How Russia is Helping China Prepare to Seize Taiwan

Chinese President Xi Jinping has directed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be ready to militarily seize Taiwan by 2027. A large-scale amphibious operation is highly risky, with the sites suitable for landing craft to deliver troops and equipment ashore constrained by the gradient and load bearing capacity of the beaches. Seizing airfields could allow troops to flow in by air, but as Russia discovered during its invasion of Ukraine, runways can be quickly denied. The PLA is therefore eager to identify ways of diversifying both the methods and locations at which it can move units onto Taiwan.

Although the areas where Russia surpasses China in military capability are diminishing, Russia has practical experience and capabilities for air manoeuvre that China lacks. According to contracts and correspondence obtained by the Black Moon hacktivist group, Russia agreed in 2023 to supply the PLA with a complete set of weapons and equipment to equip an airborne battalion, as well as other special equipment necessary for airborne infiltration of special forces, along with a full cycle of training for operators and technical personnel to use this equipment. In addition, Russia is transferring technologies that will allow China to scale-up the production of similar weapons and military equipment through localization and modernization.

The approximately 800 pages of contracts and collateral materials appear genuine and details from within the documents have been independently verified. However, there is also the possibility that parts of the documents have been altered or omitted.

The Russian Offer

The agreements provide for the sale by Russia to China of:

• 37 BMD-4M, light amphibious assault vehicles with a 100 mm gun and 30 mm automatic cannon.
• 11 Sprut-SDM1 light amphibious anti-tank self-propelled guns with a 125 mm cannon.
• 11 BTR-MDM ‘Rakushka’ airborne armoured personnel carriers.
• Several Rubin command and observation vehicles and KSHM-E command vehicles.

The agreements state that all armoured vehicles must be equipped with Chinese communication and command and control suites, and with verification of their electromagnetic compatibility with Russian electronic equipment. This is due both to the need to maintain interoperability with other Chinese units, and the better technical capabilities of Chinese equipment. The Russians must also prepare the equipment and software for the use of Chinese ammunition.

The agreements also require Russia to train a battalion of Chinese paratroopers in employing the equipment. Armoured vehicle drivers will be trained at the Kurganmashzavod base, and the crews of KMN command and observation vehicles and Sprut anti-tank guns will be trained in Penza at JSC NPP Rubin. After completing courses on training equipment and simulators, the collective training of the Chinese airborne battalion will be carried out at training grounds in China. Here, Russian instructors are to prepare the battalion for landing, fire control and manoeuvring as part of an airborne unit. The Russians are also transferring Rheostat airborne artillery command and observation vehicle and Orlan-10 multi-purpose unmanned aerial vehicles. A Centre for Technical Maintenance and Repair of Russian Equipment will be established in China, to which all necessary technical documentation will be transferred. This will allow China to undertake the production and modernisation of these capabilities in the future.

In addition, the agreements provide for the transfer of special-purpose parachute systems ‘Dalnolyot’, which are designed for inserting loads of up to 190 kg from an altitude of up to 32,000 feet, achieving a range of between 30-80 km depending on load. Russia is equipping and training Chinese special forces groups to penetrate the territory of other countries without being noticed, offering offensive options against Taiwan, the Philippines and other island states in the region.

Implications

The operational challenge for the PLA in seizing Taiwan is successfully landing with a sufficient mass of troops and thus enough combat power to be able to establish a lodgement and thereby build up a force that can defeat the Taiwanese military by seizing vital ground before the ROC mobilises. The beaches suitable for landing are limited, known, and dispersed. The runways and ports on the island could be invaluable for reinforcing the lodgement but denying these facilities would likely be a priority task for Taiwanese forces.

