A Russian drone shot down in Ukraine allegedly featured a camera including test footage taken in Shenzhen, China, belying its alleged origin — according to a report published this weekend to which the Ukrainian government subsequently responded.
The video footage reportedly originated on a Telegram account run by Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian internet personality who has distinguished himself online by establishing a one-man investigative operation to identify Russian drone activity and expose Russian military activity. Beskrestnov is not a member of the Ukrainian government, and some reports indicate that “some high-ranking officials” have been rankled by his rogue citizen journalism, indicating the information is likely accurate but should remain out of the public eye.
“Over several days at a time, Flash studies the skies for Russian radio transmissions and tries to learn about the problems facing troops in the fields and in the trenches,” the MIT Technology Review detailed in a 2024 profile of Beskrestnov. “In fact, he shares the results of these missions with more than 127,000 followers — including many soldiers and government officials — on several public social media channels.”
“Flash and his colleagues claim that some high-ranking officials perceive him as a security threat, worrying that he shares too much information and doesn’t do enough to secure sensitive intel,” it added.
The British newspaper The Sun reported that Beskrestnov shared the video, allegedly taken from an apparently Iranian-made suicide drone in a Russian military operation. Iran has played a prominent role in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by providing its inexpensive, easy-to-manufacture Shahed drones in large quantities to its allies in Moscow, including reportedly allowing their manufacture in Russia. The Ukrainian government has repeatedly accused the Chinese Communist Party of aiding in this effort by offering drone components to facilitate the manufacture of the weapons.
“Experts say the video shows Chinese engineers filming the Beihuan Highway in Shenzhen,” the Sun reported, describing the video allegedly taken from the drone camera in Ukraine. “Manufactured by ViewPro, a Shenzhen-based Chinese company, the A40 Pro camera is programmed to use AI to track and select targets.”
The video appears to be test footage from the factory, ensuring its functionality before being sold.
Outlets favorable to the Ukrainian government published reports in August similarly claiming that drones shot down over Ukraine contained test footage of Shenzhen, again citing Beskrestnov. United24 Media, a Ukrainian government operation, also reported on “Chinese factory test footage” on Russian drones in August.
The government of China has not at press time commented on the authenticity of the video, nor has ViewPro, the company identified as the origin of the camera. An anonymous Ukrainian official, identified as a “senior commander,” told the Sun that the discovery of Chinese technology on a Russian drone was “no surprise at all,” but did not explicitly confirm the authenticity of the video.
“We know that Chinese tech is much more advanced than Russian tech. The question is, are sanctions biting, or is Moscow actively upgrading its drone fleets?” the anonymous commander reportedly asked, adding that China was a “more credible opponent” than Russia.
Outside of the video, growing evidence has surfaced in the past year of communist China taking a more active role in supporting the Russian invasion — contravening China’s traditionally friendly relationship with Ukraine before the war. Ukraine is a member of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), its global debt trap scheme to impoverish and colonize poor countries by offering predatory loans for infrastructure projects. In the early days of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky encouraged genocidal dictator Xi Jinping to help end the conflict and invited “Chinese businesses” to help rebuild post-war.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) published a report on Monday accusing China of contributing to a significant increase in the manufacture of Shahed drones in Russia.
“Russia is increasingly relying on the PRC [People’s Republic of China] for its drone components and would not be able to sustain the pace or mass of its Shahed-type drone production without these components,” it observed, noting that Russia also opened a “dedicated logistics center” in Tatarstan, where much of the manufacturing activity is taking place, to “receive and process cargo trains directly from the PRC, likely to streamline the delivery of PRC-produced components for drone production.”
In May, Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service head Oleh Ivashchenko directly accused China of providing key components for Russian drone manufacturing, an accusation Beijing denied.
“Information has emerged, suggesting that China supplies tooling machines, special chemical products, gunpowder, and components specifically to defense manufacturing industries,” Ivashchenko said in remarks to the Ukrainian state media outlet Ukrinform. “We have confirmed data on 20 Russian factories.”
“As of early 2025, 80 percent of critical electronic components found in Russian drones originated in China,” he asserted. “At the same time, there are facts of product substitutions, deceptive product names, there are shell companies through which everything necessary for the production of microelectronics is supplied.”
“China has never provided lethal weapons to any party to the conflict, and strictly controls dual-use items. Ukraine understands that well,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters following the publication of the Ukrinform report.
Kyiv has also accused China of offering soldiers to fight in the war. In April, Zelensky published video footage he claimed featured interviews of Chinese nationals captured fighting for Russia in the Ukraine war theater. Zelensky did not explicitly accuse China of deploying its own soldiers or the government of having a hand in their presence in Ukraine.
“The Chinese are fighting on the territory of Ukraine,” Zelensky said at the time. “And I think this is an important point that we need to discuss with our partners. I think it is urgent. I understand that we are a strong country, but we cannot fight many countries at the same time, which all need something on our land.”
The Chinese government did not deny at the time that the men were Chinese nationals or challenge the authenticity of the footage. Another Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lin Jian, told reporters at the time that it was “absolutely groundless” to claim that China’s People’s Liberation Army had deployed troops in Ukraine, but added that the government was in the process of “verifying” who the men in the video were and their relationship, if any, to China.
“Let me stress that the Chinese government always asks Chinese nationals to stay away from areas of armed conflict,” Lin added, and to “avoid any form of involvement in armed conflict, and in particular avoid participation in any party’s military operations.”
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