China Invests in Russian Occupation of Ukraine
Chinese companies help Russia conduct “large construction” in the occupied part of the Donetsk region.
Chinese companies are establishing factories from the ground up for the extraction and production of building materials in the occupied areas of the Donetsk region to aid Russia in its rapid reconstruction of Mariupol – a city it destroyed – and in paving roads for military equipment en route to the Ukrainian-Russian frontlines.
While China portrays itself as a peacekeeper and mediator and is wary of Western sanctions, it is investing in Russian projects in Ukraine’s occupied territories. Thus far, Ukraine and the international community haven’t addressed this aspect of China’s policy and activities.
In its investigation, Realna Gazeta uncovered how Chinese businesses operate in the occupied regions and who is behind these ventures.
“Russia has arrived”?
In early spring 2022, the insignificant village of Myrne in the Volnovakha district of the Donetsk region just fell under Russian occupation.
While to the south of this settlement, the Russian military continued wiping out Mariupol, a city of half a million residents, a delegation from the leadership of the puppet Donetsk “republic” made an unexpected visit to Myrne.
Their direct destination was the Karan Quarry, an abandoned in 2008 and partially flooded site where crushed stone had once been extracted. To the surprise of residents, the Donetsk “republic” delegation revealed that certain investors were highly interested in reviving the quarry. In just a few months, preparatory work began at the quarry.
By August 2022, electricity was installed in the building of the abandoned factory, new machinery and equipment were brought in, and crushed stone began to be mined right away, residents told Realna Gazeta. In October 2022, the Karan Quarry and crushed stone processing plant were “officially” opened.
By May 2023, 243 people were already working at the Karan Quarry LLC, the vehicle fleet included 40 units of modern special equipment, and the plant’s capacity allowed the production of about 250 tons per day of commercial fractional crushed stone, said the deputy director of the quarry, Maxim Yefimenko, in an interview with correspondents of the Oplot propaganda TV channel.
“Huge excavators operate around the clock, extracting granite that is urgently needed for the restoration of the republic,” – described Donetsk-based media outlets the work of the enterprise, showcasing brand-new Chinese excavators and trucks in their coverage.
On 8 May 2023, the eve of Victory Day celebrations, the village received a visit from Denis Pushilin, the “acting head” of the Donetsk “republic”. “The launch of this village enterprise is clear evidence that Russia has arrived! Russia has returned!”, he explained to the residents of Myrne at a solemn meeting the secret of the amazing restoration and launch of the Karansky Quarry. But the “acting head” Pushilin lied – the revival of the enterprise was not exactly the work of Russia.
Mysterious investors
In February 2024, the Donetsk “republic” leader returned to Myrne to the same quarry to open a brand-new concrete factory. Expressing gratitude to the enigmatic investors who had financed yet the second industrial facility in the occupied territory of Ukraine, he hinted at support from foreign nations.
“We are already building cooperation with countries that are close to us now regarding understanding of the current processes, where everything operates for the greater good,” Pushilin remarked, offering a vague explanation for his success in attracting investments to Myrne. He claimed that just 1.5 years after its relaunch, the Karan Quarry LLC had become the largest taxpayer in the occupied part of the Donetsk region treasury.
It was the desire of the Donetsk “republic” officials to showcase their international connections that allowed Realna Gazeta to uncover the true source of investments into this seemingly lucrative construction venture in the occupied territory of Ukraine.
In November 2023, the “prime minister” of the Donetsk “republic” Yevgeniy Solntsev announced that Karan Quarry had signed cooperation agreements with two Chinese companies. “The Karan Quarry LLC has entered into agreements with two Chinese companies – Amma Construction Machinery Co. Ltd., a rock-crushing equipment manufacturer, and Zhongxin Heavy Industry Machinery Co. Ltd., a producer of crushing and screening equipment,” Solntsev wrote on his Telegram channel. He also shared a photo of himself posing with the Chinese delegation with the national flag of the People’s Republic of China in the background.
“Among other things, the agreements include joint projects for production and processing of building materials, construction of mining and processing facilities and crushing and sorting plants, as well as information and consulting support for equipment selection and supply to the DPR,” stated the official from the occupation administration of the Donetsk region.
Realna Gazeta sources in occupied Donetsk say that Chinese investments “entered” the Karan Quarry project from the beginning of its occupation in 2022. Still, the cooperation was formalised only a year later. Behind closed doors, functionaries of the Donetsk “republic” call the enterprise not Karan but Chinese Quarry.
