Russia and China discussed plans to destroy Starlink satellites and develop a joint air defense system, The Insider reports
China and Russia discussed jointly countering Starlink satellites and developing a new-generation integrated air and missile defense system, according to a joint investigation by The Insider, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde.
The journalists obtained documents related to Russian-Chinese military cooperation.
The documents consist of four presentations from Chinese-Russian military-technical cooperation forums held in 2023 and 2024. The Insider describes the forum as “a regular bilateral meeting that was never publicized.”
The journalists also obtained a signed working protocol from negotiations held in Moscow in June 2023.
The documents cover five areas of weaponry: space weapons and satellite destruction, integrated air and missile defense systems, autonomous loitering munitions operating in swarm mode, next-generation armored fighting vehicles, and military aviation.
At a military-technical cooperation forum held in Guangzhou in November 2023, China laid out a range of methods for countering Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites to its Russian partners — from legal pressure to outright destruction. The proposals included:
- organizing joint legal and diplomatic pressure;
- occupying the frequency bands and orbital positions needed for Starlink’s expansion and jointly generating electromagnetic interference;
- conducting cyberattacks on Starlink through civilian user terminals and developing low-cost weapons to destroy satellites in the network.
Several months before the forum, a Chinese military delegation traveled to Moscow in June 2023 for secret negotiations with Almaz-Antey, Russia’s leading air defense manufacturer. The delegates returned to China with a weapons supply contract.
The signed working protocol from those negotiations, which The Insider has obtained and independently verified through flight data for the participants named in it, shows that the Russian–Chinese military partnership has moved far beyond shared rhetoric and has become a structured, multi-domain weapons development program — one that neither country could pursue alone.
Among other things, the two sides agreed to develop a new-generation integrated air and missile defense system designed to intercept ballistic missiles, maneuvering warheads, and hypersonic missiles in their terminal flight phase. How far development has progressed is not known.
At the next Chinese–Russian forum, held in Yekaterinburg in December 2024, Chinese military researchers proposed sharing data on Russian drone strikes in Ukraine with Beijing.
China has 160 types of loitering munitions but lacks real combat experience using them, unlike Russia, The Insider explains. Beijing’s representatives therefore proposed a formal exchange: Russia would share battlefield knowledge, and China would contribute artificial intelligence technologies and mass-production capacity toward developing a new generation of autonomous swarm munitions.
China also called on Russia to exchange supplies under sanctions conditions: Beijing would supply microchips and electronics, while Moscow would supply raw materials and components to which China’s access is limited due to sanctions.
The Insider
Starlink satellite communications are not officially available in Russia, but the Russian military has used terminals to launch drones it uses to attack Ukraine. These terminals reach Russia illegally — through third countries.
In Ukraine, Starlink plays a vital role on the battlefield: doctors use it to coordinate evacuations, artillery units use it for targeting, and drone operators use it to control drones in real time.
The day before, Reuters reported that Russian forces are attempting to jam Starlink using electronic warfare systems to prevent Ukrainian drones from striking.
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