The Chinese military has secretly trained hundreds of Russian soldiers on Chinese territory, some of whom were sent to Ukraine, according to a report in Die Welt, classified by European intelligence agencies.
These revelations have not been confirmed by independent sources and come to light as the Xi Jinping-Bladimir Putin meeting is taking place in Beijing.
According to Die Welt, which does not disclose which European intelligence agencies the information came from, hundreds of Russian soldiers were involved in training programmes for the People’s Liberation Army at six different military installations in China at the end of 2025.
The training involved “the use of unmanned systems, electronic countermeasures against drones as well as simulations of modern combat,” according to the German newspaper.
The Russian trainees came from a range of ranks and ages. Some were members of the Russian elite Rubicon unit that specializes in drones.
After completing the training, dozens of them took part in early 2026 in combat in Ukraine, some in command positions.
This information “coincides with the developments we have seen in recent years,” Mark Henrikhman, chairman of the Intelligence Supervisory Commission in the Bundestag, told Handelsblatt.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, “we have seen increasingly close cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, both in the military and the economic sphere,” Die Welt noted.
Moscow also secretly trained around 600 Chinese soldiers last year, mainly in the fields of armor, artillery, military engineering and anti-aircraft defense, according to Die Welt.
Moscow and Beijing are also exchanging information on Western-made weapons used in Ukraine; such as Himars and Patriot missiles sent by the U.S., according to Die Welt.
