China is close to Russia, but it has looked to Ukraine for military technology

Former Soviet republic supplied the PLA Navy’s first aircraft carrier, missile systems and a fighter jet prototype

‘Beijing wants technologies, and Ukraine … successfully cooperated in this direction,’ ex-defence official says

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China bought an unfinished Soviet warship from Ukraine in 1998. It went into service in 2012 as the country’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. Photo: AFP

Published: 10:30pm, 26 Mar 2022Updated: 10:39pm, 26 Mar 2022

China has become a close ally of Russia, and is seen by some as tacitly backing Moscow’s war in Ukraine. But China also has strong economic and defence ties with Ukraine – it is the eastern European nation’s biggest trading partner, and Kyiv helped Beijing to modernise its military.

In recent decades, the former Soviet republic has sold key military equipment and technology to China, including its first aircraft carrier, missile systems and a fighter jet prototype. According to a former Ukrainian defence official, those transactions helped ease the country’s financial troubles.

It started with the biggest and most significant deal – for an unfinished Soviet aircraft carrier called the Varyag. The vessel was about two-thirds built at a Black Sea shipyard when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Konstantin Khivrenko was a spokesman for Ukraine’s defence ministry in the early 2000s. Photo: Handout

Konstantin Khivrenko, who served in the Ukrainian defence ministry from 1993 to 2004, said the government had to sell the vessel to help the cash-strapped shipbuilder.

The US$25 million deal for the Varyag was sealed in 1998 by a Hong Kong businessman who had been sent by the Chinese navy – with a cover story that he would turn the vessel into a floating casino in Macau.

According to Khivrenko, now a Ukrainian reserve colonel, the government was convinced at the time that it would be used as a casino and “would not contribute to the militarisation of the region”.

It also provided a much-needed cash injection for Ukraine.