for the war.
Kupol, Almaz-Antey and the Russian defense ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article. China’s foreign ministry told Reuters it was not aware of such a project, adding that the country had strict control measures on the export of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based defense think-tank, said the delivery of UAVs from China to Russia, if confirmed, would be a significant development.
“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 told Reuters. “This is what has been reported so far. But what we haven’t really seen, at least in the open source, are documented transfers of whole weapon systems,” Hinz said.
The White House National Security Council said it was deeply concerned by the Reuters report of the drones program, which it said appeared to be an instance of a Chinese company providing lethal assistance to a US-sanctioned Russian firm.
The White House has not seen anything to suggest the Chinese government was aware of the transactions involved, but China has a responsibility to ensure companies aren’t providing lethal aid to Russia for use by its military, a spokesperson added.
Kupol has taken delivery of seven military drones made in China, including two G3s, at its headquarters in the Russian city of Izhevsk, according to the two separate documents reviewed by Reuters, which are invoices sent to Kupol in the summer by a Russian firm that the two European intelligence sources said serves as an intermediary with Chinese suppliers. The invoices, one of which requests payment in Chinese yuan, don’t specify delivery dates or identify the suppliers in China.
The two intelligence sources said the delivery of the sample drones to Kupol was the first concrete evidence their agency had found of whole UAVs manufactured in China being delivered to Russia since the Ukraine war began in February 2022.
Comparable to US Reaper drone
The G3 is an upgraded version of the Garpiya-A1 drone, according to Kupol’s reports sent to the defense ministry. It was redesigned by Chinese experts working off blueprints of the Garpiya-A1, they said.
The G3 can travel about 2,000 km with a payload of 50 kg, according to the reports to the Russian defense ministry from Kupol, which was placed under US sanctions in December 2023.
Kupol said that within eight months, the project in China would be ready to produce a Chinese-designed REM 1 attack UAV with a payload of 400kg. The two European intelligence sources said this system would be similar to the US Reaper drone.
Earlier in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his military had received around 140,000 drones in 2023 and that Moscow planned to increase this number tenfold this year.
“Whoever reacts faster to demands on the battlefield wins,” he told a meeting in St. Petersburg about drone production.
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