Ukraine Charges Chinese Father-Son Duo With Stealing Missile Technology

The pair allegedly tried to export classified documents to China related to Ukraine’s Neptune missile system.

People walk past the Chinese Embassy building in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 20, 2023. Roman Pilipey/Getty Images

Ukraine’s counterintelligence agency has arrested a Chinese father and son suspected of trying to smuggle anti-ship missile technology out of the war-torn country.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced the arrests on July 9 on its official Telegram channel. It said the two were caught trying to export classified documents related to Ukraine’s RK-360MC Neptune missile system to China.

The Neptune missile, developed by Ukraine and operational since 2020, is primarily designed for striking ships from coastal positions. It gained international attention in April 2022 when Ukrainian forces used it to sink the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

This came shortly after the long-running conflict between the two countries escalated into full-scale war with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

According to the SBU, the younger suspect is a 24-year-old former student at a technical university in Kyiv, who remained in Ukraine after being expelled in 2023 for poor academic performance. His father, the second suspect, lives in China but periodically traveled to Ukraine to personally oversee his son’s espionage activities.

The younger man allegedly tried to recruit a Ukrainian citizen involved in developing new military technologies to obtain technical documents related to producing Neptune missiles. The SBU said it arrested the former student “red-handed” while he was receiving the classified documents, and later detained his father, who was allegedly tasked with transferring the information to Chinese intelligence.

The SBU noted that phones containing evidence of the pair’s correspondence and coordination of espionage activities were seized from both suspects.

Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General confirmed the arrests in a separate statement, noting that the younger suspect was taken into custody on June 26, while his father was detained on July 9, two days after arriving in Kyiv from China and visiting the Chinese Embassy the following day.

Both men have been charged with espionage. If convicted, they could face up to 15 years in prison under Ukrainian law.

The arrests add to the already tense relations between Beijing and Kyiv. Beijing had declared a “no-limits” partnership with Moscow on the eve of the war, which is now in its fourth year. The Chinese communist regime has been widely criticized for helping Russia circumvent Western sanctions and becoming a major supplier of dual-use goods that bolster Russia’s military-industrial complex.

In April, Ukraine captured two Chinese citizens fighting for Russia. It said it has evidence that many more were fighting on the battlefield, and that Beijing was aware of its citizens being actively recruited via Chinese social media platforms but has chosen to ignore the situation. Beijing has denied such allegations.

In May, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Oleh Ivashchenko said his agency had “confirmed data” showing that China was supplying machine tools, special chemicals, gunpowder, and other components to 20 Russian weapons factories.

More recently, speaking at a NATO summit in the Netherlands in June, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Chinese companies of playing a key role in the global network of “state and non-state actors” that keeps the Russian war machine running.

“This network includes Russia, North Korea, the current regime in Iran, Chinese companies, and many, many schemes across the world that help produce weapons and carry out operations against our country, our people, and our Europe,” he told NATO leaders.