China is working with Russia to develop an attack drone for Ukraine

Western officials declined to provide details about China’s drone program, but Bloomberg reported that Chinese factories are working on a drone called the Sunflower 200, which resembles Iran’s Shahed. Sunflowers are a national symbol of Ukraine.

China is not only supplying Russia with rifle scopes and equipment for tank production, but has also begun sending satellite images of battlefields in Ukraine.

Julianne Smith, US ambassador to NATO, said this demonstrated Beijing’s role as an ally of the Kremlin. “Here at NATO, we are making sure that we can expose the fact that China is no longer a neutral actor,” she said.

Russia’s most important partner

Since Vladimir Putin launched his large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, China has become Russia’s most important trading partner.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month accused China of “keeping the Russian defence industry running” by supplying 70 percent of the country’s machine tools and 90 percent of its microelectronics.

Russia also now sells most of its oil and gas to China at a discounted price, and Chinese banks provide Russian financial institutions with important infrastructure for exchanging rubles for yuan.

The head of Russia’s civil nuclear power program even said on Wednesday that he would fly to China next week to launch a joint project to build a nuclear power plant on the moon by 2036.