Why Has Russia Asked China For Military Assistance And Aid Amid Ukraine War?

Russia has sought military assistance from China in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. During the "State of the Union" on Sunday hosted by CNN, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said they are closely watching the extent to which China is extending its support, speculating these may include drones that could upend Ukraine forces in their hold against Russian troops.

According to CNN, Sullivan expressed concern should China decide to support Russia whether this may be through material or economic support or military back-up. He claimed that China was made aware by Russia prior to the invasion, that Putin “was planning something” but they probably did not understand the full extent of this move.

“It is a concern of ours. And we have communicated to Beijing that we will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses from the economic sanctions," Sullivan said. "We will not allow that to go forward and allow there to be a lifeline to Russia from these economic sanctions from any country anywhere in the world," he added.

The US senior official will be meeting his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi in Rome this week as part of a follow-up on the conversation US President Joe Biden had with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a virtual talk last November.

At a news conference Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was critical of Beijing’s response to Russia’s war in Ukraine as it maintains a neutral tone amongst all the countries. Its local media coverage of the conflict described Russia’s invasion as a “special military operation” while promoting Russian disinformation campaigns.

Meanwhile, China appears to be spreading unsubstantiated claims that the US is funding biological weapons labs in Ukraine. Russia’s conspiracy theory was quickly shot down by the US saying the United Nations has not received any information to support such propaganda. Moscow had made initial claims that invading Russian troops found evidence of attempts to conceal biological weapons research in Ukraine.

Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian military’s radiation, chemical, and biological protection troops said, “We can say with a high probability that one of the goals of the United States and its allies is the creation of bioagents capable to selectively infect various ethnic groups.”

At the same time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also made similar claims Thursday saying that U.S.-directed labs in Ukraine were developing ethnically targeted biological weapons. Following this, China’s Foreign Ministry continued to fan the flames on Russia’s claims as it repeatedly called for an investigation.

“This Russian military operation has uncovered the secret of the U.S. labs in Ukraine, and this is not something that can be dealt with in a perfunctory manner,” ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said.

At a UN Security Council meeting Friday requested by Moscow, a three-minute video of a Russian Defense Ministry news conference repeating the allegations showed that it has been viewed over 10 million times with more than 90,000 likes on China’s social media platform, Sina Weibo.