China launched cyberattacks on Ukraine’s military and nuclear facilities ahead of Russia’s invasion, The Times reported, citing intelligence memos from Ukraine’s security service, the SBU. Going by the report, China is a complicit party in the invasion—more than 600 websites like the Ukrainian defence ministry, national bank and railway authority in Kyiv suffered thousands of hacking attempts by the end of Winter Olympics. On its end, the Chinese government has not issued any statement on the report.
There have been reports of increasing Russia-China convergence in the case of Ukraine war.
A few months back, Western media outlets had reported US intelligence claims that Chinese officials had requested their Russian counterparts to wait to initiate action in Ukraine until the end of the Winter Olympics. The event concluded on February 20 and Russia initiated action four days later.
“Although the request was made around the time that Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Olympics—where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping—it is not clear from the [intelligence] report whether Putin addressed the matter with Xi directly,” CNN reported.
The New York Times reported information on the exchange on Ukraine between Chinese and Russian officials “was collected by a Western intelligence service and considered credible by officials. Senior officials in the United States and allied governments passed it around as they discussed when Putin might attack Ukraine”.
