China’s Logic: With Ukraine’s Resources, Russia Will Have Strength for It’s Mutually Destructive War Against NATO

As Russia’s war on Ukraine drags into its third year, a deeper strategic pattern has begun to emerge—one that suggests China is not merely watching events unfold, but quietly shaping the conditions for a larger confrontation. According to intelligence leaks, trade data, and military supply chains, Beijing’s logic is clear: if Russia can take Ukraine, it will have the resources, geography, and industrial base to launch a mutually destructive war against NATO—a war that leaves both sides weakened, and China untouched. A strong China can then pick up the pieces not only among the ruins—economic and otherwise—of the West and Russia, but move freely to acquire territory across Asia as the Free World nurses its wounds.

Since the invasion in 2022, China has supplied Russia not only with billions in energy purchases and diplomatic cover, but also millions in dual-use goods and drones from manufacturers such as DJI, as reported by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Chinese microelectronics, machine tools, and optics continue to appear in Russian weapons systems.

The scale of this aid is limited but strategic: enough to sustain Russia’s campaign, but not enough to secure swift victory. China is not trying to win the war for Russia—it is trying to prolong it.
A leaked eight-page document from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), obtained by the cyber group Ares Leaks and published by The New York Times on June 7, 2025, provides critical insight. The report describes China as an “enemy” and expresses fears over espionage and long-term territorial ambitions, despite the formal “no-limits” partnership declared in early 2022. This internal mistrust underscores the transactional nature of the relationship: China supports Putin’s war not out of ideology or alliance, but because it serves China’s broader strategic goal.

Ukraine is central to that plan. According to the World Bank, Ukraine holds over $500 billion in grain reserves, along with vast mineral wealth, industrial infrastructure, and key energy assets. If Russia captures Ukraine, it gains not just land—it gains the strategic depth and economic capacity to escalate the war westward. China needs that outcome. Only a resourced Russia can mount the kind of continental assault that will fracture NATO, drain the United States, and drag Europe into catastrophe.

 However, China does not expect Russia to survive that war. 

What China wants is a battering ram. Putin’s Russia—bloated with Ukrainian territory and emboldened by false victories—would be the blunt instrument to smash Western unity, Western wealth, and Western order. The West may ultimately prevail militarily, but not without cost. China’s wager is that a West pushed to the brink will emerge too fractured, too indebted, and too politically broken to recover its global leadership role.

Russia, too, would be ruined—its military gutted, its population decimated, its economy shattered beyond repair. That, too, is acceptable to Beijing. The goal is not Russian survival—it is Russian utility. A used and broken Russia, stripped of strength but rich in unguarded territory and natural resources, is a prize China can quietly move on once the smoke clears.

Meanwhile, China cements its own position. Bilateral trade with Russia hit $240 billion in 2024, and gas deliveries through the Power of Siberia pipeline have exceeded contract volumes. A second pipeline, Power of Siberia 2, is under development. These projects deepen Russia’s economic dependency while giving China greater access to Siberian energy corridors.

Historically, China has viewed parts of the Russian Far East as lost territory. The 17th-century Qing expulsions of Russian settlers and the 1969 Ussuri River clashes are reminders that China’s interest in regions like the Amur and Primorsky Krai is not new.

If Russia is broken in war, and if the West is too weary to respond, China will face little resistance in asserting its claims—diplomatically, economically, or by other means.

The West, for its part, is already under strain. The Kiel Institute reports that by mid-2025, NATO allies had committed over $200 billion in aid to Ukraine. Domestic fatigue, inflationary pressure, and disinformation have sown political divisions. China sees in these cracks an opportunity: a drawn-out war not only weakens Russia, it corrodes Western resolve.

This is not about helping Russia win. It is about using Russia’s aggression—its bloodlust, its empire nostalgia—as a geopolitical wrecking ball. Russia gets to fight its war. China gets to win the peace.

If Russia takes Ukraine, it will set the stage for a final act—one in which Moscow and the West tear each other apart. When the smoke clears, China plans to be the last power standing. Not by chance, but by design.