Large construction, Chinese style
Thanks to the project with Chinese companies, two new factories – a concrete production plant and a crushing facility – were constructed at the Karan Quarry in record time in 2024. “The company’s products are used for road construction and concrete production not only in our DPR, but also in the LPR, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions!” commented on local TV channels the facilities launch.
We have reviewed dozens of publications dedicated to the work of this project in Russian and Donetsk media. Russian propaganda portrays the industrial complex built around the Karan Quarry as the centrepiece of a so-called large construction project initiated by the Kremlin in the occupied territories of Ukraine, alleging that now, the quarry can provide building materials for the reconstruction of roads and residential buildings.
Local media reports indicate where exactly the trucks take crushed stone, granite and concrete from the enterprise – towards Mariupol, where asphalt has been paved on strategically significant highways such as Donetsk–Mariupol, Telmanove–Volnovakha, Amvrosiivka–Mariupol, other routes in the Azov Sea shore area and within Mariupol which a key logistical hub for Russia in the region.
According to information obtained by Realna Gazeta from residents of Myrne, the Karan Quarry facilities operated around the clock in 2024 to meet insatiable construction demands of the occupiers who concrete mass graves of residents of Ukrainian Mariupol killed by the Russian army.
In the autumn of 2023, a delegation of Chinese “bloggers” – as Russian and Ukrainian media referred to the visitors – attended the “large construction site” in Mariupol. Among the delegation was a popular Chinese singer Wang Fang, who performed the song Katyusha on a construction site on the ruins of the Mariupol drama theatre.
1.5 years earlier, on 16 March 2022, a Russian military plane dropped an air bomb on the theatre where civilians had sought refuge in its bomb shelter. Even a massive sign reading CHILDREN painted on the asphalt outside the building failed to deter this war crime. Estimates of the death toll range from 300 to 1,200 people.
After their tour, the Chinese delegation held a press conference during which Wang Fang spoke of her anger and indignation caused by stories about crimes against children by… “Ukrainian Nazis.” Seated beside her was her husband, Zhou Xiaoping, a famous and influential anti-Western Chinese politician, a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
Companies from the Henan province
What is known about the Chinese companies partnered with the Donetsk “republic” to build plants and factories around the Karan Quarry?
In his post on Telegram, the “prime minister” of the Donetsk “republic” named Amma Construction Machinery Co. Ltd and Zhongxin Heavy Industry Machinery Co. Ltd as partners of Karan Quarry LLC. Realna Gazeta investigated these companies and discovered that both are registered in China and conduct business abroad, including in Russia.
The English-language profile of Amma Construction Machinery Co. Ltd says that the company produces equipment for road construction projects in China and abroad. Its contact number and address are Russian. We found the Chinese address of the company in another database, Sayary: No. 51, 14th Floor, Unit 1, No. 95 Jinshui Road, Jinshui District, Zhengzhou, Henan, China 450000. The company’s name in Chinese, based on its registration address, is 安玛工程设备（河南）有限公司.
Further investigation using Tianyancha uncovered a phone number associated with the company: +86 18803712013. OSINT tools revealed that this number is linked to a WeChat account. The number was registered in Zhengzhou, Henan, under the official address of the Amma Сonstruction Machinery Co. Ltd. on the name Hengji Li. This person is listed as a Legal Representative in the company’s database, obtained through WireScreen. There is a high probability that it is Hengji Li who is in the group photo with Donetsk “prime minister” Yevgeniy Solntsev.
The second company – Zhongxin Heavy Industry Machinery Co. Ltd (中鑫重工机械有限公司) – is also based in Henan Province. According to WireScreen, the head of the company is Liu Chenxia (刘晨), who may also be present in the same group photo with Solntsev.
According to the company’s website, Zhongxin Heavy Industry Machinery Co., Ltd “is a crushing and screening equipment manufacturer in China, producing a full range of cone, jaw and impact crushers, as well as vertical shaft impact crushers, vibrating gyratory and feeders, etc.”
The company’s website and social media platforms highlight its successful business in Russia. Video clips on the Chinese video platform Bilibi show equipment that closely resembles machinery working at the Karan Quarry factories.
Documents we reviewed reveal a significant shipment of crushing equipment from Zhongxin Heavy Industry Machinery Co. Ltd to Russia on 11 May 2023 intended for the Kamensk crushed stone plant in the Rostov region.