If the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, supported in a Joint Firepower Campaign, can successfully suppress Taiwanese air defences, then air manoeuvre offers the fastest means of transferring combat power onto Taiwan, and spreading operations across an expanded area. Helicopters offer the most flexible means of deploying troops, but light infantry, unsupported by armour and fires, will necessarily struggle to hold their objectives against a mechanised adversary, as Russian airborne troops found to their detriment at Hostomel. The capacity to airdrop armour vehicles, therefore, on golf courses, or other areas of open and firm ground near Taiwan’s ports and airfields, would allow air assault troops to significantly increase their combat power and threaten seizure of these facilities to clear a path for the landing of follow-on forces.

It should also be noted that an attempt to seize Taiwan would likely see fighting erupt throughout the South China Sea, creating a requirement for the PLA to project combat power further afield. In the initial phases of war air manoeuvre could allow the PLA to move airborne forces with organic firepower and mobility to critical terrain beyond Taiwan, securing airfields or other infrastructure that could otherwise support US operations to counter the PLA amphibious landings on Taiwan. In short, an expanded air manoeuvre capability gives the PLA a diversity of options for rapid power projection.

The equipment purchased from the Russians is compatible with Russian built Il-76/78 aircraft equipped with PBS-955M/957, MKS-350-14M and APSDG-250 landing and parachute platform equipment, which is used for landing vehicles ‘in a train’. This capability was recently demonstrated by Russian forces during the Zapad military exercise. The agreements provide for sending Russian instructors to train Chinese pilots and crew members in landing in this way on the territory of the PRC.

China already operates air deployable armoured vehicles from its Y-20 transport aircraft, and as of 2025 has fielded a range of new airborne equipment that is comparable to the Russian equipment. Given that an air manoeuvre operation for a battalion of the Russian supplied equipment would require around 35 Il-76s, while the PLAAF operates a fleet of 26 Il-76s, including 10 Il-76s sold to the PRC by the Russians in 2013, it may be asked why the PLA purchased a battalion set of Russian equipment. The fact that the contracts include a battalion’s worth of landing and parachute equipment suggests that the PLA expects to obtain the necessary aircraft, or to insert in multiple phases.

The greatest value of the deal to the PLA, however, is most likely in the training and the procedures for command and control of airborne forces, as Russia’s airborne forces have combat experience, while the PLA does not. The requirement for a battalion’s worth of equipment – with an expanded number of C2 platforms – likely speaks to the desire to conduct battalion scale collective training, and since the Russians are to deliver it, this must be conducted on Russian vehicles.

The deal also reflects the growing military-industrial co-operation between Russia and the PRC over the course of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On the Chinese side, the project is being handled by the Main Directorate for the Development of Armaments and Military Equipment of the Central Military Council with the involvement of representatives of the PLAAF and Airborne Forces Command. The Russian side of the deal is covered by Rosoboronexport, the sole state intermediary authorized to export military and dual-purpose goods, services, and technologies. But the deal involves participation from a range of Russian defence companies including PJSC Il (manufacturer of the Il-76/78), KBP Instrument Design Bureau (weapon systems), Sozvezdiye, United Instrument Corporation OPK and NIISSU (automatic control and communication systems), Kurganmashzavod and SKBM (armoured vehicles), NPP Rubin (command and surveillance vehicles), MKPK Universal, Technodynamika, and Polyot (parachute and landing systems), as well as 27 Central Research Institutes of the Russian Ministry of Défense. On the Chinese side, the implementation is being handled by state-owned companies AVIC (aviation), CETC (communications and control systems), and NORINCO (armoured vehicles, weapons, and ammunition).

Historically, Russia has been wary of exporting its areas of military-technical advantage to China out of fears of intellectual property theft. However, Moscow increasingly sees the invasion of Taiwan – and subsequent division of the global economic order into opposing spheres – as a means of building leverage over Beijing by making Russia a supplier of critical raw materials and military industrial capacity. For China, funding to Russian military industrial enterprises contributes to the continuation of fighting in Ukraine, which the PRC supports to fix NATO capacity in the European theatre. Nevertheless, China has hitherto sought to reduce the signature of its overt defence cooperation with Moscow. The question is whether these contracts represent a shift in Beijing’s willingness to deepen direct defence collaboration.

© RUSI, 2025.

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