The owner of a major Chinese drone parts supplier has taken a stake in one of Russia’s leading drone companies, highlighting a deepening relationship between Moscow and Beijing’s military-industrial complexes.
A company filing, made in September and seen by the Financial Times, listed Wang Dinghua as the new owner of 5 per cent of the shares in Rustakt, a manufacturer of the VT-40 first-person-view drone widely used by Russia in attacks on Ukrainian forces.
Shenzhen Minghuaxin and other companies owned by Wang, a businessman based in the southern Chinese city, have been big suppliers of drone parts to Rustakt and its allied companies.
While China has given Moscow greater access to its vast capacity to produce electronics than Kyiv, this new tie-up marks a previously unknown level of co-operation between a Chinese company and a Russian military supplier.
The FT first found the filing in Russian public records. Within a day of accessing it, however, all of Rustakt’s ownership records had been suppressed and removed from official corporate registries in Russia. Data about the share transfer has also now been expunged from private corporate intelligence sites in the country.
At the time of the data suppression, Rustakt was listed as 95-per-cent-owned by Pavel Nikitin, a businessman. The company, which is subject to sanctions imposed by Ukraine and the EU, is listed by Ukrainian authorities as a participant in Russia’s “Judgment Day” project to supply uncrewed aerial vehicles and train pilots for its war effort.
...
Rustakt was the largest importer of components for FPV drones in Russia between July 2023 and February 2025, according to a report earlier this year by the Centre for Defence Reforms in Kyiv, a Ukrainian think-tank.
...
Samuel Bendett, a drone expert based at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that increasing co-operation between the Russian and Chinese military industrial complexes and Moscow’s reliance on Chinese drone parts meant “there is a logic to this tie-up”.
A former Ukrainian officer who operates the analytical group Frontelligence Insight said the VT-40 was being widely used by Russian forces along the frontline in Ukraine.
...
“Since first appearing on the battlefield in 2023, the drone has undergone several upgrades to enhance its electronic-warfare resilience and control systems,” he said. “While it isn’t exceptional in any single area, its mass production, low cost and availability make it a consistent workhorse for Russian forces.”
Rustakt and Minghuaxin were already working together before September. FT analysis of Russian customs records suggests Minghuaxin has shipped $304mn of parts to Rustakt, as well as $107mn of goods to an associated Russian company, Santex Plant.
...
“Russia has moved to industrial-scale use of FPV drones” said Oleksandr Danylyuk, head of the Centre for Defence Reforms. “We are talking about thousands of units per day and tens of thousands per month. These were produced through the ‘Russian Drone’ network in conjunction with Rustakt and other firms.”
The Russian companies “all critically depend on Chinese brushless motors and electronics supplied via a network of intermediaries and importers”, Danylyuk said.
...