By Olha Chepil | 2025-04-14

KYIV -- The capture of two Chinese men fighting for the Russian army in Ukraine raises complications for China and illustrates Russia's staggering losses in its war against its neighbor, analysts say.

Kyiv has counted 163 Chinese citizens fighting for Russia, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said there could be "many more" than that.

The Kremlin denied the claim, while Beijing warned parties to the conflict against making "irresponsible remarks."

Russia prolonging the war

Still, Zelenskyy has accused Chinese authorities of supporting -- or at least not obstructing -- the recruitment of its citizens by Russia.

"Beijing knows about this. Russians distribute advertising videos about recruitment through Chinese social networks," he told journalists April 9.

A day earlier, the Ukrainian military captured the first two Chinese prisoners of war (POWs) fighting for Russia.

"At least several hundred Chinese nationals are fighting as part of Russia's occupation forces," Zelenskyy said in a speech broadcast online April 11 during a session of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (also known as the Ramstein group).

"This means that Russia clearly is trying to prolong the war -- even at the cost of Chinese citizens' lives," Zelenskyy said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was not "satisfied" with soldiers from North Korea, an earlier source of foreign cannon fodder for Moscow's troops, he said.

"Now he is trying to cover his shortages by pulling in yet another nation -- the Chinese," Zelenskyy added.

'I had never held a weapon'

The Chinese POWs were born in 1991 and 1998, according to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Kyiv on April 9 released video of what appeared to be an interrogation of the two men.

Speaking in Chinese, through a translator they described how they ended up captured in Ukraine.

One of them said he was captured with a Russian soldier after a Ukrainian drone hit the wooden shelter where they were hiding.

"It was my first deployment, my first combat mission," he said. "Prior to that, I had never participated in combat operations... I had never held a weapon."

When asked if he wanted to be part of a prisoner exchange, he said, "I don't want to go back to Russia."

"I want to return to China," he added.

The other POW said he surrendered in a group of three, including one other Chinese soldier and a Russian. Before that, there were at least two other Chinese soldiers with them.

After he had already surrendered, he said, the Russians dropped some kind of explosive with gas on them. He thought he was going to die, but a Ukrainian serviceman rushed in and dragged him out, and then he lost consciousness.

'Be a man'

Circulation by Chinese social networks of videos that promote fighting for Russia in the war against Ukraine raises questions about Beijing's complicity, analysts say.

The presence of scores of ads promoting mercenarism and the failure by Beijing to yank them -- even though it highly censors the internet -- are suspect, said Ihor Chalenko, Ukrainian political scientist, director of the Center for Analysis and Strategies, and member of the National League of Centrists.

"If China truly is urging its citizens not to participate in the war, then it would be necessary, obviously, to investigate the work of the [Russian] recruiting network in China," he told Kontur. "That is, if I'm not mistaken, even a crime under Chinese law."

Some of the videos are "slickly produced Russian propaganda" while others seem "more like influencer advertisements for a working holiday," The Guardian reported April 10. "Others are cobbled-together screenshots by regular citizens about to leave China."

The videos are in Russian with Chinese subtitles and promote the idea of becoming a mercenary in the Russian armed forces.

In one ad posted on Weibo, men are seen leaving their day jobs to go fight for Russia in Ukraine.

It ends with a call to action: "You're a man. Be a man."

That clip alone has racked up hundreds of thousands of views, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported April 11.

"This means that there is a tacit green light [from Beijing] not just for recruiting Chinese, but obviously, [because] they need combat experience," Chalenko said. "Despite the size of the Chinese army, it has practically no combat experience."

"We easily see China's role in the past three years in substantively supporting the Russian aggressor and in countering ... sanctions [against Russia imposed by the global community] and in supporting the Russian military-industrial complex," he added.

Mercenaries for hire

During the war in Ukraine, Russia has used or tried to recruit foreign mercenaries or soldiers, particularly from North Korea, Syria, Libya and other countries.

The Chinese POWs add a new international twist to the war, analysts say.

"Indeed, there is a huge number of potential recruits not far away [from Russia]," said Maksym Nesvitailov, political scientist and scholar of international relations. "There are 1.5 billion Chinese, and the [Russians] have started recruiting there."

"It's one matter to talk about dual-use items [that China supplies to Russia]," he told Kontur. "It's another matter to have two POWs with Chinese passports. This [capture] really damages China's reputation."

"If you take into account that they caused reputational problems for [China], the consequences for them can be quite terrible if they return," he added.

Money motivated the Chinese to go to war, analysts say.

"In every country, there is a segment of the population that is ready to fight as mercenaries for its own pocketbook," Oleksandr Chupak, director of economic programs at the Ukrainian Studies of Strategic Research think tank, told Kontur.

The Chinese citizens fighting alongside the Russian military are mercenaries who do not appear to have a direct link to China's government, two US officials familiar with American intelligence and a former Western intelligence official told Reuters.

"China is a major enabler of Russia in the war in Ukraine," US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said at an April 8 briefing.

"It's disturbing. It's disturbing with North Korea participating. It's disturbing with the Chinese soldiers having been captured," she said.

"China provides nearly 80% of the dual-use items Russia needs to sustain the war," Bruce noted.

China is providing that crucial aid to Russia even though it has professed neutrality in the full-scale war since it broke out in February 2022.