Beijing’s foreign minister recently made a telling admission to a top EU diplomat: China cannot afford to see Russia lose in Ukraine. This frank acknowledgment cuts through years of carefully crafted neutrality rhetoric and reveals something more unsettling about the current geopolitical moment.
For three and a half years, China has performed an elaborate diplomatic dance, insisting on its neutrality while simultaneously turning a blind eye to its private companies supplying critical components to Russia’s war machine. The hypocrisy is striking—Chinese-made drone parts are reaching Ukrainian battlefields within two weeks of manufacture, complete with company stamps and fresh date codes that tell the story of a very modern supply chain serving a very old-fashioned war.
What’s troubling is how this partnership exposes the fundamental weakness of both regimes. The Financial Times aptly describes the China-Russia axis as “not based on shared values” but rather “a marriage of convenience powered by war, resentment, and trade.” Trade between the two nations has surged 30% since Russia’s invasion began, but this isn’t the alliance Putin envisioned when he first courted Xi Jinping.
The leaked FSB memo revealing Russian intelligence’s true assessment of China is particularly damning. Behind the public proclamations of “limitless partnership,” Russian spies warn of Chinese espionage, military theft, and territorial ambitions in Siberia. They’re tracking Chinese efforts to recruit disaffected Russian scientists and officials, steal military secrets from the Ukrainian front, and lay groundwork for future territorial claims in Russia’s Far East.
This paranoia isn’t entirely misplaced. Chinese maps have begun using old place names for parts of Siberia, and FSB officers are tasked with monitoring “revanchist narratives” among Chinese academics. The irony is rich: Putin, who loves to lecture about sovereignty, has reduced Russia to a dependent supplier of raw materials to a nation ten times its size in population and economy.
The timing of Russia’s recent massive assault on Kyiv—550 missiles and drones launched just hours after Trump’s phone call with Putin—reveals the desperation underlying this partnership. When ground forces can’t advance, Putin resorts to terrorizing civilians, hoping to break Ukrainian morale through sheer brutality. It’s a strategy that has consistently failed, yet he persists.
What Putin sold to Xi three years ago was supposed to be a masterclass in modern warfare—a swift takeover of Ukraine followed by Chinese lessons learned for Taiwan. Instead, Russia has provided a cautionary tale about military incompetence and strategic overreach. China is indeed building hundreds of landing ships for its own territorial ambitions, but it’s also watching Russian forces struggle against a supposedly inferior opponent.
The human cost becomes visceral when you see footage of 70-year-old Russian recruits barely able to walk while carrying rifles to the front lines. This isn’t just military desperation; it’s societal collapse masquerading as strategy. These men are being sent to die not for any coherent military objective, but because Putin has run out of younger bodies to throw at his miscalculated war.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to innovate under pressure, developing interceptor drones that can neutralize Russian Shaheds at a fraction of the cost of traditional air defense systems. Ukrainian pilots are racking up impressive kill counts against various Russian drone models, turning the skies into a testing ground for asymmetric warfare tactics that NATO is now studying.
The economic pressure on Russia is mounting as well. With oil and gas revenues plummeting to their lowest levels since January 2023, Moscow is burning through its National Wealth Fund to bridge budget gaps. Should oil prices drop to $50—a real possibility given OPEC+’s recent production increases—Russia could face spending cuts and recession within months.
China’s uncomfortable position in all this is becoming increasingly apparent. Beijing needs Russian resources and wants to weaken Western influence, but it also can’t afford to be dragged down by Putin’s miscalculations. The Chinese leadership is pragmatic enough to recognize that Russia’s current trajectory serves no one’s long-term interests, including their own.
The deeper question is whether this partnership can survive the fundamental contradictions at its core. Both leaders frame their relationship as historic revenge against Western dominance, but they’re building their “multipolar world” on quicksand. When your alliance is based primarily on mutual resentment rather than shared vision, it’s only a matter of time before those underlying tensions surface.
What we’re witnessing isn’t just a war in Ukraine—it’s the slow-motion collapse of an authoritarian partnership that was always more fragile than it appeared. The dragon and the bear may be locked in their embrace for now, but the claws are already showing.
