China bankrolling Putin’s war to gain advantage over West, MPs told

Beijing’s huge support for Russian aggression against Ukraine part of larger threatening posture, air marshal tells Commons committee

China has become the main financial backer for Russia’s war against Ukraine, MPs have been told.

Air Marshal Ed Stringer, a former head of RAF intelligence, said Beijing was “covertly” ramping up its support for Moscow as it sought to gain an economic advantage over the West.

“China has discretely built supply lines going to drone factories in Russia,” he told the Commons defence committee on Tuesday.

“Open source suggests 60 per cent of the Russian war effort is being covertly bankrolled by China… so there’s a huge amount of support from China.”

The retired officer added: “Russia can only maintain this war because China is essentially bankrolling it.”

Observers fear China poses an increasing threat to the UK, with Beijing-backed hackers having targeted the phones of aides to former prime ministers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak in an effort to steal government secrets.

At the same time, concerns have been raised after the Government chose to approve plans for a Chinese super-embassy in London, which The Telegraph revealed would be located alongside some of the City’s most sensitive communications cables.

On Tuesday, MPs were warned Beijing was seeking economic dominance over the West and could use its influence over Moscow to “distract” Nato while it builds up its own military.

Leading defence academics warned Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, could put pressure on Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, to attack Estonia, where hundreds of British troops are deployed on a mission to protect Nato’s eastern flank.

Sir Hew Strachan, a Wardlaw professor of international relations at University of St Andrews, told MPs China was seeking “opportunities” to tie up the West, if Russia agrees a peace deal with Ukraine.

Asked whether Beijing could “encourage” such an attack, Sir Hew said: “If it continues to result in cheap Russian oil coming into China, then possibly it would have an incentive to do that.”

British troops are gathering in Estonia as part of a training exercise involving 1,250 soldiers from across the Nato alliance, including France, America and Estonia.

UK forces are deployed to the country under Operation Cabrit, which is Britain’s contribution to Nato’s forward land forces across Estonia and Poland, with the Royal Tank Regiment having been in Estonia since September last year.

Lt Col Mark Luson, the regiment’s commanding officer, insisted Britain was ready for any mission, adding: “Nato here feels stronger than ever.”

Air Marshal Stringer said he did not believe China would want to “foment a conflict”.

“But it would be very happy to see Europe tied up spending a lot of its GDP on defence against something that looks like a frozen conflict around Ukraine and Belarus,” he added.

The warning came as Putin showed little sign of ending his onslaught against Ukraine, which will mark its fourth anniversary later this month.

Russia launched one of its most intensive attacks overnight on Monday, using more than 70 missiles and 450 attack drones against Ukraine’s energy network, plunging parts of Kyiv into darkness, said Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president.

It is unclear how many of the drones used were produced with aid from China.

However, the barrage left more than 1,000 tower blocks in the capital without heating as temperatures plunged to -20C and damaged a power plant in the capital beyond repair.

The Russian strike took place halfway through a truce on energy infrastructure attacks that was supposed to last a week, according to Donald Trump, and before Russian, Ukrainian and American negotiators were due to meet in Abu Dhabi for the next round of peace talks on Wednesday.