FACTCHECK: Did China Really Train Russian Soldiers to Fight in Ukraine?

Introduction: When Beijing Becomes the Ghost Behind the Front

A Diplomatic Bombshell Signed Kaja Kallas

On June 15, 2026, in the hushed corridors of an EU Foreign Ministers' summit in Luxembourg, Kaja Kallas, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, dropped a statement that hit world chancelleries like an explosive charge: "We have now verified reports that the Chinese military has trained Russian military personnel to fight in Ukraine." She added, in a calm voice thick with subtext: "We are carefully evaluating the implications." These few words, reported the next day by major global media outlets including The Straits Times, immediately triggered a diplomatic firestorm whose effects are still being measured.

This isn't some barroom rumor or a conspiracy theory forged in some dark forum. It is the highest-ranking diplomat of the 27 European nations who, based on intelligence confirmed by several European agencies, is pointing an accusing finger directly at Beijing. The accusation is precise, sourced, and part of a body of evidence built up over months. China denies it. But those denials are ringing increasingly hollow.

The Context: Reuters Had Already Sounded the Alarm in May

To understand the weight of Kallas's statement, one must go back to May 19, 2026, when Reuters published an explosive investigative report—citing three European intelligence agencies and classified documents—revealing that China had secretly trained approximately 200 Russian military personnel on its soil in late 2025. According to this investigation, relayed notably by Moneycontrol and RBC-Ukraine, the training sessions focused primarily on the use of drones, electronic warfare, armored infantry operations, and military aviation. Even more troubling: some of these soldiers trained in China have reportedly already returned to fight in Ukraine, specifically in occupied Crimea and the Zaporizhzhia region.

This training was allegedly formalized in a Russia-China bilateral agreement signed by senior officers of both countries in Beijing on July 2, 2025. This document provided for the training of about 200 Russians at military facilities in Beijing and Nanjing, in exchange for training hundreds of Chinese military personnel in Russia. The agreement included a telling clause: a total ban on any media coverage and any disclosure to third parties. This level of discretion was clearly intended for an operation that no one wanted to take responsibility for.

Kallas's Statement: Weight and Limits to Weigh Rigorously

What Exactly Did the EU High Representative Say?

It is vital to read the statement by Kaja Kallas with the utmost factual rigor, as demanded by the intellectual honesty of a serious factcheck. During the press conference on June 15, 2026, in Luxembourg, following the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting, Kallas used the word "verified" to describe these reports. She said: "We have now verified reports that the Chinese military has trained Russian military personnel to fight in Ukraine." This was confirmed by Interfax-Ukraine, which covered the event live from Luxembourg.

There is a capital nuance here. Kallas did not say these facts were proven beyond a reasonable doubt. She did not provide documents, names, or direct evidence in the public sphere. She said the EU had verified reports, meaning the European institution had cross-referenced and validated information coming from its intelligence services. This is significant—indeed, it carries heavy diplomatic consequences—but it is not a judicial conviction. This factcheck treats this statement for what it is: institutional confirmation of a political and diplomatic nature, based on classified intelligence not yet made public in its entirety.

Sanctions: An Act Louder Than Words

What gives concrete weight to Kallas's statement is what accompanied her words. On the same day, the European Council adopted new sanctions targeting 21 entities and 7 individuals accused of supporting the Russian military-industrial complex. Among the sanctioned companies: Shenzhen Minghuaxin, a Chinese electronics firm accused of providing Moscow with drone-related components, and Xinxi Richful Lubricant Additive Company, a manufacturer of lubricant additives essential for the maintenance of military vehicles and weapons systems. As Newsweek notes, these sanctions do not explicitly target the training program, but they constitute a strong political signal: Brussels now directly links Beijing to Moscow's war operations in Ukraine.

The context of the Council meeting is also revealing. According to The Epoch Times, the ministers had the aspects of security in EU-China relations on their specific agenda. In other words, the statement on training wasn't some off-the-cuff improvisation by Kallas: it was a calculated, deliberate, and coordinated message by all 27 European capitals. That is what separates this statement from a simple hallway rumor.

The Chinese Denial: A Well-Worn Formula Starting to Ring Hollow

Lin Jian and the Art of the Reflexive Denial

China's response was swift. On June 16, 2026, during a regular press conference in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian stated, word for word, according to Arab News and RBC-Ukraine: "These claims have no factual basis. This is pure slander." The official Chinese version, relayed by Global Times and CGTN, Beijing's state media, is identical: "pure lie", "defamation", "attempt to shift responsibility for the war onto China". The formula is repeated so often it has become mechanical.