Since Russia’s Rostov region borders the occupied Donetsk region, some of this equipment was likely transported to the Karan Quarry. The shipment included crushing equipment. According to the same import data from Russia, a batch of construction equipment from Amma Construction Machinery Co. Ltd was delivered to Russia in December 2023.
A guy from a cotton plantation
Why did companies from the Henan province become key partners in the industrial complex at the Karan Quarry, this vital part of the “large construction” project around occupied Mariupol? We found intermediaries who helped the occupiers forge connections with China.
On 18 March 2023, the “prime minister” of the Donetsk “republic” Yevgeniy Solntsev held a meeting with representatives of the Russian-Chinese Center for Humanitarian Cooperation. Solntsev shared fragments of footage from the meeting on his Telegram channel: “For us, it is very important that Chinese businesses and state-owned companies enter our territory,” Solntsev said at the meeting. “This is, of course, a help for us. We are ready to provide a pool of enterprises we consider most important…”
Zhang Jingwei, head of the Russian-Chinese Center for Humanitarian Cooperation from the Chinese side, responded: “We would also consider sister cities. For these projects, we can establish technology parks, collaborate with universities, and attract investments across various fields.”
In a podcast produced under the aegis of the Russian Presidential Foundation for Cultural Initiatives, Jingwei is described as a “Russian mathematician from China.” He is originally from Shenqiu, Henan province. The episode, titled How a Guy from a Cotton Plantation in Henan Province Won the Leaders of Russia Competition, features Jingwei posing with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.
Zhang Jingwei is a former student and current postgraduate student at the Southern Federal University (SFedU) in Rostov-on-Don. The enterprising student created a company to send Chinese students to Russian universities. Based on this company, he opened a language school and even intended to “create an integrated platform in the South of Russia that would unite the Chinese into a diaspora.” In the podcast, Jingwei fantasized about wanting to create his own “city within a city” in Rostov, a Chinatown with Chinese restaurants, branches of Chinese universities, and a technology park, where he intends to “invite Chinese officials and businessmen to do joint projects in the South of Russia”. “I tell my Chinese, whom I supervise: “We are now standing at the car of history. Previously, such cars passed by, but now one has stopped in front of us. And we have no choice but to get in it and drive forward,” Zhang Jingwei said.
Jingwei’s “car of history” eventually brought him the closest to the Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine. The Guy from a Cotton Plantation not only facilitated business deals for Solntsev with Chinese companies, as the head of the Russian-Chinese Center for Humanitarian Cooperation but has also contributed to Russia’s military-industrial complex as a researcher. In August 2023, Russian media lauded his work:
“A postgraduate student from SFedU in China has developed an improved neural network for rapidly detecting targets using drones. The young scientist proposed a lighter and more efficient algorithm called L-YOLO. It includes a new detection head to improve the accuracy of finding small targets, as well as a resized anchoring cell to match the scale of potential targets using a clustering algorithm. “The L-YOLO algorithm not only has a high detection efficiency for small targets but also a lighter model, confirming that target detection from unmanned aerial vehicles has good application prospects. Compared to YOLOV5, our algorithm showed a 42.42 per cent reduction in computational cost and a 48.6 per cent reduction in the number of parameters,” said Zhang Jingwei. Zhang Jingwei is currently collaborating with the Beijing University of Science and Technology and Henan Vocational University of Light Industry (partners of the South Federal University) in this area.”
Kiriyenko’s pupils
A few words about Yevgeniy Solntsev, the “prime minister” of the Donetsk “republic” who is managing the occupation administration’s relations with China.
Before becoming the “prime minister”, this Russian politician and entrepreneur originally from Voronezh held positions in various Russian construction enterprises. His official biography states that Solntsev “mastered the programme of the “personnel management reserve” of the Higher School of Public Administration, also called the “school of governors””.
The school exists under the Russian presidential administration and is overseen by Sergey Kiriyenko, the first deputy head of Putin’s administration. Kiriyenko also chairs the supervisory board of the Leaders of Russia contest for managers, which was the springboard for the career of the “guy from the cotton plantation” – the scientist and intermediary Zhang Jingwei.
These schools and competitions allow the deputy head of the Russian presidential administration to recruit personnel for the formal and informal structures that ensure the functioning of the governance and economic system in the occupied territories.
Since the end of spring 2022, Putin has expanded Kiriyenko’s powers by assigning him the occupied territories of Ukraine. The same Yevgeniy Solntsev was hired by the occupation administration of Donetsk region in the summer of 2022, becoming one of the first Russian managers from the pool of graduates of the “school of governors” who, on Kiriyenko’s instructions, began to be promoted to senior positions in the so-called “new regions” – the Luhansk and Donetsk “republics” and parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions seized by Russia.
