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Russia to equip and train Chinese air battalion, secret documents published

2025-09-27 15:00:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Russia has agreed to help China equip and train an airborne battalion, according to leaked documents reviewed by a group of leading experts, which illustrate the increasingly deep military partnership between Beijing and Moscow.

In 2023, Russia agreed to sell a range of military equipment to China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), including assault vehicles, anti-tank weapons and armored personnel carriers, according to documents leaked by the Black Moon hacking group and verified by the British think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

The armored vehicles will be equipped with Chinese communications and command and control suites, and Russia will train a battalion of Chinese paratroopers to use them, according to roughly 800 pages of contracts and additional materials reviewed by RUSI.

Under the terms of the agreement, Russia will also transfer technology to China that will allow it to produce similar weapons, RUSI's review of the documents shows.

If fully implemented, the agreement would strengthen China's air maneuvering capabilities, one of the few areas where Moscow's military still has an advantage over the PLA. And improvement in that area, according to RUSI experts, could one day help China achieve its goal of taking over Taiwan, the self-governing island of 23 million people that Beijing claims as its territory.

"Russia is equipping and training Chinese special forces groups to penetrate the territory of other countries undetected, providing offensive capabilities against Taiwan, the Philippines, and other island states in the region," RUSI contributors Oleksandr V Danylyuk and Jack Watling wrote in an analysis of the deal.

The Philippines is one of many nations with which China has overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea. Ships from the two countries regularly clash in the region as Beijing becomes more assertive in its claims.

CNN has not independently reviewed the leaked documents, and it is not clear whether the agreement has been fully implemented. CNN has reached out to China's Ministry of National Defense and Russia's defense ministry for comment.

Russia and China have traded arms since the 1990s, but in the past decade their military partnership has grown stronger as ties between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have warmed, raising alarm bells in Washington.

Xi, Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stood side by side at a Chinese military parade last month, in an unprecedented show of solidarity against the US and its allies.

Moscow and Beijing increasingly see their close relationship as critical to achieving their respective goals. Earlier this month, Putin said the bilateral relationship was at an unprecedented high, after the two countries reportedly signed a long-stalled deal to build a massive new pipeline to send natural gas to China via Mongolia. Moscow has increasingly turned to China to replace Europe as its main gas buyer since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia to equip and train Chinese air battalion, secret documents published

Moscow and Beijing have also increased their joint military exercises in recent years, including joint naval patrols around Japan and air and sea patrols near Alaska. In August, they conducted their first joint submarine patrol in the Pacific, according to state media reports.

China and Russia conducted 14 joint military exercises in 2024, the largest number since the two countries began training together in 2003, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The biggest benefit of the 2023 agreement for Beijing, according to RUSI colleagues, would be in the training of the airborne battalion, as Russia's forces have combat experience in that area, while China's do not.

If China were to attack Taiwan, an air maneuver would likely be the most effective way to bring troops and key equipment to the island in the early stages of an operation - although any attempt to capture and hold the island would likely require a large and very difficult amphibious assault from the sea.

Under the agreement, the exercise would be conducted partly in Russia and partly in China. Russian instructors would then train the Chinese airborne battalion at training grounds in China, preparing the soldiers for landing, fire control and maneuvering./ CNA