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Two Chinese nationals have been detained in Kyiv on suspicion of attempting to steal classified military technology related to Ukraine’s Neptune cruise missile system, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on Wednesday.
The agency said the two individuals, a 24-year-old former student of a Kyiv technical university and his father, were collecting secret documents with the intent to pass them on to Chinese intelligence.
The younger man, who chose to stay in Ukraine after being expelled from university in 2023 for poor academic performance, allegedly attempted to recruit a Ukrainian citizen with access to classified defence technologies to obtain technical data on the RK-360MC Neptune missile system.
The SBU said the former student was caught “red-handed” during the transfer of sensitive documents, and his father was detained shortly afterward.
Investigators allege the elder suspect, who lives in China but makes occasional visits to Ukraine, personally supervised his son’s espionage activities.
Searches of the pair’s belongings uncovered mobile phones that contained evidence of a coordinated effort to spy on Ukrainian military technology, including encrypted communications between the two men.
Both suspects have been charged with espionage and if convicted, face up to 15 years in prison and confiscation of property.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly accused China of supporting Russia in its war effort and in April, said he had received information that Beijing was supplying weapons to Moscow, including gunpowder and artillery.
“We have received information that China is supplying weapons to the Russian Federation. And we are ready to talk about it in detail. Today, we have information from the security service, from intelligence, about gunpowder, artillery,” he said.
On Tuesday, Zelenskyy signed an order imposing sanctions on five Chinese companies for allegedly supplying components found in Shahed-type attack drones that were used in strikes on Ukraine.
The Neptune, a Ukrainian-developed coastal defence missile, first came to international attention in 2022 after it was used to sink the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
