Russia is helping China equip & train for Taiwan's invasion, show documents

For well over a year, Russia has been helping China equip and train its military for an invasion of Taiwan, according to leaked internal documents.

China has roped in Russia to equip and train its military for an airborne invasion of Taiwan, which would involve training of paratroopers and supply of a host of equipment, including armoured vehicles that be airdropped behind enemy lines, according to around 800 pages of internal documents leaked by hacker activist collective Black Moon and analysed by British Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

China considers the self-ruling island of Taiwan as a breakaway province and is committed to its reunification — forcefully if required. The US intelligence community has assessed that Xi has ordered the military to prepare for the invasion of Taiwan by 2027. While he has not said it explicitly, he has implied that the deadline to occupy Taiwan is 2049 — the centenary of the Communist China’s establishment.

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While Chinese help to Russia in the war on Ukraine is well known, the revelation of Russian help to China shows that their relationship is much deeper and the goals are completely aligned — while China is committed to the Russian victory in Ukraine, Russia is committed to Chinese victory in Taiwan.

However, Taiwan is not the only target in Chinese and Russian crosshairs. Russian help with training and equipment extends to helping China dominate the Philippines and other island states in the region.

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“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,” noted RUSI’s Oleksandr V Danylyuk and Jack Watling in their analysis of leaked documents.

Firstpost has not reviewed these documents as RUSI has not published them. This account is based on RUSI’s analysis of these documents.

What’s joint Russia-China strategy to invade Taiwan?

As per leaked documents, Russia is helping China prepare for an airborne invasion of Taiwan using paratroopers and special forces to occupy several locations in the island from where they could stage attacks to take over the island. The idea of airborne invasion from specialised troops instead of an all-out seaborne invasion is rooted in the realisation that a seaborne invasion could be a disaster.

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, noted RUSI’s Danylyuk and Watling.

However, seizing airfields is not a good option as Russians learnt that the hard way in Ukraine. In the first assault on Ukraine, Russia mounted an airborne assault on Kyiv’s airport. But Ukrainian forces repelled the attack and that marked an embarrassing failure for Russia at the onset — a failure they never recovered from. As a result, Russians could never get near Kyiv again and the fundamental objective of capturing Kyiv and regime change failed at the onset.

In the case of Taiwan, therefore, Russia has suggested an alternative to China.

“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,” noted RUSI’s analysis of leaked documents.

Paratroopers, airborne assault, specialised vehicles — Russian help to occupy Taiwan

As per leaked documents, Russia agreed in 2023 to supply China with a complete set of weapons and equipment to equip an airborne battalion; provide other special equipment necessary for airborne incursions by special forces; and provide training to invading soldiers and technical personnel to use the equipment.

Moreover, Russia is also transferring technology to China that will allow it to finetune the supplies as per requirement and scale up production of similar weapons and equipment — capitalising on China’s manufacturing prowess.

The documents show that China has bought the following from Russia:

• 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

All armoured vehicles will be customised with Chinese communication and command and control suites, and with verification of their electromagnetic compatibility with Russian electronic equipment, as per leaked documents.

Under the terms of the deal, Russia will train a battalion of Chinese paratroopers in employing the equipment — armoured vehicle drivers will be trained at the Kurganmashzavod base, crews of KMN command and observation vehicles and Sprut anti-tank guns will be trained in Penza at JSC NPP Rubin, and Chinese personnel will practise upon the completion of their training on simulators in Chinese fields.

The collective training of the Chinese airborne battalion will be carried out at training grounds in China where Russian instructors will prepare the battalion for landing, fire control and manoeuvring as part of an airborne unit, as per leaked documents.

Under the deal, Russia will also provide China with special-purpose parachute systems ‘Dalnolyot’, which can insert loads of up to 190 kg from an altitude of up to 32,000 feet in the range of 30-80 km.