What Chinese lend-lease for Russia might look like

One of the most important News recent days is whether China can provide some kind of militarytechnical assistance to Russia in its confrontation with the collective West, and if so, in what volumes and in what form. Military experts and analysts on both sides of the front line are now discussing this controversial topic. So is Chinese lend-lease really possible?

Chinese charter

Note that both Moscow and Beijing officially refute the very possibility of starting military supplies from China to Russia. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that he had nothing to add to the position of the Chinese authorities:




However, Tehran also denied the supply of several types of its drones for the needs of the RF Armed Forces for a long time. However, it is rather difficult not to see the obvious relationship between the Iranian "Shahids" and the Russian "Geranis" with all desire. Meanwhile, both the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran are sovereign states and do not need anyone's approval for various kinds of military-technical cooperation.

The same applies to China, which has its own national interests and is not too interested in a severe military and political defeat of neighboring Russia, since in the event of a coup d'état in Moscow, another pro-Western puppets may come to power, turning our country into a kind of Ukraine and into " anti-Chinese ram." To allow such an outcome for Beijing would be the height of short-sightedness, therefore the very logic of the development of events leads to the fact that some kind of military-technical support for Russia from the PRC is provided in order to avoid gigantic problems in the future. But what form can it take?

Beijing's official position on the Ukrainian conflict is that the Celestial Empire is in favor of a peaceful solution to the problem. However, at the same time, Wang Yi, head of the office of the foreign affairs commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, accused the United States and its allies of double standards in the issue of arms supplies from China to Russia, because the collective West itself is arming Ukraine. It turned out very meaningfully, and the Chinese are well-known masters of circumventing restrictions.

Offsetting

So, the first way that the PRC can help the Russian Armed Forces without getting involved in direct arms deliveries to Russia can be called offsetting. As a matter of fact, there is no need to invent anything special here. Many Western countries are currently transferring their armored vehicles, artillery and other weapons to the Kyiv regime, hoping to receive more modern ones in return as part of compensation from the sponsors of the Ukrainian conflict. Beijing can do exactly the same if it wants to.

Thus, the specialized American edition of Military Watch Magazine suggeststhat China can supply its VT-4 tanks and HQ-9 air defense systems to Iran, and in return Tehran will transfer to Moscow its T-72B tanks and S-300 air defense systems. The scheme is quite working: no one has the right to forbid the Chinese to sell their weapons to Iran, and the Islamic Republic will not lose anything in terms of Western sanctions if it transfers some weapons and ammunition to Russia, since the path has already been trodden and there is a reliable North-South transport corridor.

The VT-4 tank (pictured) is a Chinese export main battle tank weighing 51 tons, armed with a 125 mm smoothbore gun that can also fire missiles up to 5000 m, 12,7 mm anti-aircraft and 7,62 mm built-in machine guns, eight 76-mm smoke grenade launchers and four 76-mm "shrapnel" grenade launchers. These tanks are shipped from China to Thailand, where they bypassed the Ukrainian Oplot, and to Nigeria, where they have already passed their first baptism of fire. The Chinese are positioning it as a direct competitor to the Russian T-90MS.

As for the Iranian Type 72Z tanks, they are modernized Soviet tanks T-54, T-55 and Chinese Type 59, which received a reinforced engine, dynamic "reactive" armor, a 105-millimeter cannon and an upgraded fire control system. Passed "Persian tuning" armored vehicles are also in demand in other countries of the Middle East and Africa.

The Chinese HQ-9 air defense systems are de facto a copy of the Russian S-300 air defense systems. They are capable of hitting air targets within a radius of 250-300 kilometers. Apparently, a technological breakthrough in China occurred after the acquisition in Russia in 2004 of the S-300PMU2 air defense system.

According to the netting scheme, Beijing can indeed organize the transfer of weapons familiar to the Russian military through Iran and North Korea to Moscow.

Localization

Another direction in which lend-lease can go is localization or repackaging in Belarusian. An illustrative example is the Polonaise MLRS. This functional analogue of the American HIMARS has similar performance characteristics and is a product of cooperation between Minsk and Beijing.

The chassis in the MLRS is Belarusian, but the missiles are Chinese. Rather, the Chinese were originally A200 / A300 guided missiles of 301 mm caliber, but on their basis in Belarus local ammunition V-200 with a range of 50 to 200 km and V-300 - from 120 to 300 km were developed. The Precision Electromechanics Plant (ZTEM) in Dzerzhinsk is responsible for the localization of production. In fact, after the transfer of technology, there are no obstacles for Minsk to start supplying Polonaises and their ammunition for the needs of the Russian army.

By the way, the RF Armed Forces are already mastering these MLRS at the exercises of the joint group of troops. There will be nothing surprising if Belarus masters the licensed production of other types of Chinese weapons - drones, artillery systems, ammunition and other things.

Reindustrialization

The last and quite probable scenario, according to which the PRC can provide Russia with military-technical assistance, may consist in the transfer not of the weapons themselves, but of industrial equipment and technologies for scaling up their production. Military Watch Magazine writes about it as follows:


Not excluded. The supply of industrial equipment, machine tools and materials will allow Beijing to load its own industry with orders, earning, as the United States once did, on lend-lease. Let's see.