Russia is allegedly negotiating with China on the supply of lethal weapons. There they want to buy a trial batch of one hundred ZT-180 kamikaze drones, capable of carrying a warhead weighing from 35 to 50 kg.
This was reported by the German publication Der Spiegel with reference to its own sources.
Such drones are an analogue of the Iranian Shahed-136. Russia, most likely, will receive an order by April this year directly from the manufacturer Xiʼan Bingo Intelligent Aviation Technology.
In the future, the company plans to supply the Russian Federation with components and technologies for establishing the production of combat drones.
At the same time, this was officially denied in China. Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin emphasized that China adheres to a "responsible approach" to military exports and does not sell weapons to conflict zones.
"What I do know is that there has been a lot of misinformation about the Chinese side in this regard recently," he explained.
- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China published a "peace plan" for the settlement of the war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Chinaʼs "Peace Plan" contains 12 principles, which, according to the authors, should contribute to the end of the Russian Federationʼs war against Ukraine. However, the word "war" itself is not mentioned in the document — in the English version of the document, the authors use the words "conflict" and "Ukrainian crisis".