All Russia’s civilian drones come from China, minister says

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said the Kremlin plans to increase the country’s civilian drone production to at least 41 per cent by 2025
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is set to travel to Beijing on Tuesday to meet Xi Jinping and attend the Belt and Road Initiative summit

Belt and Road Initiative

dpa

Published: 3:43am, 17 Oct 2023

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Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov stressed Russia’s dependence on China for drone supplies at a government meeting on Monday.

“Basically all our drones come from the People’s Republic of China. We are also very grateful to our partners for that,” he said in a video clip from the parliamentary session of the budget committee.

According to Siluanov, the Kremlin plans to increase the country’s civilian drone production to at least 41 per cent by 2025.

For this plan, Russia’s budget provides for more than 60 billion roubles (US$617 million).

In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began some 20 months ago, the West imposed a series of sanctions against Moscow, which make it more difficult to import civilian and military drones and their components.

02:02

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Also on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said China’s proposal for peace talks with Ukraine could become a realistic basis for a peace agreement, according to an interview with Chinese television published by the Kremlin.

The Russian president is set to travel to Beijing on Tuesday to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and attend the Belt and Road Initiative summit, which aims to discuss progress on China’s massive international infrastructure project.

However, Putin accused Ukraine of not allowing peace negotiations: “How can you hold negotiations when they don’t want to and, yes, have published a normative document forbidding these negotiations?”

He added that a prerequisite for the start of negotiations was the lifting of the decree and a willingness to talk. Kyiv has repeatedly said that Russian troops would have to withdraw before negotiations could begin.

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China’s peace proposal has been met with scepticism in Ukraine and the West because the country is considered an ally of Russia and has never condemned the full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched by Moscow in February 2022.

During their Beijing talks, Putin and Xi are expected to discuss international politics, including the situation in the Middle East, the Kremlin said.

It will be Putin’s second trip abroad, after visiting Kyrgyzstan last week, since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest for alleged war crimes in March.

China is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the court in the Dutch city of The Hague and can therefore ignore the arrest warrant when Putin visits.