KYIV, UKRAINE – Ukraine has arrested a Chinese father and son for spying on its key cruise missile programme and attempting to smuggle confidential information about its production.
Ukraine’s SBU security service accused the pair of trying “to illegally export secret documentation on the Ukrainian RK-360MC Neptune missile system to China.”
An investigation identified the son as a 24-year-old former student at one of Kyiv’s technical universities, who had remained in Ukraine after being “expelled in 2023 for academic failure,” according to the SBU.
His father reportedly lived in China but made frequent visits to Ukraine to “personally co-ordinate his son’s espionage activities.” The son allegedly tried to recruit a Ukrainian national working on the missiles’ development to obtain technical information about the Neptune programme.
The SBU said his plan was to pass on information to his father, who would then bring it back to China, but the counter-intelligence service detained him “while he was receiving secret documents.”
‘Crown jewel of Ukraine’s missiles’
The Neptune anti-ship cruise missile is a long-range weapon described as one of the “crown jewels” of Ukraine’s missile programme, which has been crucial in the country’s defence against Russia in the past three and a half years.
It was used to sink Moscow’s Black Sea fleet flagship during the early months of the war and has since been used to target other Russian assets, including oil terminals.
The arrests mark the first time that Ukraine has detained anyone on espionage charges since the Russian invasion in February 2022.
A Tense Backdrop
Ukraine has repeatedly accused China of supporting Russia throughout the war by supplying its forces with arms, gunpowder, and dual-use weapons.
In April, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine finally had “information that China is supplying weapons to the Russian Federation,” referring to artillery. The Ukrainian president added that there were at least 150 Chinese nationals fighting alongside Russian troops, with the real number likely to be even higher. However, they did not appear to have direct links to the Chinese government.
Beijing has routinely denied the allegations, claiming it has not supplied any lethal weapons to either side of the conflict and calling the reports of Chinese soldiers “irresponsible remarks.”
However, previous reports estimated that China has as many as 600,000 people working on intelligence and security, which is more than any other country in the world. Beijing has recently been accused of spying on politicians in the UK, Germany, and Canada. Last week, the US arrested two Chinese nationals for attempting to recruit spies for their country’s intelligence agency.