What is striking in the Chinese response is its total lack of factual argumentation. Lin Jian provided no concrete counter-evidence. He did not produce attendance records, schedules, or contradictory public agreements. He merely repeated the familiar refrain: China is "neutral", China "promotes peace", China "has never provided lethal weapons" to either side. A position that is refuted, point by point, by the accumulation of documented facts since 2022, as rigorously detailed in reports from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC).

A Denial Pattern Already Tested After the May Reuters Report

It is important to note that this denial is nothing new. When Reuters published its investigation on May 19, 2026, Beijing had already responded with the same script: "attempt to shift responsibility", "objective and impartial position". The Kremlin also played its part: spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the Reuters report inaccurate, advising to "view it with skepticism", according to US News. The coordinated denial pattern between Moscow and Beijing follows a quasi-algorithmic protocol. What is new since June 15, 2026, is that the EU itself, as an institution, has officially indicated it has verified these reports—which makes a simple denial significantly less tenable.

China also responded to NATO's statements. On June 18, 2026, Lin Jian replied to assertions by Secretary General Mark Rutte—who stated that Russia was not waging war alone but with the support of China, Iran, and North Korea—by calling on the Alliance to "stop provoking confrontations" and to "question its own perception", according to RBC-Ukraine (June 18, 2026). Mark Rutte responded: "We are not naive. We are tracking everything exactly." This is the answer of a man who knows more than he can say in an open press conference.

The July 2, 2025 Russo-Chinese Agreement: A Key Document to Examine

What the Agreement Reveals About the Cooperation Structure

At the heart of the case is a bilateral agreement signed in Beijing on July 2, 2025 by Russian and Chinese senior officers. This document, written in two languages (Russian and Chinese), was examined by Reuters and described with a precision that has not been contested in its details by the two capitals, who only denied the validity or scope of the agreement. According to the analysis by Reuters, echoed by the USCC, the document provided for: the training of some 200 Russian military personnel at military facilities in Beijing, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Shijiazhuang, and Hebei province; in exchange, the training of hundreds of Chinese military personnel in Russia. The disciplines covered included drones, electronic warfare, military aviation, and armored infantry operations.

One clause of the agreement deserves particular attention: the express prohibition of any media coverage and any communication to third parties. This absolute secrecy clause is not trivial. It indicates that both parties knew full well that this cooperation was incompatible with China's official posture of neutrality. You don't hide what you're proud of. Furthermore, according to intelligence agencies cited by Reuters, the number of soldiers trained matches exactly what the agreement provided for—suggesting the document was not merely for show, but has effectively been implemented.

Identities Confirmed by Intelligence Services

What elevates the Reuters investigation above simple unverified intelligence is the nominal confirmation. According to two of the three European intelligence agencies cited by Reuters—and summarized by RBC-Ukraine—the identities of several Russian military personnel who underwent the training in China have been confirmed. These soldiers, whose ranks ranged from staff sergeant to lieutenant colonel, were subsequently directly involved in drone combat operations in the regions of occupied Crimea and Zaporizhzhia. Among them, according to the German newspaper Die Welt cited by RBC-Ukraine, were drone operators from the Russian elite unit "Rubicon".

This detail is fundamental to the case's credibility. These aren't generic, undefined "Russian soldiers" trained somewhere. These are identified individuals whose trajectories from Beijing to Ukrainian battlefields can be tracked by intelligence services. It is this type of precise tracing that likely led Kallas to use the word "verified" rather than "alleged" or "suspected."

The Training Program: Drones, Simulators, and Electronic Warfare

Operational, Not Symbolic, Training

The nature of the training described in the Reuters investigation is particularly enlightening. These were not prestige exercises or ceremonial cooperation. The Russian military received operational and tactical training, centered on the most critical areas of modern warfare as it unfolds in Ukraine: use of FPV drones, advanced flight simulators, drones guiding 82mm mortar strikes, electronic warfare, anti-drone rifles, and anti-drone net technologies. Photographs included in internal Russian military reports, examined by Reuters, reportedly show Russian soldiers in uniform being trained directly by Chinese military instructors.