Judging by the way Solntsev is working to attract Chinese investors to the occupied part of the Donetsk region, this is one of his priorities.
“100 per cent state-owned”
The involvement of two private Chinese companies in the infrastructure projects of the Donetsk “republic” seems to have only emboldened this Russian “effective manager”. In 2024, Solntsev sought to attract state-owned Chinese enterprises to the occupied part of the Donetsk region. In April 2024, Solntsev attended the Russian-Chinese Construction Forum in Harbin, China, where he showcased the “investment potential of the DPR” to the administration of the Wuhan Design and Research Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy.
“We discussed with colleagues the possibilities of launching and modernising our metallurgical enterprises,” Solntsev announced on his Telegram channel. “We also outlined options for cooperation with two Chinese companies, Genertec International Co., Ltd. and China Xinxing Group Co., Ltd., which specialise in constructing high-rise buildings, business centres, social institutions, highways, and bridges.”
Realna Gazeta examined what is known about these companies.
Genertec International Co., Ltd. focuses on foreign trade in mechanical engineering and electronics, and imports technologies and equipment.
China Xinxing Group Co., Ltd. offers infrastructure construction services. The company designs and builds roads and public infrastructure, and provides electromechanical installation design, architectural decoration and other types of engineering. China Xinxing Group is also engaged in real estate development, trade, logistics and other businesses.
Most importantly, both companies are subsidiaries of China General Technology (Group) Holding Co., Ltd, a giant corporation 100 per cent owned by the government of the People’s Republic of China. As of 2021, its assets amounted to $34.5 billion, and more than 52,000 people were considered to be its employees.
Subsidiaries of China General Technology Group design and build industrial enterprises and industrial parks, solar, wind, gas and coal power plants, railways and highways, port facilities, as well as sports and military facilities. For example, corporations associated with China General Technology Group built facilities for the Beijing Olympics.
According to Realna Gazeta’s sources in the Luhansk “republic”, the Luhansk occupation authorities are also seeking Chinese investment. In particular, meetings with potential Chinese investors were held as part of the Economic Forum in St. Petersburg on 5-8 June 2024.
How will China and Ukrainian allies react?
China’s interactions with representatives of Russian occupation administrations in Ukraine’s occupied territories have so far failed to elicit a noticeable response from Ukrainian official bodies. Even the visit of the Chinese singer Wang Fang to destroyed Mariupol – alongside the controversial press conference with Chinese Communist party functionary Zhou Xiaoping – the Ukrainian media largely downplayed. In the summer of 2024, Ukraine’s official Centre for National Resistance stated that “there is no confirmation from the Chinese side about intentions to invest in the temporarily occupied Luhansk region.”
However, Chinese investments in factory construction around the Karan Quarry near occupied Mariupol are confirmed by contracts between the Donetsk “republic” and two construction companies from the Chinese Henan province.
According to Una Alexandra Berzini-Cherenkova, head of the Center for China Studies at Riga Stradins University, with whom we consulted while preparing this investigation, China carefully navigates its support for Russia to avoid triggering Western sanctions. According to the expert, the Chinese support Russia to such an extent that it does not cross the line, beyond which they will be subjected to international sanctions. The researcher believes that after the story about Chinese business in the occupied Donetsk region becomes known, the Chinese government will deny everything.
A former Ukrainian foreign minister, the head of the Russian Studies Centre Volodymyr Ogryzko believes that private companies in China cannot act autonomously from the government: “China is a totalitarian centralised system, and I think even considering such things there is impossible without appropriate permits. It should be noted that China unequivocally stands on the side of the Russian aggressor, helping this aggressor obtain what it needs from around the world for its armaments. China buys oil from Russia. At least it did so before the very severe sanctions from the previous Biden administration. China is an ideological ally of Russia.”
Realna Gazeta has sent inquiries to Chinese companies that, according to our investigation, invest in the economy of the occupied territories, as well as to Zhang Jingwei, and is waiting for responses.
The editorial team of the Realna Gazeta believes that at least two Chinese companies – Zhongxin Heavy Industry Machinery Co., Ltd. and Amma Construction Machinery Co. Ltd. – should become targets of international sanctions. Otherwise, due to impunity and indifference, the involvement of China’s state mega-corporations in “investment projects” in occupied territories will only be a matter of time.
We would like to express our gratitude to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) for their assistance in conducting this investigation.