Russia has agreed to help China equip and train an airborne battalion, according to leaked documents reviewed by a leading think tank, illustrating the ever-deepening military partnership between Beijing and Moscow.
Russia in 2023 agreed to sell a suite of military equipment to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), including assault vehicles, anti-tank guns, and airborne armored personnel carriers, according to documents leaked by the Black Moon hacktivist group and verified by the British think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
The armored vehicles would be equipped with Chinese comms and command-and-control suites, and Russia would train a battalion of Chinese paratroopers to use them, according to the approximately 800 pages of contracts and additional materials reviewed by RUSI.
Under the terms of the agreement, Russia would also transfer technologies to China, that will allow it to make similar weapons, RUSI’s review of the documents shows.
The agreement, if fully implemented, would bolster China’s air maneuver capabilities, one of the few areas where Moscow’s military still has an edge over the PLA. And improving in that area could – according to RUSI experts – help China one day achieve its aim of taking Taiwan, the self-governing island of 23 million which Beijing claims as its territory.
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