As Beijing and Moscow tout ties, China’s firms keep Ukraine’s lights on
Ukrainians are buying Chinese batteries and emergency items en masse after Russian strikes, with Beijing’s ties to Moscow no damper on trade
Across Europe, demand for Chinese goods is soaring as consumers seek quality products at a lower cost.
But in one European country where multi-day blackouts are commonplace, buyers are rushing to secure a piece of that excess supply, desperate for any power source that can keep them warm.
Those buyers are Ukrainian. Russian strikes on their country’s energy infrastructure, especially in the capital of Kyiv, have been ramping up since October, prompting residents to search for reliable methods to keep the lights on during prolonged outages.
Social media user Nataliia Radchenko, who recently bought a battery made by the firm, asked a community group of 2,000 EcoFlow users in early January whether it was safe to run continuously. Radchenko, like everyone else in the group, lives in Ukraine.
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When a promise of work ends up on the front lines of Russia’s war in Ukraine