This focus on drones is not accidental. The war in Ukraine has become, in many ways, the first major drone war in modern military history. China, which produces about 75% of the world's civilian drones, according to a source close to Beijing cited by Reuters, possesses technological and industrial expertise that Russia, despite its intense combat experience, does not have at the same level. Transferring this expertise to Russian forces fills a critical strategic gap for Moscow—and potentially shifts the balance on the ground in Ukraine.

Chinese Instructors as Force Multipliers

A particularly concerning aspect highlighted by European intelligence agencies involves the profile of the Russian soldiers selected for this training. A significant number of them were military instructors—cadres capable of redistribute the techniques learned throughout the command chain. In other words, even if only 200 men were directly trained in China, the multiplier effect could reach hundreds or even thousands of additional soldiers across the ranks of the Russian army. This model—training the trainers—is a well-known knowledge-dissemination strategy in modern militaries.

Furthermore, this training must be placed in the broader context of Sino-Russian military cooperation. According to the USCC, visits by Chinese military specialists to Russia have been attested since at least 2024, including drone experts who worked with the sanctioned Russian arms manufacturer IEMZ Kupol. The novelty of 2025 is the reciprocal: Russians trained on Chinese soil, in People's Liberation Army facilities. This is an additional qualitative threshold being crossed.

China as an Enabler: What the Facts Say Beyond Training

Documented Support Over the Years

The training case doesn't emerge from a vacuum. It fits into a larger picture documented by numerous institutions and independent journalistic investigations. The USCC report serves as a valuable reference tool here. According to the commission, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, China has: provided Russian military factories with special chemicals, gunpowder, and components specifically designed for military purposes, according to Ukrainian intelligence (May 2025); permitted the clandestine shipment of Garpiya-A1 drone engines disguised as industrial refrigeration units (July 2025, Reuters); accounted for more than 90% of Russian imports of sanctioned technologies used to produce weapons, according to Bloomberg (April 2026).

President Zelensky himself, in April 2025, sanctioned three Chinese companies for providing gunpowder and artillery to Russia, and announced in December 2025 sanctions targeting Chinese individuals working with the Russian military-industrial complex. Two Chinese nationals captured by Ukraine while fighting in Russian ranks were presented publicly in April 2025. These are verified facts, not allegations.

Strategic Complicity, Not a Commercial Error

Beijing's usual defense is to present these flows as normal commercial exchanges between private companies, subject to international trade rules. But the accumulation of evidence—secret government agreements, military technology transfers, training of soldiers in PLA facilities—far exceeds the scope of harmless commercial transactions. Meia Nouwens, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, put it clearly to Reuters in July 2025: "China's primary interest is to support Russia's war to keep the United States preoccupied with Ukraine."

This is no accident. It is a deliberate strategy aimed at weakening the West on its own continent, exhausting NATO allies' weapon stockpiles, and real-world testing warfare doctrines that might one day serve in the South China Sea. Ukraine is the laboratory. Russia is the guinea pig that China equips and instructs, all while maintaining the facade of a neutrality it abandoned in practice long ago.

NATO's Reaction: Rutte Doesn't Deny, He Indirectly Confirms

"We Are Not Naive": Deciphering Rutte's Phrase

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was questioned on June 17, 2026, about the allegations of China training Russian soldiers. His response, reported by RBC-Ukraine, was not a denial. It was almost the opposite: "We are not naive. We are tracking everything exactly. I cannot tell you more right now, at least not in this open press conference, but you can be assured that we are following every aspect." This is the phrasing of an official who knows much more, who has confirmation of these activities in his files, but who cannot publicly disclose intelligence sources and methods.

This position fits perfectly with the logic of wartime intelligence. You don't reveal how you found out, or who informed whom, at the risk of compromising active collection networks. But the fact that Rutte didn't say "these accusations are unfounded" or "we have no evidence of this" is a strong signal in itself. In the game of diplomatic subtext, it’s a partial confirmation. And NATO, let’s remember, had already labeled China a "decisive enabler" of the Russian war at the Washington summit in July 2024.

A Western Coalition Converging on the Same Reading

What is striking in this June 2026 sequence is the convergence of signals: the EU talks of verified training, NATO says it’s monitoring every move, the US has been sanctioning Chinese entities directly linked to Russian arms production since 2024. The G7 condemned in November 2025 Beijing’s supply of weaponry and dual-use components to Russia. The Western consensus on China’s role as an active support for Putin's war machine isn't a political posture: it’s the result of an accumulation of evidence that intelligence agencies from numerous countries have cross-referenced and validated.

