War in Ukraine: Chinese army secretly trained Russian soldiers, intelligence services say

Russian soldiers of all ranks took part in exercises on “the use of unmanned systems, electronic countermeasures against drones as well as modern combat simulations”.

Hundreds of Russian soldiers secretly went to China to be trained by the Chinese army, before being deployed in Ukraine for some, the German newspaper reported on Tuesday May 19

The world

based on classified documents from European intelligence services. Chinese soldiers have also been trained in Russia, and the two countries exchange information on Western weapons.

AFP was unable to independently confirm this information, which comes in the middle of a summit bringing together the two allies, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the

AFP

.

According to

The world

which does not identify the European intelligence services at the origin of these revelations, several hundred Russian soldiers participated at the end of 2025, on six different military sites in China, in training programs for the People’s Liberation Army. These focused on

“the use of unmanned systems, electronic countermeasures against drones as well as modern combat simulations”

continues the newspaper.

“Ever closer cooperation between Moscow and Beijing”

The participants were of different ranks and from different generations. Some were members of Russia’s elite Rubicon drone unit.

At the end of the training,

dozens of them participated in fighting in Ukraine at the beginning of 2026,

including some in command positions, according to

The world

.

This information “is consistent with the developments that we have been able to observe in recent years”, declared to the newspaper

Handelsblatt

Marc Henrichmann, chairman of the secret services control committee in the Bundestag.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022,

“we observe ever closer cooperation between Moscow and Beijing,

both in the military field and in the economic field,” he adds.

Moscow also secretly trained around 600 Chinese soldiers last year

mainly concerning “armored troops, artillery, military engineering and anti-aircraft defense”, according to

The world

.

Moscow and Beijing also exchange information about Western-made weapons used in Ukraine, including the Himars multiple rocket launcher or the Patriot air defense systems supplied by the United States, according to the newspaper.