Sino-EU dispute over Ukraine intensifies

Mark O'Neill July 25, 2025 16:43

At their summit in Beijing this week, the leaders of China and the European Union disagreed on many subjects. The worst was Ukraine.

“You are supporting Moscow in its prolonged war in Ukraine,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told President Xi Jinping.

She could make such an accusation because of a rare mistake by Wang Yi, Xi’s veteran Foreign Minister, in Brussels earlier this month. “We do not want to see Moscow lose the war because we fear the U.S. could then shift more attention to China,” he told EU officials.

This removed the mask that China was neutral in the war and had only normal trade with Russia.

Its soldiers at the front line use drones made in China and those made in Russia with Chinese components, as well as Chinese vehicles. Russia’s giant war machine used machinery, machine tools and many industrial items exported by China.

“China’s unyielding support for Russia is creating heightened instability and insecurity in Europe,” von der Leyen said in Brussels earlier this month. “China is de facto enabling Russia’s war economy – we cannot accept this.”

Since Donald Trump arrived in the White House in January, Ukraine has become an existential crisis for Europe. Trump is only willing to provide weapons to Ukraine if European countries pay for it. This will cost them billions of dollars. In addition, they have pledged to increase defence spending to five per cent of GDP, money they can ill afford.

For Europe, then, ending the war is a priority. The assassination or removal of Russian President Vladimir Putin is most unlikely. He is the best protected man on the planet.

More possible are a repeat of the collapse of the Russian and German armies in 1917 and 1918. After the defeat of the Spring Offensive of the Imperial German Army on the Western front in 1918, desertions, mass surrenders and mutinies spread. Up to one million soldiers refused to follow the orders of their commanders. At home, there were mass hunger and shortages.

The same happened in Tsarist Russia in 1917. By the end of October 1916, the country had lost between 1.6 and 1.8 million soldiers, with two million taken prisoner and one million missing,

Residents of St Petersburg lacked bread, sugar and meat. Women turned to begging and prostitution. “Why are we fighting this war” everyone asked. The Bolshevik Party smartly exploited this anger to stage a revolution.

What are conditions inside Russia today? As of mid-June, the Russian army had lost over one million dead, wounded or missing, according to the Ukrainian General Staff.

The Franco-German television ARTE has shown rare footage of Russian women seeking in vain for news of their husbands and sons.

A group in Novgorod in the northwest bitterly criticised the Ministry of Defence for its refusal to tell them where their men were and whether they were still alive. They were advised to contact different branches of the military bureaucracy. None gave an answer.

One mother said that her son had served only two months when he was sent to the front. He had received no formal military education.

Another said the army delivered a damaged body of what it said was her husband. The family examined it but did not find birthmarks belonging to him. “They ordered me to bury him in the cemetery and put his name next to the cross. What choice did I have?”

Maria, a university student in Samara, in south central Russia, said her fiancé Alexei was sent to the front without proper training and killed.

“A senior officer came for the burial and told me Alexei had died for the motherland. I stared at him in the eye and he dropped his head. He could not look at me. He knew it was lie. We should stop this war,” she said.

A disproportionate number of the troops come from the non-Slav minorities who account for about 28 per cent of Russia’s population and live in areas with lower standard of living. A military career is a good option.

One is the Republic of Buryatia, whose people are Mongol. It has 979,000 people and borders Mongolia and is 6,000 km from Ukraine.

Bayar, a Buryat, said that he took part in the start of the invasion of Ukraine. “I felt like a German soldier in the Wehrmacht in the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. I was invading another country. Commanders called the Ukrainians bastards and Nazis, but they are the same as us. Why were we invading them?”

He said many Buryats joined the army because it offered better salaries and social status than they could find at home.

After his contract expired, he was able, with great difficulty, to leave the army. “I was one of few. Most of the others were too afraid, or coerced into staying on. Why are we fighting this war for the sake of one person?”

Mark O'Neill

A Hong Kong-based writer, teacher and speaker.