The question is no longer really whether China is helping Russia—that, at this stage, is documented to saturation. The question now is to measure the scale and depth of this complicity, and to know how far the West is prepared to go in its response. The European sanctions of June 15 are a first step. They won't be the last.

What This Factcheck Can Affirm—and What It Cannot Yet Decide

Solidly Established Facts

A rigorous factcheck requires distinguishing what is established from what remains at the stage of credible allegation. Here is what is solidly documented: Reuters published an investigation on May 19, 2026, citing three European intelligence agencies and a signed document, describing a training program for about 200 Russian military personnel on Chinese soil in late 2025, focused primarily on drones. Kaja Kallas stated on June 15, 2026, that the EU had "verified" these reports. A Russo-Chinese bilateral agreement dated July 2, 2025, signed in Beijing by senior officers, was examined by Reuters. The identities of Russian soldiers who participated in the training were confirmed by at least two intelligence agencies, according to the same sources.

These facts are corroborated by several independent organizations, including the USCC (U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission), and reported by top-tier media outlets. They do not rely on a single unverifiable source, but on a convergence of institutional and journalistic intelligence.

What Remains to Be Established with More Certainty

What this factcheck cannot affirm as absolutely incontestable, due to a lack of access to classified documents and primary evidence: the exact number of soldiers trained (the figure of 200 is given by Reuters based on European intelligence but has not been officially confirmed); public and nominal confirmation of each individual identity; the certainty that every trained soldier actually fought in Ukraine (several reportedly did, according to sources, but the word "reportedly" remains necessary). Kallas's statement itself—however politically powerful—does not constitute judicial proof, and the EU has not publicly produced the underlying documents.

This factcheck therefore attributes the allegation to its sources, weighs their credibility, and concludes that the available evidence forms a body of serious, convergent, and credible clues, supported by the European institution at the highest level. But in a world where the fog of war is coupled with the fog of information, epistemic prudence remains a virtue.

Ukraine Face to Face with This New Threat Level

Better Operated Drones: A Reality on the Ground

For the armed forces of Ukraine, the question of training Russian drone operators isn't abstract. If Russian soldiers returning from China have indeed joined active combat units—as intelligence sources indicate for the Zaporizhzhia region and occupied Crimea—it means the People's Liberation Army has, indirectly, improved the operational capabilities of the forces attacking Ukraine. Drones have become the decisive weapon of this conflict: tools for reconnaissance, targeting, and swarm strikes. Improving the enemy's mastery of these systems directly puts Ukrainian lives in danger.

Zelensky was one of the first leaders to publicly name the Chinese threat. In April 2025, he revealed the arrest of two Chinese mercenaries fighting in Russian ranks. In December 2025, he announced sanctions targeting Chinese individuals linked to the Russian military-industrial complex. These acts are not PR stunts: they reflect a strategic analysis that Ukrainian intelligence services have long shared with their European counterparts. China is not a spectator. It is a de facto co-belligerent that simply chooses not to appear in the photos.

Implications for Western Support for Kyiv

If China has indeed crossed the threshold into direct military training of Russian troops, it changes the West's strategic calculus. Until now, Ukraine's allies have primarily debated the supply of weapons, red lines not to be crossed, and risks of escalation. With a world-class nuclear power actively training the enemy, the threat changes nature. This is no longer just a Russo-Ukrainian war of attrition on former Soviet territory: it is a confrontation in which the Beijing-Moscow axis is methodically testing the limits of Western resilience.

The EU, by sanctioning Chinese entities and publicly naming the training of Russian troops, has sent a message that Beijing won't be able to ignore indefinitely. That message says: your so-called neutrality is exhausted, and our tolerance for your double game is too. The question now is whether Brussels, Washington, and their allies are ready to take the next step—massive secondary sanctions against Chinese entities, wide-ranging economic pressure—or if commercial diplomacy will continue to stall the necessary political response.

Historical Precedents: When Powers Train Each Other

An Old Practice in Proxy Conflicts

Training soldiers from a third country in the facilities of another is not without precedent in the history of proxy wars. The United States trained hundreds of thousands of foreign soldiers during the Cold War. The Soviet Union had its own training programs in its military facilities, hosting fighters from nationalist and revolutionary movements in the Third World. What China is doing in 2025-2026 fits into this logic: support a strategic ally without direct commitment on the ground. The difference is that Beijing does not claim to be a belligerent, unlike the United States and the USSR, which embraced their respective roles during the Cold War.

