China is consistently restricting the export of engines, batteries, and flight controllers for Ukrainian UAVs and blocking their transportation through intermediary countries such as the Baltics and Poland.
China is consistently restricting the export of engines, batteries, and flight controllers for Ukrainian UAVs and blocking their transportation through intermediary countries such as the Baltics and Poland.
According to n-tv, Beijing prohibits shipments even to EU countries if it suspects that components will eventually end up in Ukraine. Co-founder of the Iron defense companies network Yuriy Lomikovsky confirms: attempts to import through partners in Europe are systematically thwarted. The market’s dependence on Chinese electronics remains high: approximately 40% of parts are already localized in Ukraine, but critical components were massively imported from China due to the scale and lower price compared to domestic and Western analogues. The defense and technology segment of Ukraine is estimated at $35-40 billion, more than 800 companies operate in it; the shortage of components directly affects the pace of serial production.
Kyiv is simultaneously shifting purchases to European sites and US manufacturers with production in the EU, and is promoting the localization of supply chains within the country. At the same time, Lomikovsky insists that without long-term money and joint R&D with Europe, it will be difficult to match China in terms of price/efficiency. He calls on the EU to invest in startups, engineering, and line deployment to break the inertia of oligopolies of large defense groups and accelerate serialization.
China’s formal announcement in July 2024 of limiting supplies to the Russian Federation did not eliminate the fact of the presence of Chinese components in Russian weapons: new glider bombs were found to have Telefly turbojet engines with a range of up to 200 km. In parallel, a leak is circulating in the media about a conversation between Wang Yi and Kaia Kallas: Beijing is «not interested in Russia’s defeat» so as not to increase US attention to Taiwan. Against this background, three steps are critical for Ukraine: diversification of sources (EU/South Korea/Taiwan), rapid import substitution of engines, batteries and autopilots, as well as the launch of joint instruments with the EU for financing serial lines and R&D in order to minimize the impact of Beijing’s political decisions on the pace of drone production.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how the Russians used Shahed-238 («Geran-3») kamikaze drones during a massive attack on the Ukrainian capital. Among their wreckage were components from Western manufacturers.
