Pentagon Leaks: China Sending Russia Lethal Aid?

A document leaked on April 7 from the United States’ Office of the Director of National Intelligence shows that China may have agreed to secretly send lethal aid to Russia for the Ukraine War. The file, dated February 23, records a summary of conversations the U.S. gathered while spying on Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (svr). In the conversations, the svr reported that China approved sending Russia “incremental provision” of weapons disguised as civilian aid.

“We have not seen evidence that China has transferred weapons or provided lethal assistance to Russia,” a senior administration official said. “But we remain concerned and are continuing to monitor closely.”

Dual-use aid: Though it has not overtly sent weapons to Russia, Chinese companies are sending dual-use supplies.

• On March 16, Politico reported that Chinese manufacturing company Norinco sent 1,000 assault rifles to Russian company Tekhkrim in June 2022.
• According to the rifle tags, they were “civilian hunting rifles,” but Tekhkirm is also known to supply the Russian military.
• Politico also said Russian companies received 12 shipments of Chinese drone parts and 12 tons of Chinese body armor toward the end of 2022.

On April 14, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told Reuters that more and more Chinese components are being found in Russian weapons left on the battlefield.

[In] the weapons recovered from the battlefield we continue to find different electronics. The trend is now that there is less Western-made components but more—not hard [to] guess which country—made components. Of course, China …. We’re picking [up] a lot of different stuff, China made.
—Vladyslav Vlasiuk

So whether deliberately or not, China has been giving Russia supplies for its war on Ukraine.

China’s ‘denial’: According to Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, however, China has not and will not send weapons to either side in the war.

Regarding the export of military items, China adopts a prudent and responsible attitude. China will not provide weapons to relevant parties of the conflict, and manage and control the exports of dual-use items in accordance with laws and regulations.
—Qin Gang

Yet China and Russia’s defense cooperation has never been better. After announcing that China would send its defense minister to Russia next week to meet with his Russian counterpart, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Tan Kefei said, “Sino-Russian military relations have continued to operate at a high level, and new progress has been made.”

Prophecy says: China may never overtly supply weapons to Russia for the Ukraine War, but Bible prophecy warns China will soon join forces with Russia to carry out other interests. Ezekiel 38 prophesies that these two nations will lead an alliance of East Asian nations in the end time and together they will form an army of 200 million men (Revelation 9:16). China might not be outright supplying Russia’s war today, but the Bible says that it will in the near future.

Learn more: Read Russian and China in Prophecy.