North Korea, on the other hand, has owned it: thousands of North Korean soldiers were sent to fight directly in Russia, in an open engagement officially documented by Western services. China, more cautious, chooses training over direct deployment. It’s a different line. But morally and strategically, the distinction is starting to fade. Provide weapons, train fighters, transfer technological expertise—at what threshold does a power claiming neutrality become a co-belligerent? The question is fundamental to the 21st-century international order.

What This Implies for International Law

International law of war is relatively silent on military training between third countries. There is no clearly established customary norm prohibiting a state from training the soldiers of a country engaged in an armed conflict. US and European sanctions, which target companies and individuals involved in supporting the Russian war effort, operate within the framework of sanctions law, not the law of war in the strict sense. But the accumulation of Chinese actions—delivery of military components, technology transfers, training of soldiers—could, if one day fully established and publicly documented, lead to a major legal and diplomatic reclassification.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) constitutes one of the most exhaustive archives on this file. It documents, source after source, year after year, the depth of complicity between Beijing and Moscow. This corpus may one day be the basis for an international formal notice. For now, it is primarily the mirror of a reality we can no longer pretend to ignore.

Zelensky's Stance Against the Chinese Threat

Naming the Adversary: A Brave Political Act

Volodymyr Zelensky has never wavered under the diplomatic pressure to play nice with Beijing to avoid upsetting a potentially useful interlocutor in future peace negotiations. As early as April 2025, according to the USCC, he publicly stated that 155 Chinese nationals were fighting for Russia against Ukraine and that Beijing "knew it". An assertion that China called irresponsible. He sanctioned Chinese companies. He revealed the capture of Chinese mercenaries. He named China as a supplier of gunpowder and artillery for Russian military plants.

This posture isn't gratuitous provocation. It is a strategy of truth: if the West must one day decide to impose massive sanctions on China for its support of Russia, it will need a body of public and credible evidence. Zelensky is building that body of work. He names, he sanctions, he presents prisoners. Every act of public naming makes it a bit harder for Western governments to look away. It is survival diplomacy, and it is remarkably effective.

The Stake Goes Beyond Ukraine

What many Westerners struggle to fully integrate is that the war in Ukraine is not a local war. It is the first front of a much broader geopolitical conflict, in which Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are coordinately testing the resilience of the liberal international order. Every Russian weapon powered by Chinese engines, every Russian soldier trained by the PLA, every Russian satellite improved with Chinese data—all of it is part of the same project to challenge Western preeminence.

Zelensky has been saying this since day one. He is now joined, at least in part, by Kallas, Rutte, and European capitals. The question is no longer whether China is an actor in this conflict. It is. The question is whether the West has the clarity of vision and political courage to respond accordingly—or if it will continue to trade with the architect of its own strategic weakening.

The June 15 European Sanctions: First Act of a Broader Response?

Who Was Sanctioned and Why

On June 15, 2026, the European Council formalized a new package of sanctions targeting entities linked to the Russian war effort. Among the 21 sanctioned entities, two Chinese companies particularly stand out: Shenzhen Minghuaxin, sanctioned for supplying drone-related components and technologies to Russia, and Xinxi Richful Lubricant Additive Company, sanctioned for producing lubricant additives essential for the maintenance of Russian military vehicles and weapons systems. These two companies embody the two dimensions of Chinese support: high-tech drone technology and the industrial logistics chain indispensable to military operations.

These sanctions are symbolically important, but their economic scope remains limited. Shenzhen Minghuaxin and Xinxi Richful Lubricant are not global economic giants. What matters is the political signal: the EU, an institution known for its diplomatic sluggishness and internal compromises, has officially designated Chinese entities as directly contributing to the Russian war machine. And it did so on the same day Kallas spoke of troop training. This is a coordinated sequence, not a coincidence.

What Should Follow if Evidence Is Confirmed

If the allegations of direct military training are confirmed with additional public evidence, the issue of massive secondary sanctions against China will inevitably return to the table. Secondary sanctions—which affect not only the Chinese companies themselves but also third-country entities that do business with them—are the most powerful economic weapon available to the West. The United States has already used this tool against Iran and other countries. Its application to China would be of an entirely different magnitude, given the depth of economic interdependence between Beijing and Western economies.

The West therefore faces a agonizing strategic dilemma: sanction hard enough to deter China from continuing, at the risk of triggering a full-scale economic war; or moderate the response to preserve commercial ties, at the risk of implicitly validating Chinese support for Putin's war. This choice—perhaps the most important Western democracies will have to make in the coming months—has now been laid on the table by Kallas's statement.

Verdict of the Factcheck: Credible, Serious, but with Necessary Nuances

A Solidly Supported Allegation, Not Yet Judicially Proven

On the central question—"Has China trained Russian troops to fight in Ukraine?"—this factcheck concludes as follows: the allegation is credible, serious, and supported by multiple and independent sources. The Reuters investigation of May 19, 2026, relies on three European intelligence agencies and a signed document. Kallas's statement of June 15 represents the highest institutional validation available in the public square. The identities of soldiers who fought after their training were confirmed by at least two intelligence agencies, according to Reuters. The USCC Commission lists a body of evidence consistent with this conclusion.

This factcheck therefore assigns this allegation the following status: credible allegation, confirmed at the institutional diplomatic level by the EU, corroborated by several independent intelligence sources, and not yet factually refuted by the parties involved. This is not judicial certainty. It is much more than a simple rumor. Between the two lies a space—the one where the provisional truth accessible to responsible investigative journalism resides.

The Chinese Denial: Admissible in Law, Unconvincing in Context

Beijing's denial must be mentioned, taken into account, and weighed at its fair value in this factcheck. Lin Jian said "no factual basis, pure slander". This position is the official position of the People's Republic of China. It is recorded. It is faithfully reproduced here. But a denial, however strong in form, is only worth as much as the counter-evidence or the lack of reliability of the accuser. In this specific case, the accuser is the European Union, which says it has verified the information, and the context is one of years of documented military and technological support from Beijing to Moscow.

This factcheck cannot conclude that China did not train Russian soldiers. But it also cannot state with absolute certainty that it did, in the absence of access to classified primary documents. It concludes that the available elements are sufficiently convergent and credible for the allegation to be treated with the utmost seriousness, and that the Chinese denial, while fairly reported, is insufficient on its own to invalidate these elements.

Conclusion: The Moment of Truth for the West Facing the Beijing-Moscow Axis

A Red Line Has Been Crossed, or Nearly So

The week of June 15 to 22, 2026, will go down as a turning point in the evolution of the China-Russia-Ukraine file. For the first time, an international institution—the European Union in its entirety—has officially declared it has verified that China is training Russian soldiers for war. This is not an accusation from a journalist, or even from a single government: it is the collective voice of the 27 European nations, delivered by their highest diplomat. This statement cannot be ignored, not by Beijing, not by Moscow, and not by the capitals that were still observing from a cautious distance.

If the West has learned anything from this war, it is that every concession made in the name of diplomatic caution has been interpreted as permission. Every time we hesitated to name Chinese complicity, it deepened. Clarity—even when uncomfortable—is now necessary. Not to provoke a conflict, but to draw the lines beyond which the Western response must be of a different nature.

The Ultimate Stake: The Credibility of the International Order

This factcheck has focused on a specific allegation. But behind this allegation, a civilizational stake is emerging. A world in which a nuclear power can train the soldiers of an aggressor country, flatly deny this reality, and continue to present itself as a peace mediator—is a world in which the rules of the international order have become optional. This is not acceptable. It is not sustainable. And the West, which built this order at the cost of considerable sacrifice, has an obligation—moral, strategic, historical—to defend it.

Ukraine is fighting. Zelensky is holding. European allies are finally waking up to the depth of the threat. What is still missing, at times, is total lucidity about who the systemic adversary is: not just Putin, but the axis he represents with Xi Jinping. The Russian troops trained in China operating drones in Crimea are the most concrete, operational, and tangible face of this axis. To ignore them would be a fault. To name them is already an act of resistance.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Sources

Primary Sources

Interfax-Ukraine — Kallas: EU confirms China is training Russian military for the war in Ukraine — June 15, 2026

Moneycontrol / Reuters — Inside China’s secret drone lessons for Russian troops fighting in Ukraine — May 19, 2026

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) — China’s Position on Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine — June 17, 2026

Secondary Sources

The Straits Times — EU says China trained Russian troops to fight in Ukraine war — June 16, 2026

Arab News — China refutes EU claims, calls it 'pure slander' — June 16, 2026

RBC-Ukraine — China rejects EU claims that it trained Russian soldiers — June 16, 2026

RBC-Ukraine — China denies NATO claims of supporting Russia — June 18, 2026

Newsweek — China denies EU claim it trained Russian troops to fight in Ukraine — June 17, 2026